Mom charges 16-year-old daughter $80 a month for rent while letting her 17-year-old brother live rent-free

JR Atkinson • Writer and Editor

Jun 10, 2026 10:00 AM EDT

Should you have to pay rent to live in your parents' home?

It's a tough world out there, and sometimes you end up at your parents' house again. This isn't a moral failing, and it can be a beneficial arrangement if it works out for everyone. But the person in this story, shared to the AITAH subreddit, hadn't even moved out of the house yet, and they were already dealing with the economic pressures of the world. Even worse, it was coming from her own mother. Having a job as a teenager can be a great way to earn some pocket money and learn about real-world responsibility. But there is a fine line between having a fun part-time job and being responsible for your room and board. As long as you're under a certain age, it's your parents' responsibility to do that for you. The mother in this story didn't want to do that for her children. When you're a teenager, it can be difficult to grasp that your parents don't have it all figured out. Maybe they make you think that they do, and then you assume that everything that goes wrong is your fault. But when you have some amount of perspective, you can zoom out and realize that they were in the wrong the whole time. That's what was happening to this young woman, who was starting to make her own money when her mother swooped in and tried to take it all away from her. She wanted to exercise some amount of independence, and found a part-time gig that was going to help with that goal. But as soon as her mother found out, she wanted a slice of the pie. It didn't help that she had been financially controlling in the past and needed to exert her reach over her child's life. But she didn't extend that same sort of cruelty to her son, who was a similar age and in a similar position. The 16-year-old girl here was left wondering if she had done something wrong or if her mother was unfairly taking advantage of her.