AITA for moving back out after my parents demanded I follow their rules
A young man, freshly out of college and searching for his path, returns to his hometown with hope and a willingness to support his struggling parents.
The weight of their hardships during the pandemic presses on him, and he sacrifices his independence to move back home, ready to help shoulder the burden. 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.
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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 es**blish clear boundaries first?
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