Will you oblige your child (ren) to share with the home expenses?

i think it is only fair, expecially if the teen or graduate has a job. why should the parents continue to foot the bill for everything?

I'm not gonna oblige my children for our home expenses they are the one who should think of that. We did everything for them we teach them how to be responsible and independent its not right to force them with things they don't want to do.

I am all for teaching my children responsibilities. However, I would not be obliged to charge them for staying at my home. I would expect them to pull their weight when it comes to household responsibilities. Like do their own laundry, help with household chores and throw out the trash. As for expecting them to pay half and or parts of the household expenses, I would hope that they could freely help on their own. Since I have instilled responsibility since they were small children, I think that they would offer to help in small ways as well. Now if one has the type of children who perhaps are down on their luck and perhaps need my help for a while. I would be okay without charging them as I would want them to be able to save so they can someday get back up on their feet. However, pulling their weight here is also necessary and that means helping at the home, I mean I am all for helping them, but that means they to have to help as well. I wouldn't say monetarily but if they recall the fact that I am helping them and they volunteer certain things then it will be welcomed. To date I have raised very responsible children and not one of them has tried to live off anyone let alone of me.

I agree with you. In my case, I have 2 sons who are already working in Manila and I live in our province with their father and my youngest daughter. I didn't oblige them to give me money but they just willingly helped me. When it was still my eldest son who was working he offered to give his younger siblings allowances in school. That was going on until his younger brother graduated college. Now that they both are working and living in the same house, it is still my eldest son who shoulder all the expenses. He's like a parent to his brother, he didn't oblige his brother to share the expenses at home. I don't ask money from them but if they will give me I willingly accept.

I don't think it a right idea to obliged once child (ren) to share with household expenses, although parents can ask for help in certain circumstances, but to obligate them i do not agree. Maybe i have this kind of thinking because my parents didn't even bother to ask from me, but of course as a child i voluntarily offer to them help especially if i know they needed it.

I am a Filipino citizen just like you. I have my own online work, and I am sharing with the house expenses even my parents are not obliging me to share with the expenses. I feel the need to really help them this time, because I just paying them back for taking care and for loving me when I am young and until now. It is just like give and take relationship for me :)

Any child who is old enough to work, is old enough to contribute to the household expenses. That's just the way things are. An adult child will pay rent enough to cover the utilities and food, and will also take a turn in the care and maintenance of the property, as well as in food preparation (including shopping). Minor children with jobs will cover their own expenses and chip in if needed - that's what families do.

it's also my experience with my parents. and they got so sad when i left home to build my own family. they were really saddened especially my father. but they could not do anything when i decided to leave. i know as parents, our responsibility is to prepare them for their future lives. but it's not good to oblige them to pay for it, right?

My children are still very small, so that hasn't been something that I've actually had to think about. However, before my husband and myself bought our house, we lived with my mother and did pay her rent every month. The reason that we did that was to help her out because she was helping us out. She was giving us a roof over our heads while we got established for far less than we would have paid for an apartment and that was a great gift to us. The least that we could do for her was to help her with some of her household expenses.

I can definitely see my children helping out in some of the house bills, or paying rent if they still want to live at home when they get past 18. I too wouldn't obliged them, but I can see them doing so, as it's quite common here. But of course, I would rather have them living somewhere else, and fending for themselves. I think that's a better training for a life of their own.

Maybe your family is no need to oblige you son/daughter because your family is rich or have much money to spend or easily to provide needs of your household. but some normal family like us, have to help our parents to support our family needs specially they are already old to work for their self. as a son and daughter and as a member of our family was raise up with much experience that life was not so easy to live. as we are now, each one of us have a Job, but we still help our parents in house expense like electricity, water, food and anything that we can used everyday. after then, they look they happy because we feel that what they given to us before are already come back not as a help, but as a responsibilities as a Son and Daughter of our Family. My two big sisters and one big brother have already have their own family but their still their for us. The Happiness of our Parents are the best for us.

hi there bing! i am not a parent yet but as a daughter who have just graduated this year i feel i am obligated to share the expenses with my parents. it has been years that they have spent for me so then now would be my time to give back the goodness they have done for me although i am their responsibility but now as a grown up i would be more happy to serve them. to let them feel that were not wrong in raising me. now, i do not have any job yet but i am trying a lot of businesses. lately, i have 5 babies-(business, i call them baby) i am taking good care of them so as they would give me a lot of money then i could support my parents. when i would have a child i won't obligate them. it's up to them. i want their initiative to function just like mine. i don't think parents have to take that against their children although it would be so painful if the kids won't give back even a few support right?

I know that in my country some families oblige their children to contribute to the household expenses. My parents never asked this from me and I never asked my children. The situation is of course different when the parents are out of work. In that case it is only natural that the children help out.

I guess parents would expect that from their daughters and sons, if not oblige, because first, the culture is different. Family members live together until their sons and daughters marry. Most of us are expected to be self-sufficient by the time we start our own family, that is the most late. By the time we get a job after our parents financed our education, we are expected to share expenses because we are still living at the same house where our parents live because we share utilities, consume power and food for which the household spend money. This set up doesn't teach much about budgeting. Unless maybe there is someone expected to pay for monthly grocery, the other for monthly utility bills, etc. But even then, it doesn't teach much so that one will be an independent adult.

bingskee, There are many lessons I'd learned on my mother's lap and one of them was about family integrity where it is not just merely about respect and being filial, it is also about being responsible to the family. To be part of the family means being sensitive to a family's need and that involves not only contributing ourselves but our salaries as well. My mother always believes that if we do not know how to willingly part our salaries for the family then it would be more difficult for us to do that for our immediate family when we are married. So, when I first got my salary I would contribute my entire pay minus my personal monthly expenses plus savings, to my mother for the family. From here, I learned not to think to highly about money, learn about being thrifty and living within my means. However, I think what is so memorable and impressionable to me was what my mother did with my contribution. Although my parents were not well off, my mother actually invested my contribution by buying endowment insurance and bank savings investment plans for me. I literally did not know about it until the day I got married when she gave me a "large" red packet to my new family on my wedding day. Not forgetting, (despite my protests) covered most of the expenses for the wedding ceremony and banquet. Only after all the fanfare, did she sat me down again to tell me what had happened to all my pay that I had given her. I was just literally moved to tears even right now as I recall this and type this post. It really taught me a lot and deeply what family is all about and more importantly, the measure of a woman. I do not know about you, but I feel that children should always be taught about being responsible for the family and the true meaning of managing one's money. If one does not learn how to make allowance for the family then one will never learn the first lesson of sacrifice. IMO, I feel that if parents had taught well and led exemplary examples, they (parents) really do not have to obligate and/or take it on their children to share with the home expenses. Letting them (children) decide is one thing but I feel that part of their decision should have their family in mind.

When children finish education they are expected to help with household expenses as part of their responsibility. They have to learn what things cost and how the cost of items relate to their earnings.

My husband and I have been decided that if our son will earn from his work we will not oblige him to gave us money. We will guide him and will take only whatever he will give us. But not as obligation. Right now we are both working so hard to give him the future and for our retirement so as not to rely on him when we get older.