I cannot handle my 21 Year Old!

nikkibikki

amdublin wrote:

Speak for yourself. I don't know if you were a child until you were 26/27. I certainly was not. I was a home owner of 2 years at that stage.

Similar, I was a home owner and mother at 27. I started working at 13 years old. Now I won't be sending my kids off to work at 13 but they won't be sponging off me and their Dad til they're twenty feckin seven! My brother who I spoke about earlier is less than that now.

You are doing the right thing OP by not throwing him out and changing the locks. I don't think that door should be closed on him unless he's done something very, very drastic. It's tough love what you are doing. It's for his own good. He needs to be contributing somehow. Get him to clean the house on the days he's there. I'm guessing his gf sends him home so she can get some college work done!

maggiepip

Well I suppose there won't be many popping up representing the slower starters, everyone here seems to have been marvelous altogether at 21.

Mrs cockett

maggiepip wrote: »

Well I suppose there won't be many popping up representing the slower starters, everyone here seems to have been marvelous altogether at 21.

Lets hope they wont be let down by their kids.

sligomumof3

If you don't want to financially keep him,then don't.I wouldn't be able to keep my kids when they are 21. As for working or going to college,it is his life and he is entitled to do whatever he wants with it.

sligomumof3

If you don't want to financially keep him,then don't.I wouldn't be able to keep my kids when they are 21. As for working or going to college,it is his life and he is entitled to do whatever he wants with it.

fox0512

A good kick in the arse he needs!

SMCG

It's great how many people are supporting you with ideas here.

I'll add my two cents worth. When he was going through an annoying / upsetting / challenging time earlier in his life, no doubt you were there for him. I'm sure many many years into the future you will still want to have a relationship with him. Parenting is a life long relationship - not of control - as you can't control your children once they are an adult - but a relationship. So don't make a snap decision based in anger as that will damage your relationship which can be preserved even though his behaviour is poor.

Try looking at it from ten years from now. Step away from your current emotions and obvious anger and frustrations (which sound very deserved) and be completely rational. If you want him to be a balanced healthy and successful man in ten years who has a loving relationship with his parents, what do you need to do now to make that most likely to happen? A lot of the advice you have received here is good. I certainly think "changing the locks" and those such words will teach him about conditional love, being abandoned, and isn't likely to improve your relationship. Whereas talking to him rationally, explaining your feelings and thoughts, setting your limit once you and your wife have decided what it is, and then problem solving WITH him on how to have those things working is respectful and mature. If he is unwilling to live with your limit in your home he can chose to leave, with no bad blood.

Remember, the only person we can truly control in life is ourselves.

jimmycrackcorm

backbarrell wrote:

I have decided to let him go his own way and part of that is letting him go, hence the p45, hence the silent Mrs.. Something will either fall in his lap or a lightbulb will come on for him. Fair play if it does but I can't be dealing with the attitude..

This is a very sensible course of action because he will learn a valuable lesson. Maybe he needs some time to mature, but at least he won't be mollycoddled all the time.

Penny Tration

maggiepip wrote: »

Well I suppose there won't be many popping up representing the slower starters, everyone here seems to have been marvelous altogether at 21.

No, everyone wasn't marvellous at 21. I certainly wasn't, I was an absolute demon who acted like a bratty teen.

That said, I never had the absolute cheek to sponge off of my parents and made damn sure to hold down a full time job and pay my way. even an irresponsible git can do that!

fox0512

Penny Tration wrote: »

No, everyone wasn't marvellous at 21. I certainly wasn't, I was an absolute demon who acted like a bratty teen.

That said, I never had the absolute cheek to sponge off of my parents and made damn sure to hold down a full time job and pay my way. even an irresponsible git can do that!

Thats it in a nutshell

nikkibikki

maggiepip wrote:

Well I suppose there won't be many popping up representing the slower starters, everyone here seems to have been marvelous altogether at 21.

No not me. Was still in college, working part time and full time during hols. Was just out of a baaaaaad relationship which caused my parents tons of grief. They had to make some tough choices that were for my own good too, looking at the bigger picture. Was still growing up for sure. Still am at 34 in a way just with new challenges.

drunkmonkey

backbarrell wrote: »

Am I wrong? What should I do?

