Teenager Blown Away By Parents' Outrageous Request For Rent Payment

Aug 19, 2021 by apost team

Redditors are siding with a recent 18-year-old graduate after he asked the community this summer whether he was in the wrong for moving out of his parents’ house after they asked him to pay rent. If you find yourself already disagreeing with this young man on principle — after all, why shouldn’t he contribute a bit if he’s an adult and has a job — it’s important to note that this recent grad’s story has a few nuances.

Most importantly, his living conditions weren’t exactly stellar, and yet his parents still asked for $1,300 a month in addition to “half of the bills they expected (him) to pay.” He would have had to share his small room with his brother while paying an amount that would get him an entire apartment in the same city. Given the young man’s lack of experience and enrollment at community college, he doesn’t exactly make top dollar, and so the rent would have been his entire paycheck.

What’s more, this Redditor writes that the problem wasn’t the fact that his parents were asking him to contribute — he is OK with this. Rather, it’s simply the exorbitant amount that they expect him to pay, especially given the circumstances with the room, his financial situation and his studies.

Nearly every single top comment on Reddit, if not all of them, took this young man’s side, arguing that his parents are being unreasonable. Luckily, this 18-year-old student found a solution: he moved into a room at his friend’s place, which costs far less than what he would have paid at his parents’ house.

The problem is that this young man’s story doesn’t end there. His parents are upset that he moved out.

“But the thing is they’re super mad at me for leaving. My mom ignored me when I moved out, my dad kept saying how he’s so disappointed in me. For a while they were hoping to rely on me with helping out with their mortgage payments on the house also with the bills so now that I’ve chosen to leave instead my dad says I’m going to leave them really struggling and he can’t believe I decided to be selfish instead of helping my family out,” the original poster wrote.

Since he asked the community about his situation in June 2021, his post has received more than 13,000 karma — a reflection of how well-received a post is — along with nearly 2,000 comments, which are almost unanimously against the student’s parents.

“Charging you $1,300 to share a room? Yikes. And half the bills? I’d understand if it was you and one parent, but there are at least 3 other people in the house, so 1/4 of the bills would be much more reasonable. It sounds like they were planning to dang near extort you to cover their financial situation. What they wanted to charge you in utterly unreasonable,” one highly-rated comment reads.

“They were trying to rip you off and even effectively said ‘Thats what we agreed on. if you don't like it, leave.’ You called their bluff. Why should you pay more money for less space?” another Redditor commented.

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“As a newly fledged adult, your parents should be happy to see you well launched into adult life, not trying to drag you down and take advantage of you,” they added.

The original poster’s predicament is one that many young adults are facing, as 52% of 18-to-29-year-olds in the U.S. are living with their parents as of July 2020, according to a Pew Research Center survey. This follows a larger trend, which has been rising since the 1960s.

Consequently, more and more parents are debating whether they should charge their children rent, and if they do so, how much they should ask for.

“Just because living at home is easy doesn’t mean it should be free. The easier the lifestyle, the harder it will be for a child to feel motivated to strike out on his or her own and learn the life skills necessary to survive outside the protective bosom of mom and dad,” Erin Lowry writes in an opinion piece for U.S. News.

With that said, some argue that younger generations have had to deal with more hardships due to multiple economic downturns and a changing economy.

“Saddled with debt, unable to accumulate wealth, and stuck in low-benefit, dead-end jobs, (Millennials) never gained the financial security that their parents, grandparents, or even older siblings enjoyed,” the economic policy expert Annie Lowrey writes in a 2020 piece for The Atlantic.

That might be one reason why Redditors were largely shocked and outraged by this young man’s parents.

“Your parents are disappointed because they viewed you more as a money sign than their child, which is very messed up. From a stranger online, congrats on your first three huge steps into the adult world … Well done!” one Redditor commented.

What do you think? Should children have to pay rent at home past a certain age? And if so, how much? Weigh in on the debate, and pass this on to get input from others.