Dear Amy: Stepparent wants to give adult daughter the boot

[amadi]

Dear Amy: My wife's daughter (age 26) has lived with us for the past five years. She pays rent of $400, including everything. Her boyfriend of three years also lives with his parents, but he pays them no rent. They party every weekend, and then she stays the weekend at her boyfriend's parents house.

I added tougher rules at our house in hopes they would get a place of their own. It hasn't happened. We don't allow him to spend the night here and we insist that when we go to bed, he must go home. He bought her a "promise ring," I believe to keep her from nagging about their next step.

I love my stepdaughter, but as a parent I feel we need to give her a bigger push to move out and become self-sufficient. She talks about staying here until her school loan is paid off, but at the rate she's paying, it would be a decade before that happens.

I seriously believe her boyfriend has no intention of ever moving from his parents' house. It seems so strange to me that they don't seem to want a place of their own. I try and encourage our daughter to save money so that they could buy a house, but each time I bring it up, she gets defensive.

Any suggestions?

— Frustrated in Portland, OR

Dear Frustrated: The last thing you should do is encourage your stepdaughter to cohabit with her boyfriend. Nor should you point her/them toward buying a house. Her boyfriend sounds completely dependent on his parents, and you can assume that he will remain so.

These two are not candidates for cohabitation or homeownership.

The way to put the squeeze on your renter is to gradually increase her rent until she is paying roughly market value. Then it will be obvious that she can afford to live elsewhere. You can discuss this with her as a family, helping her to set goals and a timeline, and then you should start the clock running. Depending on where you live, she might be able to afford to rent a room in a group house. This would be a good option for her; it would get her further out in the world and might provide an incentive to work more, party less and get on with her (own) life. I assume she would prefer this to you and her mother controlling her romantic choices in your home.

Comments

Reality Check

[alatefeline]

Market value is quite likely unaffordable for someone with an entry level job and loan payments in Portland, Oregon, which has one of the biggest crunches on affordable housing in the nation. The writer may need to reassess whether teaching a young adult stepdaughter to be "independent" is worth potentially pushing her into decades of poverty. Independent living is a cultural value of middle-class white America, not a universal truth. While not living under the same roof as the stepdaughter might be good for the writer, it may well be better for the young woman than the alternative. So all parties need to take a look at what they really want to achieve, what they will settle for, and what they are or are not willing to draw the line despite the wants/needs of people they consider family.