My dad started a tab, all you have to do is stop the cash flow, let him take any work he does out of the tab. No work no tab, go ask your mother.

You have to get him doing something, probably best not work for you he doesn't sound ready, let somebody else do the hard work.

You could be really cruel and get his girlfriends dad to rattle him about not having a job.

The Corinthian

backbarrell wrote: »

I am getting grief from the Mrs for being hard on him

That's half, if not more, of your problem there. Your wife is enabling this behaviour through this misguided protection and it's going to be hard enough to get him to change without her sabotaging your efforts at every turn.

Let me tell you how your son's life will play out without intervention. Much, if not all of his twenties are already a write-off. He's in a comfort zone, with almost no overheads and a small income that will pay for his daily personal expenses. He has no incentive to develop any career as a result.

Eventually, his peers will abandon him. They'll develop careers, settle down. Salaried, their lifestyles will become too expensive for him to keep up with. They'll start looking down on him; subtly at first, maybe a joke or slag every now and then. His girlfriend will eventually leave him, as she'll rightly assess that if she wants to settle down herself and start a family, having to carry him too is not a good move. It's at this point that he may finally decide on his own to get his life in order and play catch up with them. He may also end up accidentally becoming a father along the way, which may also jar him into sorting his life out.

I say may, because there's no guarantee of this. In the long term he may also just drift away from his friends, maybe hang around more with younger people, who are financially and socially on the same level. Becoming a father may make no difference to his sense of personal responsibility either.

If so, he - if allowed - will continue living with you and your wife, doing nixers and social welfare, until you both die and inherit enough to allow him to tip along until he dies himself. After a point, kicking him out will be too late too; he'll just get a bedsit and go on rent allowance.

The latter scenario is not a pretty one. Even the former one, with the happy ending, will see him squander much if not all of his twenties. And so perhaps your wife has not thought this through - that this is what she's ultimately helping to enable. So perhaps you need to sit down and spell it out to her, that if she protects him she'll simply condemn him and because it's going to be difficult to impossible to help your son, if she's not on-board with doing something about it.

seamus

stefanovich wrote: »

I'm sorry but encouraging him to follow his dream of being a musician is very foolish. He has literally 0% chance of making a decent living out of it and will probably continue scrounging off the parents or social welfare into his 30s or 40s.

This is exactly the kind of uninformed nonsense that will drive a further wedge between the OP and his son. Telling him that he needs to cop onto himself and get a "real job" isn't going to help anything.

I have loads of friends (and indeed family) in the creative sphere. People who studied art (proper creative art, not an arts degree), drama & music at college and went out seeking careers in those areas.

None of them are dole scroungers and indeed none of them were living with their parents after 30. Yes, the odds of one becoming rich and famous are astronomically small, but that doesn't mean there are no other options. You find your niche and you get paid for it. It's unlikely to be a lot (until maybe you get older), and in your twenties you'll spend a lot of time living in houseshares eating super noodles. But you'll make enough of a living to live a happy life.

With music, there will always be demand out there for music teachers. The key as an artist is to explore side projects - whether that's an experimental band or learning how to carve wood and make your own guitar. It's the relevant and related skills that make you stand out and earn money. Even if he doesn't make enough gigging, he can pull in enough money teaching in schools during the week, the odd one-on-one session in the evenings, and 10 or 12 side gigs during the year playing for musical societies or theatres or whatever.

He might pull in €25k or €30k a year, but that doesn't matter. I would rather earn pittance doing a job I love than €100k doing something I hate.

OP, push him towards doing what he wants to do, but make sure he's working towards it and not drifting.

Penny Tration

seamus wrote: »

This is exactly the kind of uninformed nonsense that will drive a further wedge between the OP and his son. Telling him that he needs to cop onto himself and get a "real job" isn't going to help anything.

I have loads of friends (and indeed family) in the creative sphere. People who studied art (proper creative art, not an arts degree), drama & music at college and went out seeking careers in those areas.

