What Should A Parent Do When Their 18 Y.O. Is Content With A $2/Hour Job And TikTok

Parenting is one of the few jobs you’re expected to do perfectly with no training, no rulebook, and very little grace. One day, you’re teaching your child how to tie their shoes, and the next, you’re standing in your kitchen arguing with someone who insists they’re grown, while still depending on you for food, shelter, and stability.

The hard part isn’t the exhaustion or the noise or the endless repetition. It’s the emotional whiplash of loving your kids so deeply while having to say no, hold boundaries, and watch them struggle in ways you can’t fix for them.

Parenting doesn’t magically stop when a child turns eighteen—but expectations do shift, and that’s where things get messy. Parenting forces you to confront your own limits, your own fears, and sometimes the patterns you swore you’d never repeat.

It’s messy, thankless, and often lonely—but it’s also rooted in hope. Hope that the boundaries you set today become the foundation they stand on tomorrow, even if right now all they see is a door you won’t open.

The OP of today's story has an 18-year-old kid who has graduated, picked up a part-time job, and enrolled in a short tech program that could have led to full-time employment if they’d followed through. Instead, their days and nights have flipped.

They stay up all night scrolling TikTok, sleep most of the day, and insist that being “18” means total freedom—without financial responsibility.

What makes this harder is history, and you can find out more as youread the full story below.

AITA to ask my kid not to sleep all day and work full-time?

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They can be free when they can afford to pay all the bills and help around the house

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It would break the OP's heart to kick their kid out

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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the AH:

I have asked my kid to get a full-time job to help pay bills that I am having to cover for such as the car payment, car insurance and their cell phone bill. They will not do any housework that I ask them to do. Am I rude or an AH for asking this of them?

Let's head into the comments section and find out what other Redditors have to say about the story

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OP's kid needs therapy

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He needs to get his act together

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The kid's needs more help than just the basics

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The OP shouldn't pay his bills

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The OP is feeding and providing

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The OP is enabling the same behaviour

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The OP didn't teach discipline on time

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What makes parenting especially tough is that every choice feels loaded. Push too hard and you fear you’ll break the relationship.

Step back too far and you worry you’re enabling harm. You carry not just your child’s present behavior, but their past, their influences, and the future you desperately want for them.

The OP doesn’t want to control their child—OP wants to protect their future. Asking them to work, contribute, and maintain a basic schedule isn’t punishment; it’s preparation for adulthood.

Redditors could pretend that this path leads anywhere good as love without limits becomes enablement, and boundaries aren’t cruelty. They’re care but still, the story got an everyone sucks verdict.