Mom’s polarizing take on charging adult daughter rent sparks debate

A woman has sparked a major debate after asking whether she should charge her adult daughter rent for living in her home.

Roxanne Balciunas, who lives in the U.K., has a 21-year-old daughter who is preparing to move home to save for a downpayment towards her own house.

But as her daughter is making a relatively good wage, and had been renting her own place with her boyfriend before this, Balciunas wondered whether she should be charging her daughter while she lived at home.

“I want her to be adult and respectful, while at the same time, I want her to have the same early start to get on the property ladder as I had,” Balciunas told Newsweek.

She took to her TikTok account, @roxreviews, on December 10, asking: “How much are we charging our adult kids to live at home?”

Balciunas said her daughter and her partner had been paying £1,000 ($1,276) a month in rent, and while she told her daughter she was welcome to come home, she might charge her money.

She asked TikTok users if she should charge her rent, and if so, how much was fair, adding that she didn’t need the money herself. While her daughter’s partner would not be living with them, he would be there a lot, “and they do eat a lot.” Balciunas would become her daughter’s “taxi” as she doesn’t yet drive herself.

“Do I take a little bit off her and then give it back at the end and say, ‘That’s towards your deposit for your house?’ Do I charge her nothing?”

She explained to Newsweek that the last time her daughter lived with her, she paid £30 ($38) a week, which went towards food. “She used to moan that she paid me money,” Balciunas said, but “when we spoke of it [she] said ‘I wish I only paid that now.'”

Balciunas herself bought a house at 21, saying it was “easier back then,” and acknowledges her daughter “needs a hand up, as how can she save a deposit if she’s spending all her money to live?”

Her TikTok video, viewed over half a million times, led to strong opinions in the comments, with some totally against the idea of charging adult children rent, as one wrote you should charge them “nothing. You’re their parents.”

“Nothing, I gave birth to em I just can’t,” another said, while a third wrote, “If you don’t need it, don’t take it!”

But some were on Balciunas’ side, with one pointing out: “Food isn’t free. Heat isn’t free. Water isn’t free. They definitely need to contribute something.”

“Both my sons pay £250 ($319) each. And I do need the money,” another wrote. “They would pay a lot more to rent.”

And one suggested Balciunas charge “£500 ($638) a month and she gets it all back when she moves out.”

In the end, Balciunas and her daughter came to an agreement, and the 21-year-old will move in after her mother buys a new house early next year.

“[My daughter] said she wastes a lot on shopping and wine and charcuterie platters as she enjoys the finer things in life, so we’ve said that she will put £500 a month away and buy her own food. If she starts being frivolous with her money then I’ll charge her some rent.”

In the United States, the homeownership rate is highest among Americans in their early 70s, and lowest among people in their early 20s, according to data from Statista. Just 23.6 percent of people under the age of 25 owned their own home, according to the 2023 survey.

Balciunas added, “She also needs to pull her weight around the house as she was messy in the past. If I find myself having to clean up after them, or having to tell her, then things might change.”

“There could be a bonus in there for her when I sell my house if I can see she’s serious about saving, too.”

As for those in the comments insisting they could never charge a cent to their adult kids, Balciunas suggested they “don’t have any idea of teaching your adult kids any values”—namely, that “nothing is free.”

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