None of them are dole scroungers and indeed none of them were living with their parents after 30. Yes, the odds of one becoming rich and famous are astronomically small, but that doesn't mean there are no other options. You find your niche and you get paid for it. It's unlikely to be a lot (until maybe you get older), and in your twenties you'll spend a lot of time living in houseshares eating super noodles. But you'll make enough of a living to live a happy life.

With music, there will always be demand out there for music teachers. The key as an artist is to explore side projects - whether that's an experimental band or learning how to carve wood and make your own guitar. It's the relevant and related skills that make you stand out and earn money. Even if he doesn't make enough gigging, he can pull in enough money teaching in schools during the week, the odd one-on-one session in the evenings, and 10 or 12 side gigs during the year playing for musical societies or theatres or whatever.

He might pull in €25k or €30k a year, but that doesn't matter. I would rather earn pittance doing a job I love than €100k doing something I hate.

OP, push him towards doing what he wants to do, but make sure he's working towards it and not drifting.

This is true. It's Damn difficult but I saw it become a success for a close friend.

On the dole with the odd gig in his early twenties. He invested gig money in engineering equipment. He eventually became known in the locality for gigging and was offered a few more, and a regular weekly slot.

He continued to invest his small amounts of gig money.

Now, at the age of 24, he has bought land, built a studio, works full time there as an engineer, has a few staff members and gigs four nights a week, netting roughly 1.5k a week after taxes and expenses.

It can definitely happen but it takes dedication and going broke for a long time to invest the money.

Wanderer78

seamus wrote: »

This is exactly the kind of uninformed nonsense that will drive a further wedge between the OP and his son. Telling him that he needs to cop onto himself and get a "real job" isn't going to help anything.

I have loads of friends (and indeed family) in the creative sphere. People who studied art (proper creative art, not an arts degree), drama & music at college and went out seeking careers in those areas.

None of them are dole scroungers and indeed none of them were living with their parents after 30. Yes, the odds of one becoming rich and famous are astronomically small, but that doesn't mean there are no other options. You find your niche and you get paid for it. It's unlikely to be a lot (until maybe you get older), and in your twenties you'll spend a lot of time living in houseshares eating super noodles. But you'll make enough of a living to live a happy life.

With music, there will always be demand out there for music teachers. The key as an artist is to explore side projects - whether that's an experimental band or learning how to carve wood and make your own guitar. It's the relevant and related skills that make you stand out and earn money. Even if he doesn't make enough gigging, he can pull in enough money teaching in schools during the week, the odd one-on-one session in the evenings, and 10 or 12 side gigs during the year playing for musical societies or theatres or whatever.

He might pull in €25k or €30k a year, but that doesn't matter. I would rather earn pittance doing a job I love than €100k doing something I hate.

OP, push him towards doing what he wants to do, but make sure he's working towards it and not drifting.

an uncle of mine took up an instrument in his teens. managed to hold down his job in a factory while he pursued it. unfortunately lost his job when the factory shut down a couple of years ago but almost the same day was offered a full time job playing in a band. id class him as semi professional musician now and is loving it. is able to run a house with his current earnings. dreams sometimes do come true! not an easy living though and even harder to make it to that point.

tough one op. i part blame our educational system here. it puts way too much pressure on young people. some people just arent cut out for academia but our system is set up pretty much just for that. would he consider a trade? our educational system is a sink or swim system. dreadful approach to life as some do sink in it. im just a little concerned for your sons mental well being. hopefully hes not experiencing mental health problems, if so please get him help. best of luck with it but you do need to get your wife on board on how to approach this problem.

LegacyUser

amdublin wrote: »

Speak for yourself. I don't know if you were a child until you were 26/27. I certainly was not. I was a home owner of 2 years at that stage.

i never said that i was... i'm referring to the OP and not trying to get into an argument.
i'm not even speaking for myself. i'm 31 now , and i own my own home since i was 27.
what i'm saying is, there's a HUGE difference in how people go on about things when they're 21 and when they're 27. between those years, USUALLY there's some feeling of being "lost" and not knowing what to do with yourself. that's normal.

basically, what i'm saying is - you still have the brain of a child when you are that age. you simply do - my OH is 26 and went back to college for a 2nd degree, and his classmates are 20 and 21 and they are all simply put - children. they go on exactly how teenagers in secondary school act, and it seems that's the case around the place too outside of the college world.

you may be proud enough to come on here to shout about how you own this and that, but how does that help the OP with his son, who ISNT an exception to the rule, by the sounds of things.

