[ SECRET POST #2527 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2527 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 042 secrets from Secret Submission Post #361.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

"Pay for her lodging"?

Not "doing the dishes to help around home" but to pay in someway?

I don't know why, but I find this pretty weird I guess it's some kind of cultural difference?.

[(Anonymous)]

Could also be a generation thing. When I was growing up it was usually expected that kids would move out by 20, but now it's really common for them to live with their parents even after they finish college. Many of my older coworkers have kids 25-27 living at home. I have teens and always thought they'd move out when they grew up but now it doesn't look like that will happen.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT
It could be, yet it still sounds weird for me.
Even if they expected for she stepdaughter to move out ASAP, it's one thing to ask a working adult to help with the expenses or a non-working adult to help with household tasks, but to do so to pay for her lodging? That sounds plainly weird (and unnecessarily harsh, IMO).

[(Anonymous)]

We were talking about generational gaps recently at work -- one guy had just bought his son the son's first car -- at age 25 (long time New Yorker), and our project director was all "WTF, I bought my first house with no help from my parents at age 20! Why are you buying him a car?!"

I had some friends who lived with their parents who charged them modest rent, and then when the friends got married, the parents gave them back all that money as the downpayment on a house.

Meanwhile, I moved out for college when I was 18, and never went back. Summer jobs, sublets, and one year I apartment sat for a friend for winter break. I could not get out of there fast enough. I cite my grandfather living with us, and being an emotionally manipulative jerk. So when you say it looks like your teens may never leave: Just find an obnoxious relative to move in!

[(Anonymous)]

If my kids were 20 and living at home I'd expect them to contribute something to the household. Whether it was chores or financial contributions they are adults and should take on some sort of responsibility.

[(Anonymous)]

Not OP, but I understood this as more of the kind of agreement lots of people have when they live together. On the same level with "you clean the kitchen one week and I do it next week" or "I buy groceries, you do the laundry". I don't find it weird that if you let someone live for free at your place, you expect them to do certain household chores. Not just as an occasional favor, but as their way of contributing to the household.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT
Yes, I do get that, but when it comes to family I can't help but think that the "you have to pay" mentality is weird. Helping in some way it's completely normal, though.

Basically, it's just the wording that brothers me, not the helping with the dishes part.

[otakugal15]

This. My boyfriend's sister was the kind of whiny 21 year-old the OP of teh secret is talking about. She'd lie about where she was (she was using his parents car. they never gave her that car, just let her borrow it while she stayed at home), she'd skip out of teh house saying she had work to do or homework or studying she needed to do to avoid doing laundry, pick up the house (as in HER stuff everywhere), do teh dishes, when in reality she'd being hanging out somewhere or going to a party. She even drove home blind drunk one night.

But, to her, her parents expectations to help out around the house was too much. Her simple contributions to paying for her phone line, for the insurance on the car, and help with utilities were plenty doing.

So, she threw a tantrum and left, moved into her dad's house. Her mom and step-dad refuse to except her back if she decides that was a bad idea.

When I was still living at home, I helped around the house as best I could. Did I like doing the work, no, but I wasn't gonna be a bitchy whiny child about it cause my mom could have thrown me out if she so chose. So...I don't get these kids who do all of that and expect a place to stay rent free.

[dancing_clown]

Yeah, I think it's pretty common in the US that if you (still) live with your parents into early adulthood, to pay rent either in money or services.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I see, that explains it.

[(Anonymous)]

Probably cultural, because it's traditional in my family to stay at home for just about forever.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Same here. And as I was saying up there, I also think it's pretty normal to ask an adult to help in someway, but it's the "pay" thing that's weirding me out.

It makes it sound less like an arrangement to make living together easier, and more like a "you're just renting your place here and are only welcome if you pay for it".

[lynx]

I'm thinking "Cultural Difference" too. Because here at home, helping around to keep the house clean is something you DO. Not to "pay", or because you expect a "reward"; but because we're all family and live together in a place we must keep in living conditions for all the people involved.

It kind of sucks to spend half the weekend cleaning, yes, but all the members of the family do their part :o

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

This, all this, exactly.

I'm used to help around and I'm planing to contribute with money too when I'm working, but not to pay in anyway, it's just that we're a family and we all help to make things easier for everyone.
If anyone were to imply that I have to "pay", I think I would prefer to live alone instead, because it would be the same thing with more freedom.

[nyxelestia]

Well, to look at it another way, that is paying. Paying = contribution in order to receive something, even if it's not something tangible or easily defined. You pay in labor and time to have those reasonable living conditions.

Of course, for many people - particularly Americans - pay does just have that whole "you do/give something, you get something" and that's ingrained into the social fabric. For many other cultures, though, "pay" has an explicitly transaction-ary connotation to it, and thus it's somewhat more separate from the social fabric.

