Expectations for Adult Children Living in Our Home

Dear TEAMS, 

We love having our children around us!  You are a joy to our lives, and we hope you know that our lives are richer because you are in it.  

Some of you are now in a season where your obligations, responsibilities, and commitments take you out of the house more.  We are thankful that you have chosen to allow us to guide you and provide security for you until you feel led to leave and take full responsibility for your physical needs.  It is an honor that you would trust us to remain a guiding force in your life when so many other children would rather be out from under their parents “rule” in this time in their lives.

Completely apart from the emotional and spiritual side of things, there is also a practical reality in terms of you being an adult and living in this house.  Part of being an adult is understanding that nothing is ever free—there is and has always been a cost to everything in life, whether that cost is emotional, financial, spiritual, or physical.  Jesus is the perfect, ultimate example of this, but there is earthly wisdom in this as well.  This concept is something that successful people not only realize but embrace.  The purpose of this document is to focus on this aspect of being an adult child in this house and allowing you to grow into acceptance of the concept of everything in life having a cost.

When you are a child, we are required by God to provide for you emotionally, physically, and spiritually, and it is a commitment we happily undertook.  However, as an adult God expects us to treat you as an adult and therefore our expectations of you are different.  If they were not, we would be hindering you from maturing into a successful adult. 

Here is what you get by choosing to live in this house:   

•  Emotional support 
• Lots of community
• Meals you don’t have to always prepare
• Freedom from rent or a mortgage 
• The use of reliable transportation
• Friendship 
• Freedom from loneliness, if you choose
• Access to all of the physical resources we as your parents have spent 20+ years investing in and accumulating
• Freedom from paying water and electricity bills 
•  Freedom from paying grocery bills 
• Nice living conditions to entertain friends in 
•  Free laundry and use of detergent 
• Access to healthy food 24/7
• A comfortable bed with bedding 
• Having a pet to love and love you
• Your own private room with furniture

All of these things we happily share with you because you are our child.  However, now that you are an adult, it is incumbent on you to realize that there is a “cost” to these benefits.  Practically speaking, it is simple reality to understand that these “things” aren’t really free.  Therefore, if you use these things as an adult, we do expect you to contribute back for their use.  Because we are good parents, we don’t expect financial reimbursement for all of these things that are available to you.  However, there are ways that we expect “payment” from you for the use of these things now that you are an adult.

1. We expect you at all times to remember that we are the parents in this home and afford us the respect that is inherent in that.  This means that we are well within our rights to interrupt what you are doing to ask you to do a task, to have expectations on your behavior for the good of the rest of the people who live here, to require you to participate in things we plan, and basically anything else we want of you.  We are respectful to you as our brothers and sisters in Christ and to our knowledge have never asked you to do anything that was wrong, sinful, unfair, or bad.  We may have asked you to do things that were inconvenient, uncomfortable, unpleasant, or you didn’t perceive as fair—but hopefully time has proven that our requests were actually not self-serving but ultimately serving your own good and the good of this family. 
2. Part of respecting us is affording us the baseline of trust, even when it’s hard.  Because we are great parents, you should trust us that we will not abuse the position we have as your authority.  In all relationships on this earth, the only ones which survive are the ones where one party, when offended, makes the conscious effort to mentally tell themselves that the other party loves them and wants the best for them and works from there, no matter how they are feeling or how they were offended.  We are mature Christian adults who would die for you and have spent [insert your age] years sacrificing for you mentally, emotionally, and physically.  When we have failed you, we have sincerely asked for your forgiveness.  We have built relationship with you even when you have wronged us and did not apologize.   If you need more than that to trust us, that’s your work that you need to do with your Heavenly Father, not ours, but it is work that needs to be done as payment.
3. Technically speaking, we own everything you see, feel, and use in this house--our water, our furniture, our rooms, our groceries, etc.  We expect you to treat these things with regard to the others who are living in this home.  That means that if you do something to these things that will make it harder for the next person to enjoy that thing, then you are responsible to restore it to a nice condition.  For consumable items, we expect you to follow the rules established when you were a child to put things that are used up on the list, and to ask others if they want x, y or z before using the last of it, and to use consumable items wisely according to the rules set forth for them.  Further, while you have a privilege to use the things in this house, your privilege does not supersede the privileges of the other people living in this home because you are an adult with adult activities and responsibilities.  The washing machine is a good example of this:  no one except the owners of the washing machine get to decide how and when it is used.  If the owners have worked out a schedule for the washing machine, it is to be followed by the non-owners of the washing machine…and if the owners don’t want to follow those same rules, it is their own prerogative.  That is the joy of being the actual owner of grownup things--we have additional responsibilities for those things, but we also get the full benefits of those things.
4. We are well within our rights as owners of this home and as adults who are responsible for the welfare of 3 minors and responsible for our own mental health to expect your behavior to contribute to a pleasant environment in this house.  Further, we are mature Christians who are pretty intelligent and wise and desire to work out problems in a constructive way when there is relational conflict in our home.  It is unacceptable to us for anyone in our home to treat another person living in this home disrespectfully or unkindly with words or deeds.  We have certainly failed all of you in this area, but we have always tried to submit ourselves to God for His correction in this area and then to ask sincere forgiveness, and continue to try to improve in this area.  As the owners of this home, as your parents, and as people who have added responsibilities you aren’t even aware of, if WE have to do it, so do you.  This is part of the cost of having the benefits listed above.  You do what it takes to get along with the others in this house almost all the time, and when you don’t, you work it out with them constructively and in a timely fashion.  
5. Practically, we expect you to participate in the work needed to maintain this house and grounds.  If you use the kitchen, bathrooms, floors, and furniture in this house (which you do), you are 1/7^th of making the mess in the house and therefore you are responsible to help clean it up.  Because Mommy is the manager of the home, she administrates how that work gets done and in what timetable, and her rules for this aspect of housekeeping supercede what you have to do each day.  This might not be convenient to your goals for each day, but this house’s manager is continually working for the greater good of everyone in the home and therefore those rules should be followed daily.  One way you can make peace with this is to picture what your day would look like if you were responsible for everything that the other 6 people in this house do to maintain it.  Having only 1/7^th of the responsibility will seem much more doable if you take the time to imagine all the things that occur in this home each day just to maintain it and how many people do them.

There are other things that have not been thought of in constructing this expectation sheet, but the 5 things addressed will certainly make it easier and are enough to take in.  We understand in setting forth these expectations you might decide you would rather forego the benefits you get by living here and instead live someplace else and enjoy the benefits that brings.  We would be sad if you left, but we also love you enough to bless that choice.  However, the 5 things listed above are non-negotiable.

We could not be prouder of who you are and look forward to the rest of your lifetime with you, no matter where that takes you.

Love, Mommy and Daddy