My 30 Year Old Daughter Wont Leave Home?

My daughter, 30 years old lives with me and my husband. This last go round she has been here for a year. She stays in her bedroom all day and lives on her laptop. She hasn’t worked in over a year.

Now that she has the e-cigerette she doesn’t hardly come out of her room at all other than to see the birds maybe a couple times a day and to eat.
She has no friends. She doesn’t go anywhere. On her facebook there is nothing but Michael Jackson crap on it. I have begged her to help me around the house. I have begged her to go find a job.

Instead she has signed up for a student loan to go back to college. She could have gotten a pell grant but she didn’t sign up for one of those. She has no money and will never repay this loan. Her dream is to get into the music industry. I don’t want to kill her dream but she hasn’t finished anything she started. This will fail too. I haven’t told her that I just know it will.

We cant keep supporting her. This isn’t fair to me or my husband. She wont help around the house or do anything. She waits till we call her for supper. And if my husband and I go out to eat she expects us to bring her something back. She has no self esteem. No desire to go anywhere. No plans. No friends. Nothing. What can I do. I have tried everything.

-Deborah

Dear Deborah,

Thanks for sharing your situation with me and that must be a very difficult as a mother. You want to protect and provide for your child, but you also know she needs to be out making her own way in this world.

I know you love her, but quite frankly you are partly to blame for this situation as you have enabled her to be this way. You have to stop if you want things to change. If you let her stay you have to lay down some ground rules like she will have to help around the house and she will have to pay reasonable room and board.

If she doesn’t agree to this or doesn’t get a job you’ll have to kick her out. I know this will be hard, but you and your husband can’t allow this behavior to continue. She is taking advantage of you and more or less using you. It sounds like she may be depressed and she might have an unhealthy obsession with Michael Jackson so you suggest that she gets some professional help.If you tell her to leave and she goes off the deep end and becomes a threat to herself or others, you may need to have her committed to a psychiatric hospital.

The bottom line is that she has to leave or be responsible for helping out, no more freeloading. Be supportive of her music, but tell her that reality says that she has to support herself while trying to make it big and their will be no more free rides from you.

I hope you understand what you must do and love her enough to do what’s best for her future. Letting go is the toughest thing a mother can do, but birds never learn to fly if they refuse to leave the nest.

Kindest regards,

Ted