The Corinthian

Wanderer78 wrote: »

dreams sometimes do come true!

Mainly they don't though.

This is not to say one should not pursue their dreams, but there is a point at which if you're getting nowhere with them and you can't support yourself, it's time to call it a day. Your dreams are not more important than not being a burden on others. And if that happens, you'll want a plan B.

Not that it matters for the OP. By his accounts, his son lacks the determination and discipline to make his dreams come true anyway as things stand.

5rtytry56

^ best boards post of the day.

Wanderer78

The Corinthian wrote: »

Mainly they don't though.

This is not to say one should not pursue their dreams, but there is a point at which if you're getting nowhere with them and you can't support yourself, it's time to call it a day. Your dreams are not more important than not being a burden on others. And if that happens, you'll want a plan B.

Not that it matters for the OP. By his accounts, his son lacks the determination and discipline to make his dreams come true anyway as things stand.

true, my grandfather made sure my uncle kept his factory job throughout just encase. but with hard work and dedication, its working out for him. ops son does need a backup plan alright. just needs to find the right one. he also sounds like a typical 21 year old. most dont have a clue about life at that age. i certainly didnt. i know many working in the arts. it generally really doesnt pay but its a labour of love. can make many people happy though. my uncle is currently a pig in s*it

The Corinthian

Wanderer78 wrote: »

he also sounds like a typical 21 year old. most dont have a clue about life at that age. i certainly didnt.

I was a complete idiot until I was 25. I'm only a partial one now.

Cabaal

OP, you're certainly not being hard on them.

If he wants to do nothing thats thats fine, but now he's quit I'd reduce any money you are giving him. Also if he is getting dole money in anyway I'd suggest that you advise that you'll need to start paying some of that money towards house running costs.

jobbridge4life

The Corinthian wrote: »

I was a complete idiot until I was 25. I'm only a partial one now.

And look at you now posting psuedo-prophetic ramblings on the future of a 21 year old. So I guess there is hope(?) for him after all.

OP do not listen to anyone who decides that 'much if not all' a persons twenties are a write off because at 21 they are drifting. Its laughable.

Kur4mA

For a start, rent is not something to be offered by him. It MUST be demanded by you. He's 21, not 12. If he can't pay the rent, turf him out of your house.

Sunny Disposition

I'd agree with not throwing him out, things could get worse for him then and it'll certainly damage ye're relationship.
Sounds like he needs a type of support that's difficult to provide. Certainly need to get him contributing to his own upkeep, will be good for him and for ye, make sure he pays over a good portion of any social welfare. Might be good to keep getting onto him about working, but not for you anymore, that's obviously not going to be good for anyone. Males in particular are maturing at a later age now, but hopefully in a couple of years he'll have grown up.
Tough situation, but I think you need to forge a middle ground, much harder treatment than he has been given, but still very important to keep communicating. It does sound like he might be depressed, very few people would be mooching around like that if they were really feeling well.

The One Doctor

The Corinthian wrote: »

That's half, if not more, of your problem there. Your wife is enabling this behaviour through this misguided protection and it's going to be hard enough to get him to change without her sabotaging your efforts at every turn.

Let me tell you how your son's life will play out without intervention. Much, if not all of his twenties are already a write-off. He's in a comfort zone, with almost no overheads and a small income that will pay for his daily personal expenses. He has no incentive to develop any career as a result.

Eventually, his peers will abandon him. They'll develop careers, settle down. Salaried, their lifestyles will become too expensive for him to keep up with. They'll start looking down on him; subtly at first, maybe a joke or slag every now and then. His girlfriend will eventually leave him, as she'll rightly assess that if she wants to settle down herself and start a family, having to carry him too is not a good move. It's at this point that he may finally decide on his own to get his life in order and play catch up with them. He may also end up accidentally becoming a father along the way, which may also jar him into sorting his life out.

I say may, because there's no guarantee of this. In the long term he may also just drift away from his friends, maybe hang around more with younger people, who are financially and socially on the same level. Becoming a father may make no difference to his sense of personal responsibility either.

