But the sanctuary he sought becomes a battleground of control and resentment. His mother’s rigid rules and harsh punishments transform his home into a prison, stifling his adulthood and dreams. Faced with this suffocating reality, he takes a stand and reaches out for the freedom he thought he had lost.
I (22 male) just finished college and went back to my hometown while I figure out what I want to do next. I was planning to share an apartment with my old friends, but my parents wanted me to move in to help them out.
Covid has hid them hard and are struggling to pay their bills, so they wanted me to move in and pay rent. I said ok because I wanted to help them out. It all went well until 3 days after I moved in.
My mother came in around 9 PM, saying ‘I had enough screen time and need to go to bed’. I thought this was ridiculous, because I’m an adult paying rent, they have no right to demand this.
She said ‘your living under my roof, I make the rules’. I went along with it for the night, and the next morning I went and took my laptop back from their room. She proceeded to ground me, for ‘disobeying her authority’.
I had enough of this, called the people I was going to room with and asked if they still had a spot. They said yes, so I packed up and moved in with them. Now my family is hounding me for ‘not supporting my family’.
Conclusion
The original poster (OP) agreed to move home to financially support their parents following difficulties caused by the pandemic. However, this arrangement quickly devolved when the parents attempted to impose parental rules, such as setting a curfew for screen time, despite the OP being an adult and a paying renter. The core conflict arises from the clash between the OP’s expectation of autonomy as a paying tenant and the parents’ insistence on retaining traditional parental authority based on the residence being their property.
Considering the OP acted as a paying adult but was treated as a dependent child, was the OP justified in immediately moving out upon being treated without respect for their contractual obligations, or should they have attempted further negotiation or mediation to establish clear boundaries first?
Here’s how people reacted:
Lois McMaster Bujold has a quote about adulthood that I like:
>”Adulthood isn’t an award they’ll give you for being a good child. You can waste…years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just…take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I’m sorry you feel like that, and walk away. But that’s hard.”
They can’t have you as an adult and have you as a child at the same time. At 22, parental authority should be taking an advisor role, not a dominator one. A lot of parents find this transition difficult (though frankly they should have started working on it years ago). But it being difficult for them is their problem, not yours. You’re not causing fights, you’re not straining against their rules, you’re just refusing to be put into a position where you have to submit; that’s reasonable, mature behavior.
The second this started you should have sat them down and had a conversation with them that ended with them agreeing they need to treat you like a tenant or you telling them it isn’t working and you’ll move out.
At any rate, if this is true, they the answer is for them to rent the extra room out to a stranger.
I’m guessing they were always like this? But you probably hoped that your being a college graduate and paying rent would have changed the dynamic a bit.
I would absolutely not move back in. They’re treating you like a child.
I’d be more understanding if it was their tv in their living space.. but to confiscate your property? You’re a grown man. That isn’t punishment, that’s theft.
NTA.
If they want your support, they need to respect your status as an adult.
NTA
> Now my family is hounding me for ‘not supporting my family’.
“You move in and help them then.”