|
I'll start by saying that I am 22, live at home, and I don't pay rent. I am a full time student, plus I volunteer at Epilepsy Queensland to get experience for my hopefully future profession, since there really aren't opportunities to work for pay when you don't have qualifications in the field of mental health.
I agree that parents do not have an obligation to support their adult children when they finish school, if they are not studying (I say this because although certainly it's possible to have a part-time job while studying, unless you study part time and have a full time or almost full time job it is very difficult to support yourself totally while maintaining high marks). I disagree however with the notion that if adult children are not made by their parents to go out and make their own way when their parents' responsibility is legally finished, they will not be capable of doing so sometime in the future. I don't pay rent, and I've never had any experience of paying rent. That doesn't mean that I don't understand that rent would have to be paid or would not be able to pay it because I would recklessly spend all my money when I do finish my studies and move out. There are enough adults who left home early that are not capable of maintaining a budget, saving, keeping their credit rating sound and providing for themselves and their family.
People looking at me would say, like Epona's brother, that I am not a very independent person, which is true, since my mother (who is not in the paid workforce) cooks dinner for the whole family and does the washing and ironing and so on. She feels that it would be inefficient for me to do a separate load of washing and ironing and so on just because I'm an adult when it's relatively not that much trouble for her. Again, just because I don't do it now does not mean that I won't be capable or somehow have the idea that it all gets done by magical fairies or something when I do move out.
The scenario you describe MagiK is definitely one where I think the parents are being negligent in allowing their sons to remain living in their house while being so disrespectful of their property and generosity, and they should give them a kick up the bum and make them move out. But there are many adult children, my brother and I two examples, that live at home and don't behave like that, just as there are many people who are 14 or 15 who live at home and act like complete tools and need a bit of tough love.
My parents basically view their supporting me while I finish my education as - they are not spending money on me that they could be spending on themselves, that is, they are not depriving themselves of things because I needed a new pair of jeans this winter. The money they are spending on me would go to me at some time or other - either now, or when they die and I inherit. And (hopefully), by the time both my parents are gone I will be well over 40 - when do I need the money, now or when I'm fully capable of supporting myself and have been doing so for at least 20 years?
__________________
|