Parenting & Family

What house rules still apply to a 22 year old living at home?

willow_compass_2269

She's 22, in the last year of her course, and her days are her own now. Project work, a part-time assistant job with a professor, friends. She often comes in after ten, which I'm fine with in principle. What isn't fine is the evenings my partner cooks for three and she has already eaten out, or when it gets to eleven and nobody knows whether to wait up. My aaji would have locked the door at nine. I don't want to run the house like that, and I don't want to treat her like a lodger either. For those with an adult child still at home, what did you ask for, and what did you let go?

5 comments

  • saffron_tiffin_8724

    We are a few years behind you, with a 16 year old, and already arguing over a smaller version of this. The one thing that has worked reliably for us is a single, boring expectation: if plans change after 6 pm, a message in the family group. Not permission, just information. Everything else is still under negotiation.

  • teal_pool_2009

    I was that daughter not very long ago, working late clinic hours and living with my parents. My mother asked for one specific thing: tell me by five whether you're eating at home. Nothing about what time I came back. It took the tension out of almost every evening, because the real fight had always been about food going to waste, not the hour. Is the food the main thing for your partner too, or is it the waiting up?

    • willow_compass_2269

      Mostly the food, though my partner wouldn't have put it that way. We've tried 'tell us by six' for two days now. On Thursday she forgot. Yesterday the message came at 5.50 with a thumbs-up and a photo of the canteen menu. Small steps 🙂

  • ochre_diary_814

    We went through this last year. What I settled on was separating the two kinds of rules. Things that affect other people in the house: meals, the main door, the car, noise after midnight. Those we discuss and agree. Things that only affect her: when she sleeps, what she does with her evening. Those I stopped commenting on, which was harder than it sounds. The waiting up ended once we agreed she would message if it was going to be after eleven. I don't ask where she is.

    • willow_compass_2269

      That split is useful. My partner and I have been arguing about the 'only affects her' list without realising it was a list. Did the car turn into a problem? She has started asking for it on weekends.

    • lemon_kite_4432

      What happens on the nights the message doesn't come? I ask as the parent of a 12 year old, partly to know what I am working towards. An agreement is easy to make; I am curious what you did the first time it was broken.

  • sage_drum_2205

    When I moved back in with my parents in my twenties, Ma never set a time. She would just sit up on the sofa with the TV on mute until I came in. It worked better than any rule, because I hated making her wait. Not recommending it, only saying the guilt route exists 😅

  • juniper_puzzle_816

    reading this at 11.30 while my 3 yr old is still wide awake. nobody tells me what time she's coming to bed either 🤷‍♀️

Add a comment

Share what happened for you. Plain text; be kind and specific.

Keep going

Keep reading

More from the parents who were here.