Weird Context: it’s getting clear to me everyday how the American mind cannot think without involving Capitalism in their ideas.
I hear that even American parents are asking their teenage children for rent. Which is kind of weird to me considering how most cultures that I know of encourage kindness and social support. I might be biased here as I am not American and don’t have a deep experience with Americans beyond online interactions and news and articles about them.
It’s a bit of a cultural thing in some ways. A bit of a privilege/necessity thing as well.
I would find it unimaginable to pay my parents rent, charge them rent or charge my kids rent. We’ve never struggled to survive financially. My parents never even held me to doing chores, etc. I can see the logic of everyone living together contributing to the household(through money or chores or whatever). But my area of upbringing and family always treated childhood as immensely protected and solely for learning and playing(same for my peers, no matter how well off or poor they were). The lesson was always there to look after yourself…so as soon as I left home at 18, I had no problem with doing my own cooking, washing, scrubbing my toilet, budgeting/saving, etc.
It’s a money kind of thing.
I spend my elementary school holidays working on my father’s farm. When I moved to my mother I started to work for her instead. Doing chores and taking care of yourself was simply expected. No actual choice, since grown ups were out working, sleeping or taking care of the things you’re not old enough to do.
There is a point where people simply can’t afford it to not parentify their children. And the people you perceived as “poor” simply didn’t reach that point.
I don’t want to say my parents weren’t at fault but in that exact moment in their life they had no other choice, at least my mother, who also leaned way more on us.