A 45-year-old mother opened up about a situation that led her to kick her 27-year-old daughter out of her house. She took it to Reddit to explain what pushed her to this difficult decision.
The Redditor explained that her daughter was a mother to six children between 10 and 11 months old. The children had three different fathers, and the 27-year-old was receiving child support from two of them.
The third of her children’s father was her boyfriend of five years, and together, they lived with the 45-year-old and her husband. The Original Poster (OP) said she took her daughter in with her family after they were evicted from their home.
The daughter worked part-time, and her boyfriend was a full-time chef. For the past year and a half, the grandmother had her grandchildren using the upstairs of their home, but the two bedrooms were still not enough space for six children.
The OP expressed how she never asked her daughter to pay rent to help her and her boyfriend save for a home, which she did not think was happening. The grandmother said her daughter would still ask her to pay her phone bills despite not adding to the household.
In the year and a half that her daughter and grandchildren have lived with her, the 45-year-old never complained about the noises throughout the day because she believed in the importance of family.
However, as an empty nester whose youngest child had been out of the house for four years, she and her husband had hoped to remodel their home. But the couple did not count on their daughter to live with them for that long.
On Christmas Eve, the family gathered together, and the 27-year-old shocked everyone by revealing that she was expecting her seventh child. “Everyone was all excited, but I felt dread. That would mean another child in our house with not much,” she expressed.
She looked over to her husband, and from the look on his face, the Redditor realized they were thinking the same thing. The couple spoke about the big news and decided their daughter needed to move out.
The 45-year-old waited until after dinner to tell her daughter and her boyfriend the news. She said they had two months to find a place to stay because they did not have space for another child in their home.
The 27-year-old did not take the news well. She started crying and telling her mother she was unfair to kick her out just for having a baby. The OP admitted that it was also a difficult decision for her, but she could not keep up with the living conditions.
Although the mother apologized, her daughter still demanded that she give her more time and threatened to take her to court. But the OP told her she would not win because the court would only grant her 30 days to move out.
The daughter started posting on Facebook asking if anyone had rooms to rent, adding that she had nowhere to live because her family did not care about her. Now the OP turned to other Reddit users to ask if she was wrong for kicking her daughter out for falling pregnant.
What Did the Commenters Have to Say?
One commenter did not think the mother was wrong for what she did, but they also thought it might have been better to extend the notice period, ask her daughter to pay rent and save it up for them for their eventual place.
The Reddit user also thought it might have been best for the OP to have set clear boundaries early on but believed this lesson was necessary for her daughter to be independent again. Another reader agreed that the 45-year-old was not wrong.
The reader emphasized that the 27-year-old could barely support the family she had, so having another child was a wrong decision. They also said it was not the OP’s responsibility to keep anyone afloat since she was already trying to help them get back on their feet by letting them stay with her for over a year.
More people shared the same sentiments and reiterated that the Redditor was not selfish because she opened up her home to eight more people unexpectedly, and for the ninth person to enter the mix was more than she could offer.
People understood that life happened and things got tough, which is where the OP came in to help, but it was still her daughter’s responsibility to take care of her family. Readers urged the grandmother to stop letting her daughter take advantage of her.
Another Reddit user said there were many ways to prevent pregnancy, saying that the OP and her husband might have dropped the ball when educating their child about procreation and prevention. But overall, readers understood that the OP and her husband were in a challenging situation and hoped they would eventually have their house and peace back.