For those of you with older kids at home, what do you do regarding dig money?
I’ve got an 18 year old and the agreement was that as long as he pitches in around the house (bins are his responsibility - emptying into the wheelie bins and putting out whichever one it is that week) and attends his college course then he can keep his money. He’s at college 2.5 days a week and then work for the rest, clearing around £900 a month.
The issue is he is always fucking “forgetting” to put the bins out. Even when I’ve bought him a fucking echo so he can set up reminders etc.
There’s myself, my wife and the 5 kids (10-18) so there’s a fuckton of rubbish. Missing it even once causes massive ballache. Thing is, he’s always forgetting.
Came to a head this morning because, once again, he forgot. This is after messaging me last night 15 minutes before he was due home asking to have someone stay, so I changed all my plans to accommodate. And the shit didn’t put the bins out again.
I feel like I’m going round in circles with him and it’s beginning to really affect me. Stressing to fuck over bins, what even is that!
Only thing I can think of is to start charging him dig money now. I’m sick bending over backwards for him not to pitch in with this one thing.
Does that seem reasonable? Or am I being a crabit bastard? What amounts are people taking from their weans etc here? Was thinking £100 since I easily spend more than that on keeping the lazy shit each month.
Edit to add - Dig Money meaning money he pays towards household expenses :)
My kids are far younger, but we’ve already started making them pitch in. My eldest is 12 and lazy as fuck. We struggled with him a bit.
What it took was for him to see his Mum struggling (she has a debilitating and lifelong condition) to the point she broke down and cried about how hard it all is.
And now he helps out. Not much, but it’s a start.
So my suggestion is, show him you’re Human instead of a parent, break down and go spare with him about it a bit. Then get the opposite parent to go and have a quiet word about how much it’s upsetting the other one.
We try to be good parents so much that we forget to show our kids that we are humans. I work, parent and clean and it’s tiring but that’s life. If he’s just working and wanking, that’s not being an adult.