I think the best way to explain it is that it's an inverse of some Asian traditions of just handing out money to people on New Year's or other specific holidays. From the American perspective, that's really fucking weird, because if you're going to give someone a gift, why not give them something personal? It feels like you're just trying to buy affection, which is not (or at least shouldn't be) the done thing. But from the Asian perspective, money is as personal as you get because it allows them to get themselves exactly what they wish without the giver's own perceptions getting in the way of the recipient's actual want/need.

[(Anonymous)]

Not a family thing, but I do have some friends renting a house together, and for a while, while unemployed, one of them paid his rent by doing a majority of the cooking and cleaning in exchange for not having to actually pay monetary rent. So that part doesn't sound too weird to me.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

In that case I don't find it weird either; but since the OP it's talking about family instead, that "you have to pay" just weirds me out.

[making_excuses]

Eh? Sounds normal to me, then again I live in a country where teenagers quite often move out at 16 and stay out of their parents house, and if they do move back they pay for it, either by doing stuff around the house or with money...

If you are older than 18 and living at home you should pay for it somehow, because you are an adult. Also around here parents get money* until you are 18, but not after, so then you are expected to keep up your end of the living expenses somehow.

When I lived at my mothers for 6 months, I bought food and paid for all my expenses, also cleaned the flat whenever it was needed. My friend whom moves home for a year next summer, will pay rent** and pay for anything she might need herself, and of course clean the house and help out with stuff like that.

*not a lot, around 100€ or so every month
** Symbolic, to cover the extra expense in electricity, food and so on.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Definitely a cultural difference thing.

Here, parents don't get money for having kids (not even a small amount), living expenses are so freaking expensive that no one in their right mind moves out unless they have a very good job so (and if they get lucky enough to find such a job, chances are they have to finish paying their study related debts first, so they'll be around 30s before they can move out) and a university student or a high school graduated won't get paid even the minimal wage, which isn't enough for living decently anyway.

Helping around in some way it's normal, though, many start doing chores and when they have a job help with some expenses, but no one thinks of it as "paying".

[(Anonymous)]

I started paying for my own aparrtment/rent my sophmore year of college, so when I was 19. When I graduated, I was having a hard time finding a deent paying job and ended up working two minimum wage jobs, and even then I had difficuly paying for everything and basically lived on saltines and ramen noodles. My mother said I could move back home, but I would have to pay her rent. (I ended up getting a third job instead and scraping by). So I don't really see any issues with having to do chores for part of the price for living with family.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I guess you're from USA?

Now I'm 100% sure that it's a cultural difference, as it's pretty much impossible in my country for someone in college to pay their own rent, just to start.

[(Anonymous)]

In my family, when you first started working, you had to give 20%, at least, to the parents for lodging. It was a way to teach us to manage our money.

Decades after I moved out of their house, my parents would come and visit me for three-four months out of the year. I said teasingly, "Well, you can stay, but you have to pay rent."

They promptly said they wouldn't expect to not pay rent, and gave me about a quarter of my mortgage payment for rent, as well as purchasing food, helping with the cable bill, and also helping me work on my (decidedly older) house (we installed a new floor in the kitchen, the porch, ripped up carpet, put on a roof, and installed new toilets over the years they stayed with me).

It was kind of cool.

[(Anonymous)]

No this is just some kind of fucked up and wrong, but the OP was validation for doing it.

The wording says "I don't see my daughter as a human being that I should talk to and ASK what she might like to help us do around the house because of *valid reason*, but more of an object for me to belittle to make me feel better about myself."

Obviously OP had to have done the above (or have history of it) or daughter wouldn't be bitching about doing the dishes to begin with. Most people don't seem to understand what complaining about their kids says about them.

[hiyami]

1) it's OP's step-daughter, so we don't know if OP had any part in her upbringing until recently

2) I know a lot of brats who do expect to get everything for free, from society and their parents, and who will treat the slightlest request to help / contribute as a threat to their freedom.

And in the same family, I know siblings who are helpful and responsible, and other who are lazy slackers. Upbringing does not explain everything... People are individuals.

[(Anonymous)]

In my country, paying rent once you're over 18 and still living at home depends on several factors:

1. Do you have a job?
2. Does your family live in a rented flat/house or do they own it?
3. Are you on good terms with your family?
4. How much money does your family have?


Especially if you live in a rented house/flat, it would be more normal to pay a part of the rent if you have some money. I also noticed that, when money is not too big of an issue, the closer you are to your parents, the less likely it is that they expect you to pay rent. You can, however choose to pay rent without them explicitely telling you to if you think "I want to make a contribution".

What I find interesting in this thread, though, is that a lot of people talk about "duties" that have to be appointed when it comes to household chores. I never understood why that is necessary. When I see dishes that need to go be cleaned, I clean them or put them in the dish washer. When there are clothes to be washed/ironed, I do it. I think it's only natural to do things that need to be done without having to be told to do it frist. You're not a hotel guest, you live there!
And yet so many people assume that if you live at home over 20, you're some sort of lazy, free-loading jerk.