Worries for 16 year old settling in France

[Dick Smith]

They won't be around forever (at home, being educated, I mean). Then they can come and visit you in France, with  all their friends...

[Unknown]

Or when they have made a truck load of cash, get them to buy the house you have always dreamed of, a kind of a consolation present.

[Dick Smith]

You know, I was always hoping for that one. Doesn't seem to have worked that way.

[TWINKLE]

[quote user="davieszak"][quote user="Just Katie "]

I think that most parents want the best for their children but when they go into a dreamworld of a new life their judgement can easily be clouded.  I know, I am one of the worlds dreamers.  However, when you bump back to reality most people weigh up the feasibility of their plans and conclude they were living in cuckoo land. 

[/quote]

I sat there quietly, reading the exchanges and pndering day and night... I have to say that the post I quote from (and the majority of the others) have convinced me not to live in the cuckoo land, and so I have decided that the only way to go forward is to stay in the UK and let our teenagers get on with their education.  Might be the right decision, might be totally the wrong and unadventurous one - but it certainly shows the Power of the Forum!

Yours, still dreaming of living in France one day...

 

 

[/quote]

I think that is a wise decision.

 I've been here a long time and I see french youngsters struggling to get jobs with great qualifications and others who get lucky with hardly any exam results to back them up at all.  However, a young person who can't speak french and needs to finish his education must have an absolutely huge obstacle to get over before he can even think of starting to study.

[DZ]

Thank you Twinkle, Dick and Dotty, for your words of encouragement.  On a personal level, not going to France still feels like the completely wrong decision to have made, but seeing my children so well settled in their respective schools and having just got back from dropping the eldest at his university, I have to try to convince myself that I did the right thing for the children at least.  I don't suppose my son would have had opportunity to study photography in France, as he is doing now, and my daughter could not develop her talent for writing (in English).  But it wasn't an easy choice!  To explain further, I had a wonderful option of either taking a rather good redundancy on which we could have lived for a year, or taking an equally good permanent job and staying.  An enviable choice or hell of indecision?  The latter, I think.  Only time will tell if that was the right decision! 

But in the meantime, I am trying to stay positive and keep learning French like mad, so that when I manage to get to France one day, I can feel that I am nearly fluent.  I have also hired a tutor for the children, so that they feel comfortable using French when we visit our house.  I am determined that this will not be the end of my French dream and I shall keep visiting this Forum for further encouragement and inspiration!

[Dick Smith]

Good on you.

[Russethouse]

daviesak, I have read these forums for a long time and I'm convinced your decision was the right one.

When you do get to France you will not have the concerns you may have had and will be able to enjoy it all the more !

[Bones]

[quote user="KathyC"]

Kathie

Yours was the most sensible posting about parenting that I've read for a long time. You must be so proud of your kids. It seems to escape many people that a parent's main role is to help their children into adulthood and independence . Some people take a pride in their adult children's dependence on them but I feel that having adult children living at home well into their twenties (and even thirties!) is the sign of an unfinished job. This is particularly the case when many parents don't expect these children (?) to pay for their way, do their share in the house or behave considerately. It's easy to see this situation as being a sign of affection but I wonder how many of these overage kids would still be there if they were paying their full share of the outgoings and having their adult freeedoms curtailed. I expect some people will shoot me down on this but I see so much of it and I think that the effects can be disastrous.

[/quote]

There's a certain number of

Italian families and god knows how many other continental types that might

heave generations of  scorn upon your  rather polarised opinion. Two pretty

stand out reasons for the growing number of young men and women still living at

their parent's home (in the UK) are the rise in housing costs and the burden of

student loans/credit traps; nothing to do with lack of responsibility and hardly a living situation

certain to contribute to the corroding of the young adult's moral fortitude

forevermore.

Your experiences seem to point to a few instances when lazy children have

stayed on at the parental home - with disastrous consequences, mine are of parents dumping their kids at 16 --

and knowing these particular parents it has nothing to do with love and wanting the best

for the kids: believe me. These instances too have had disastrous consequences - none more so than the kids spurning reconcilliation attempts in later life. Sad all around.

Personally I wouldn't want to be out of the country whilst my kid(s) were still

around 18 years of age, maybe even early twenties, because you are still

learning about life. Then again they might want to go off and do American studies or something, I just think it should always be an option for them to have you near - sorry but there isn't a get out of jail card and they really didn't ask to be born you know! A dog is for life and all that.

God the amount of times I layed my heartbroke/drunken head at my mother's house in my twenties makes me cringe!

But I was highly independent from an early age - so such skills don't neccessarily equate to 'ready for anything' independence  from a school leaving age.

Horses for courses I reckon.

