Can I vent a little...

[nikkiARNGwife]

I am SO SO mad at my baby brother!

Here's the deal. I'm 35 and he's 24...that's a BIG age difference but it's even bigger when he's the most immature 24 year old on the planet! I'm so mad at him I could just spit. So he's 24 and he graduated from college 2 years ago. You know what he's done since? NOTHING. Big fat nothing. First he stayed in the town where he went to college for about 6 mos with my parents paying all his bills/rent b/c he was supposed to be looking for a job. Never did and they moved him home. He literally sat on his computer playing games and stuff for 6 more months, living with my parents and mooching off them. Finally he decides he's going to graduate school...whatever..he's not motivated to do that he just wanted an excuse to go back to Oxford where all his college buddies are and be a professional student. So he talks my parents into renting him another apt up there and proceeds to NOT enroll in school and mooch off them for another 6 months...TOTALLY jobless I may add. He thinks filling out online applications is looking for a job. So then my sister who lives in another town finds him a job waiting tables at Chili's and he moves in with her and mooches off her about 3 mos then quits his job b/c he "hates it" and moves back in with my parents. Then a few months later convinces them again to move him back to Oxford in another apartment blah blah blah. He gets a job at a kiosk in the mall selling t-shirts but my parents are still paying all his bills and rent. They co-sign a 6 month lease with him and tell him finally that after 6 mos he's on his own or he's moving back home with them. All this time they are sending him money etc and then last month my mom gets a 300 dollar cell phone bill b/c he'd download something or other to his phone. So she FINALLY got to her breaking point and paid the bill but called him and told him to go right then and get his own phone b/c she was taking him off her plan. He tells her he doesn't have the money to buy his own phone so she sends him some of course and you know what he does???!!! He goes and buys and freaking iphone with my mama's money!!! And he's so stupid he posted it on facebook I guess forgetting that I could see it! I mean what planet did he fall from? How are we even related??

He's the baby and only boy and he's spoiled rotten. My parents are retired teachers and living on a budget but does he care?! nope. he thinks they owe it to him or something. and they won't just cut him off b/c they just don't think they can do that..but they don't want him back in the house with them b/c they're afraid he'll never leave. I'm just beyond frustrated with him.

I NEVER took money from my parents. I graduated from college, got a job and paid my own bills. I worked all through high school and college and made my own money. The Chili's job was the first job my brother ever had. I just with he'd grow up!

Sorry. Just needed to vent.

[ajf9597]

That would be very frustrating! I can't imagine living with that. I have some friends who do that to their parents and I can't imagine how they do that. I never could have and my parents wouldn't have allowed it and we knew it. Good luck getting him to see the light. Sounds like they just need to put him on his own and let him struggle through like everyone else.

[nikkiARNGwife]

That would be very frustrating! I can't imagine living with that. I have some friends who do that to their parents and I can't imagine how they do that. I never could have and my parents wouldn't have allowed it and we knew it. Good luck getting him to see the light. Sounds like they just need to put him on his own and let him struggle through like everyone else.

That's what I keep telling them and they keep saying they're going to cut him loose but then they don't. It's like they are totally different parents with him than they were with me and my sisters. The only way he's going to get his act together though is if he has to do without. They frustrate me b/c they won't quit paying his way, but he frustrates me because he keeps taking from them...I would NEVER have even thought about living off my parents like that.

[emmasmommy]

I can totally sympathize Nikki...except my brother is 28. All I can tell you is that in time, your parents will more than likely get sick of it. As much as my parents love all of us, they're finally starting to see what my brother is doing to them and making him fend more for himself as far as finances go. He still lives at home, and they'll probably never make him move out, but I'm SO glad to finally see them saying, "make your own car payment buddy!"


BIG HUGS!

[junebug]

sounds kinda like my little brother. he does have a job, but he's the same age as yours and was still living at home paying no rent and pretty much just blowing his money on whatever. my parents got divorced and my dad kept the house. when we came back from california a few months ago, we stayed with my dad and decided at the time that we wanted that house so we took over the mortgage and the utilities and decided that Ty should pay us something a week. we were asking only like 25 bucks! he never paid. i kept bringing it up and he ignored me. so thats when we moved back into our old house with my BIL. and my brother was forced to move out because my dad now lives in Ft. Wayne. my brother now lives with his girlfriend and now has rent and everything else to pay for now when he could have just paid us the measley 25 bucks a week. but i think its good for him to finally know how most people live.

i hope your brother starts to realize that he can't have everything handed to him for the rest of his life. he has a college education! he should put it to use!

[MissKim]

I totally understand. My parents bought my sister a house. Of course, when they die, I'll get an equivalent amount of the top of whatever they leave behind. Yeah, cuz I couldn't use the money right now. I would never even ask my parents to do something like that. We've been married since we were 20, and although it's been rough, we're making it on our own.

My sister still gets money from my parents every single month, including having my parents pay for a new a/c for "their" house.

And then she bought a Wii.

Anyway, I totally feel you. Hugs. We're better people.

[4noisyboys]

Nikki...he only does it because your parents enable him to do it. It's up to your parents to say NO MORE! Until then, he will continue to live off of them. My parents still enable my 45 year old brother and he is living with them. My older brother and I have talked to them until we are blue in the face. We've given up on it and because my parents are much older now, we have to let it be what it is...but believe me...it makes us SO angry, but even angrier that my folks continue to allow it.

If someone is forced to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, I guarantee you they can and will do it!