If so, he - if allowed - will continue living with you and your wife, doing nixers and social welfare, until you both die and inherit enough to allow him to tip along until he dies himself. After a point, kicking him out will be too late too; he'll just get a bedsit and go on rent allowance.

The latter scenario is not a pretty one. Even the former one, with the happy ending, will see him squander much if not all of his twenties. And so perhaps your wife has not thought this through - that this is what she's ultimately helping to enable. So perhaps you need to sit down and spell it out to her, that if she protects him she'll simply condemn him and because it's going to be difficult to impossible to help your son, if she's not on-board with doing something about it.

...and you've proved yourself an ass. I assume you're not a parent either. At least I hope not.

LegacyUser

I work in a creative field that is very compeitive. Knew I wanted to do this from a young age and got great support from my parents but I also got practical advise from them as well. I was told they would support me and help me work towards my goal but I had to put the work in as well which meant finding a job to contribute and have something to fall back on if I didn't make it in my field. I worked from 16 in retail jobs that I found hellish but I worked hard at them as they gave me the money and free time to work on my creative output and they enforced my view that I did not want to work in retail or an office and that pushed me to be better.

I got partically skills from doing that, I meet lots of people trying to break into my field who've never worked retail jobs or any sort of job and they lack of a lot of basic cop on skills, they might be creatively better then me but they aren't able to transfer that creativity from hobby into a career. Just being talented isn't enough! I work freelance and working as a manager in a large retail store taught me how to do my books and manage my money, something I find few of my peers in the creative field are able to do.

It wasn't easy, I got frustrated and depressed trying to break in, my parents knew nothing about the field I wanted to work in and I found myself getting frustrated with them always suggesting things that weren't relevent to what I was trying to do. But I had a motto of ambitious but practical which I think served me very well.

The OP needs to find that balance between being encouraging and being practical. The son is an adult, maybe not a mature one, but an adult so needs to be treated as such. Tell him you support him but if wants this career and not a hobby he needs to start being serious about, it's not just about the creative side but the practical side as well. Get him to do a business, legal or accounting courses, I don't mean a full college course but short courses, even just a one weekend course. He'll be working freelance or running his own company wither he becomes a singer/song writer, runs a label or starts a wedding band company....all require some knowledge of doing your books, understanding copyright etc etc Playing in a band at the weekend is a start but it will not move beyond that unless he takes the steps to start that.

SamAK

stefanovich wrote: »

I'm sorry but encouraging him to follow his dream of being a musician is very foolish. He has literally 0% chance of making a decent living out of it

Ok...literally 0% chance? The finality of your statement has me laughing...:D

Did you know that 87% of statistics are made up on the spot?

Also, did you know that there are countless jobs available in the music industry that don't require a lust for the spotlight? The OP's son obviously likes music, but that doesn't mean that the only thing he can do is become a famous musician. See below.

eviltimeban wrote: »

Perhaps you should encourage his musical side - doing a course isn't really going to do anything, it'll just delay the process and keep him as a "student" for longer. Do you think he is musically talented? Would he have a chance of doing something with it?

Absolutely disagree. Students learn things. Students pick a course they think they 'might' be interested in and they learn things within that field. Like what other roles/jobs are available.

Say 'music' to most people as a job and they usually think about some dude in the pub playing in a band, earning a few quid that way. They don't think about the recording engineers, sound designers, mix/mastering engineers, acousticians, live sound engineers, audio electronic engineers, studio designers, event managers, production managers, PR/AR, the whole business side of music.......etcetera etcetera!

Aside from all that, what college does is teach a person how to learn, how to think for themselves, how to plan, how to look forward, how to utilize skills and apply them to the real world. It encourages personal growth, confidence, development and inspiration.


Seems to me that the OP's kid could do with being shown the way in that regard. He doesn't know what he doesn't know.

Doing a course does really do something.

mackey9387

Kick him out when he realises how hard it is to live on the dole his attitude will change quick smart.

Orion

The One Doctor wrote: »

...and you've proved yourself an ass. I assume you're not a parent either. At least I hope not.

That's quite enough of that. Keep it civil or don't post.