(BTW: "unfinished job?" nice phrasing there, I hope there are no parents with mentally ill young adult kids living with them and reading your post)

[KathyC]

Bones

Yes, of course, throwing your kids out at 16 is wrong (although the OP had been talking about this age, the subject had moved on by my post)  and young people with some kind of disability are always going to be a special cases. However, I'm not just talking about a couple of people I know, but a recognised situation that's developed comparatively recently in the UK and I don't think your comments address the problem. For a start, moving to France is hardly the other side of the world and any young adult ought to be able to make it across the Channel for a bit of TLC when needed. Even if you leave France out of the equation, why should you assume that your parents are near you even if you're both living in the UK? The days when people stayed in one place and mum was round the corner are long gone.

Housing costs have risen, if you're talking about buying a property, but the cost of renting has generally not. I grew up in the suburbs of London and nobody dreamed of buying their own flat in the 60s and 70s. Less than a third of young people have student loans and they are hardly a burden if you were to understand the conditions of them. The fact that so many young people have racked up enormous credit card debts (whether as students or not) is no reason for them to think that it's the parents' responsibility to sort them out or even to pay off their loans.

Of course your child is yours for life but your responsibility to house them and subsidise them financially must have a cut off point. That point will be different for each family and will vary between countries. Children will always need support from their families, but this should be emotional support and understanding rather than a free berth and a cushy billet.

[Bones]

Well, I think my reasons for the relatively recent change in UK habits did address the 'problem'; in fact they are widely accepted. I can't see any reasons being offered by yourself other than the world is going to rack and ruin: bring back the birch!

I can't say I've seen evidence that people don't live near their parents anymore either.

I do understand the conditions of student loans, you can't afford an expensive mortgage unless you earn a good wage - at which time you can no longer defer your loan. So lots of young people return to their parents whilst saving up for a deposit and improving their credit worthiness by paying off the credit cards the banks throw at them these days - something they can't do in a hurry whilst paying rent to a landlord. Not all young people are in this situation, but it's relevant none the less.

Independent bodies have slated the targetting of youngsters by banks  with their credit  madness, and indeed they are being  taken to task on this by regulatory bodies.

I fail to see why emotional support should be offered only in exclusion of practical support - I lend my mates money, why not my kids?

I'm not dismissing your portrayal - just adding some balance.

[KathyC]

I quite agree with you about banks targetting young people for credit and the fact that this should change. Obviously your experience of people's geographical stability is different from mine, although I would have thought it an accepted sociological fact. Let's agree to differ.

I think that there are two main reasons why young people stay living with their parents nowadays. Firstly, many parents don't charge them for their keep/rent, whatever you like to call it, and also many people allow their adult children almost unlimited freedom. Kids aren't daft; who wouldn't like free board and lodging with the ability to have boy/girlfriends stay over. It's the parents that are daft, for keeping their children in an extended form of adolescence when they should be encouraging them to be independent.

If young adults return home to live rent free whilst paying off their credit cards, it seems to me that it's the parents who are paying off the debts. Perhaps if they hadn't been aware of the fact that their parents would be likely to bail them out, they wouldn't have run up so much debt in the first place.

I might lend a friend a tenner if they've run short whilst out but I'd draw the line at the large sums of money many young people cadge off their parents, usually with no intention of paying it back. The ultimate purpose of parenthood is to produce an independent adult; the longer this takes, the less successful the parenting has been.

[Russethouse]

We are on opposite sides of the fence over this and its an old disagreement, but I think that you under estimate the fact that many parents actually want to help and support their children, and its their choice. That doesn't automatically mean they are spoiling them.

As you know both my children are at home, my daughter has returned after uni and works locally and yes, she does pay rent, my son has only just finished his education.

Houses in this area are pricey and although my daughter earns a reasonable salary she would not be able to afford a mortgage on her own.

I was in the company of two of my cousins yesterday who are both older, they have 2 children each and despite the children all having left home some time ago they are all settled with their own families fairly  near to their respective parents. Some people just enjoy family life. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact the emphasis on family life is often quoted as being something in the favor of France.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I'm a big fan of multi-generational family living. All this so-called

independence seems to achieve is inflated house prices. Besides which,

history and "accepted sociological fact" (isn't that an oxymoron?)

would suggest to me that three or more generations sharing the same

living space is a far more normal state of affairs than everyone having

their own little box. I very much hope that one or more of my daughters

(three as of the early hours of Sunday morning) choose to settle near

here. If they want to stay at home as they get older, fine by me,

though I would expect them to make contribution (financial or

otherwise) to the running of the household.

When I went into parenthood I swore that, as long as I was physically

capable of providing it,  I would ensure that my children would

have somewhere to return to and somewhere to shelter. To be honest, I

had always rather assumed that that was part of the deal, that

parenting didn't just end when children passed the age of majority, but

was, in fact, a life sentence (voluntarily undertaken) without the

possibility of parole.

