UNITED STATES—It is a debate in the family. At what age do you start to make that young adult start paying bills or paying their way? To me, if you have a job and you’re in you 20s it is time to start paying your way. Why? If you don’t teach them how to be an adult, how will they ever learn? You don’t want your kid being in their 30s and 40s and not understand what it means to pay an actual bill.
However, sometimes the parent has to be the parent and force the child to grow up. Sorry, if you’re in your 20s and you have a job you can pay your portion of the phone bill, especially if you’re on a family plan. That was the best thing my father could have done for my little brother, who was just purchasing apps, going over data, and he has a good paying job, and he thinks he doesn’t have to pay anything.
Sorry, buddy, time to pay your share, if not you just won’t have a phone, that is your choice. Forcing him to get his own separate line was absolutely genius. So, if you decide to go overboard on the bill, it is now your responsibility to pay your bill or you’re without a phone and these youngsters nowadays just CANNOT live with a phone.
He was not happy about it, but you’re grown. That is the problem with young adults, especially these damn Gen Z individuals; some are just bratty and spoiled to the core and have no idea what it means to be actually responsible and have to do something in life besides what they want to do. Guess what, if you don’t pay bills how do you expect to have certain things?
Surprise, electricity is not free. Neither is gas/heat, the same for water, you have to pay for it and when it comes to streaming services you gotta pay for it too. I had been paying for a streaming service for nearly two years that I watched content on, but not as much as I should be considering I was paying over $12 per month. People had access to my account that I was paying for, so I decided to cut it off. Guess what happened? Everyone was asking me, “What happened to Showtime?” I cut it, if you want to watch it, guess what, you can pay for it.
If you allow young adults to freeload off of you, trust me they will do it until the end of time. Perhaps the biggest thing that annoyed me about my younger brother is when my mother told me he was complaining about no one purchasing groceries. Dude, you’re in your 30s, you have a job, get your butt in your car and go to the supermarket. The days of people purchasing food for you is long gone. If you can’t purchase food for yourself and you actually have the ability to do so, what the hell are we doing here.
You should care about doing the right thing and taking care of yourself, instead of spending your money on Amazon delivery packages, and all the things that solely benefit you and no one else. The moment that the adult forces the young adult to mature it is good because it gives them an opportunity to become responsible and learn how to manage money and to select needs over wants.
Too many parents coddle their children so much to the point that they’re so called ‘adults’ but has never paid an actual bill in their life and they don’t know how to do it either. It’s a damn shame. Stop all the helicopter parenting and start dosing out some damn tough love. That is the only way the child is going to learn once and for all, at some point you’re going to have to grow up, but mom and dad will not always be around, and then what?
Written By Zoe Mitchell
