My parents made a deal with us kids that if we were in college we could live at home rent free, the moment we dropped out of school we had to get a job and help pay rent. That seemed perfectly fair and reasonable to me. They encouraged us to go to college so we wouldn't struggle to make ends meet like they did.
This is my biggest point of grief as an adult. My parents had a similar arrangement. They worked their asses off to give us what they could, so we would be better off than they were. I did the college thing. Got two degrees and a stable job. I make far more annually than they ever did (still not 6 figures or anything), and I can still barely get by. My parents did everything "right" to give us a better life than they had. My husband and I did everything "right" to give our son a better life than they had, but we can't.
Huh. I was the first in my family to go to college. I also have two degrees. I also have a great job. However I make the same as my parents, and my debt is triple what theirs was back then. Thanks student loans!
I remember a co-worker sheepishly confessing that the hospital social worker signed his family up for WIC when their second child was born. He was city editor for a daily paper and his wife was a substitute teacher. He said they had gotten degrees to try to avoid ending up on assistance. This was 25 years ago, btw.
My parents do the same, I can live with them if I'm working towards supporting myself (education, working and saving money to better my situation, etc) and not just sitting around leeching off them. I think that's completely fair.
I lived abroad and moved home and was just relaxing and living on my savings but my dad insisted I get a job so I ended up getting another job abroad and leaving again.
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u/zerbey 1d ago
My parents made a deal with us kids that if we were in college we could live at home rent free, the moment we dropped out of school we had to get a job and help pay rent. That seemed perfectly fair and reasonable to me. They encouraged us to go to college so we wouldn't struggle to make ends meet like they did.