[Russethouse]

>>(three as of the early hours of Sunday morning)<<

Many congratulations ![:D][:D][:D]

 

[KathyC]

Hi RH

As you say, an old argument and one on which we probably won't agree. Of course, family life is a great thing but it doesn't stop existing because of distance. I remember my mother saying quite sadly to me that she knew I'd never live near them as an adult because it was too expensive (and she meant to rent). This was at the end of the 60s. Apart from a 6 month stint when I lived half an hour away we never lived near to each other and yet I think that we were a very close family. Emotions are what matters, not geography.

I do think that this obsession with "getting on the housing ladder" has got a lot to answer for. There's no reason that someone in their early twenties should think it essential; did the people you knew at that age buy houses straight after leaving university? Of course parents want to help their children, it's just that you and I have a different definition of helping. I think that helping towards independence is what matters, not helping to remain dependent.

There's something else I'd like to say but I'm afraid you might take it personally, which is really not meant that way. It always seems to me that going to University has  been a safe way of leaving home. Everybody's pleased about it, you start off in halls and later get a flat with friends. After three years everybody's got used to the idea and independent living skills have been learnt. I know many young people return to their parents' home nowadays, but I think it's such a shame to go backwards and then have to make the break all over again at a later stage. I know that my heart sinks when a young graduate comes to me for careers guidance and says "I've just graduated from the University of Wherever and now I'm back". I always want to point out that coming back to this area will almost certainly put a full stop to all their career plans and they often end up back in their holiday/Saturday jobs and it's as if they've never been away. I don't say it, of course, but it's often true.

[KathyC]

[quote user="Jon D"]I'm a big fan of multi-generational family living. All this so-called independence seems to achieve is inflated house prices. Besides which, history and "accepted sociological fact" (isn't that an oxymoron?) would suggest to me that three or more generations sharing the same living space is a far more normal state of affairs than everyone having their own little box. I very much hope that one or more of my daughters (three as of the early hours of Sunday morning) choose to settle near here. If they want to stay at home as they get older, fine by me, though I would expect them to make contribution (financial or otherwise) to the running of the household.

When I went into parenthood I swore that, as long as I was physically capable of providing it,  I would ensure that my children would have somewhere to return to and somewhere to shelter. To be honest, I had always rather assumed that that was part of the deal, that parenting didn't just end when children passed the age of majority, but was, in fact, a life sentence (voluntarily undertaken) without the possibility of parole.

[/quote]

Congratulation on the new one!

I'm not a fan of sociology either; what I meant was that in UK society it hasn't been the  norm for many years that whole families live within a couple of streets of each other. I thought that a lot of young French people had gone to live in the UK to make a life for themselves.

I think that you've missed the point I've been trying to make; it's not a question of parents kicking their kids out, but of young people being strong and independent enough to make it on their own, knowing that they have the support of a loving family behind them. I'm sure, as the father of young daughters, you feel really protective of them and that's lovely, of course. But, are you sure that if you had a thirty year old son who couldn't untie the parental apron strings and become financially  and practically independent, would you really not feel that there was something wrong somewhere?

[Russethouse]

 No, I don't take it personally, for one thing either my daughter was born capable or somehow I got it right. She is well able to look after herself, both kids have cooked their own meals from the age of about 12, they didn't want to eat what we did or when we did so they had to do it themselves, I'm not a restaurant. My daughter also does her own washing, ironing and cleaning and often does the dishwasher/washing up for everyone as well. She pays rent too. She recently bought a car and we didn't help her with it but we did pay her insurance as a loan which meant she got a better deal and isn't paying interest to someone else. Of course she is paying it back.

We live in an area where there is a lot of opportunity in her 'field'so I suppose it was logical that she came back here.

It suits her and us, it might not be for everyone, horses for courses.

 

[KathyC]

She sounds a lovely. competent young woman and I'm sure takes after her mother. Not at all like some of the adult children I've come across, who live rent free, getting their washing done and their meals cooked as if they were still about 15. You sound like you've done a great job!

[Russethouse]

Well, the jury is still out on my son - fingers crossed.

Credit where its due, I had great parents, yesterday my sister got married for the second time and there was a lot of swallowing when she walked in the room on the arm of her 16 year old son, I just wish my late father could have been there to see it. Luckily my mother was.

[Razor]

just been checking back on forum.  Yes I posted the question, did'nt know it was obligatory to reply to any though.  Only asked the question.  For your information, have had a couple of deaths in the family and another terminal, so have had other things on my mind instead!!!  Just because you ask the question does'nt always mean that you want to get into correspondence with the people who answer. And not just because you have not had the reply you want either.  Also, am not on the internet constantly to see what people have written. So your comment is noted, but sometimes other things take over!!