[Sharon Kay]

Apparently your parents don't want him to grow up because they keep giving him money. They have to decide it is ending before it will happen. You're going to give yourself high blood pressure...or worse. If the parents are complaining to you...tell them they know what they have to do and not to involve you...if they aren't...then just ignore the whole situation...true it's not right...but they are ALLOWING him to do this and enabling him.

I'm speaking from experience on the frustration and not fair bit...not from a sibling but from my niece that bleeds both my sister and my mom dry...using her diabetes as an excuse for everything...but yet lives with a boyfriend and expects her medical insurance to be paid, her insulin and other meds, her car maintained, and her cell phone bill paid (oh what if she didn't have a cell phone and her levels are off?!) ... well tell her to quit getting her fake nails done and buying $200 tennis shoes and pay for it herself! My mom bought my niece a car and she said she paid her payments faithfully for 2 weeks. Give me a break! ...yet she just went out and bought a brand new expensive phone for her and her boyfriend! argghhh calm down...ignore it...see I have it here too! BLECH grow up niece...you're an adult...act like it!

My family might get upset for me saying this...but it's how I see it!

[jessica31876]

it is tough...all three of my sisters would get things they "needed" from my mom and stepfather. But if it was me they never had anything (not that I asked for anything). One perfect example...my sister got a computer for christmas from her boyfriend and left him like a week later. She only stayed to get a computer. This computer went bad and my mom and stepdad bought her a new one. Supposedly she was supposed to pay them back but I know she didnt. Then like a year or so later she "needed" another computer so they bought another one. Again supposed to pay her back but didnt and then just a few months maybe a year later yet another computer. I had one computer in that time that was still working in the time she got three from my parents!!

[Shawna]

Yeah sounds just like my younger brother, he just turned 25 (6yrs younger than me) and although he has a decent job right now he is living at home with my dad and stepmom again. I don't think he pays rent and my dad has been paying his car payments and car insurance for years now and he'll never get paid back for any of it. My dad supporting him for all this time has really put a strain on their marriage and caused lots of resentment cause my dad always takes my brothers side and won't ever cut him off. I'm the oldest of 6 kids total (my stepmom has 4 kids too) and have been married for 9yrs and though things have been tight for us we've rarely asked my dad for help. The few times we have my dad makes us feel guilty for asking and wants to know exactly when we'll pay him back and we always have done it right away as soon as we can which is way more than my brother has ever done!! Oh and my brother has 2 little boys with 2 different girls (one is 5 and the other is not quite 2mo), he has the oldest 2 weekends a month during the school year and then he had him almost the whole summer but my parents had to take care of him a lot of the time he was here.

[LeeAndra]

I feel your pain, Nikki.

My sister is like that, too. She couldn't handle going away to college, so she moved back in with my parents and let them take care of her expenses and bills. She did have a part-time job which paid for her car, but they paid for everything else. The only reason why she's moved out now is because she got engaged and moved in to a house with her now husband.

My mom is the person who bears the brunt of the responsibility of my sister and bears the burden of the tantrums and insults. We've spent hours talking abt how it's unfair, my mom doesn't deserve it, etc. but my grandfather was the same way with my mom when she was growing up, so I know she's not only used to it, but will never stick up for herself when it comes to my sister. If my mom won't speak up for herself, who will?! My sister would never listen to anything I say; we are barely friends. My dad is perfectly content to bury himself at work and halfheartedly listen to my mom's frustrations and my sister's tantrums on the off chance he's home, sooo... *shrug*

As much as I don't agree with it, this is the life my mother/parents have chosen for themselves. I can't change them or it, so I live 2 1/2 hours away and live my own life on my own terms. The best I can do is provide an ear for my mother to vent to and do my best to treat her the way she should be treated.

As much as it has in the past made me jealous that I struggled to get by financially while my sister sat on her throne at my parents' with her big screen TV and brand new laptop... I wouldn't trade being more well off for being so dependent on my parents that I would 'need' to call my mother 5-6x a day to ask how to make meatloaf, where the best place is to take the drycleaning, what does she think of this color for the bathroom, etc etc. Having 10 big screen TVs wouldn't be worth being unable to think for myself.

Maybe you could look at it that way when it comes to your brother? Whatever payoff he gets from your parents cannot possibly equal the joy and happiness you have found in Life and by your own two hands.

[nikkiARNGwife]

I guess it's just hard for my parents to cut him off entirely. I think they keep hoping that he'll get some motivation and use that degree they forked out all that money on. He has taken the Praxis over the past month and passed it so HOPEFULLY he'll get an emergency teaching certificate. I'll believe it when I see it though.

[Serendipity]

Apparently your parents don't want him to grow up because they keep giving him money. They have to decide it is ending before it will happen. You're going to give yourself high blood pressure...or worse. If the parents are complaining to you...tell them they know what they have to do and not to involve you...if they aren't...then just ignore the whole situation...true it's not right...but they are ALLOWING him to do this and enabling him.

Yeah that ^^

[LenaGardner]

*sigh*

We have a little brother like that too!

Except...in our case it's kind of worse because not only does he act pretty much exactly like you described, but he is on again/off again mixed up with drugs too.

It's like he's from another planet.

I think a lot of people can relate to what you're going through!

[schock77]

Yeah- that STINKS! My little sister (I'm 31 she's 28) can also do no wrong...it's "the baby" thing their whole lives I guess.

:(

[joelsgirl]

Being a parent is SO HARD!

Your parents probably know what they should do, but cutting your kid off is so hard. My folks babied my brother for a while, but once they made him move home, get a job and finish school (or get kicked out, which terrified him), he really straightened up and is now a productive, fantastic grown up. I am really proud of my mom for doing the hard thing.

I hope your brother finally gets it!