Every week, Mallory Ortberg answers additional questions from readers, just for Slate Plus members.
Q. Goal-less young adult: I’m torn about my young adult daughter. Both of us are facing challenges with ADHD, and this includes a very tension-filled relationship.
She isn’t working OR going to school right now, so she has lots of time on her hands. I have back issues, yet she refuses to help me around the house. She won’t do the dishes, sweep, etc. All I can really get her to do is walk the dog and clean the litter box.
What I really want to do is give her a dose of reality and kick her out, although that prospect terrifies me, as she engages in high-risk behaviors—she’s dating someone she met on Facebook, and I discovered she’s given our address to Facebook friends. Any time I bring up these issues, she turns things around and says I expect too much of her; I get frustrated and shut down.
Any guidance would be helpful!
A: I don’t think dating someone she met online constitutes high-risk behavior (it’s fairly common in 2016), but I do think it’s perfectly fair to expect your adult child to either have a job or go to school or contribute to household chores, even taking her (and your) ADHD into account. If she’s unwilling to do any of those things, I think you’re well within your rights to make her leave the nest, although I hope you can give her advance warning rather than posting an eviction notice on her bedroom door and making her clear out tonight. If she has a deadline to prepare for, you’ll at least know that you’re not putting her out on the street with nowhere to go.
None of what you’ve described to me sounds like the sort of high-risk behavior that could endanger her safety (I assume she’s giving your address to the occasional Facebook friend for the purpose of meeting up, rather than sending it to any stranger who asks), so I think you can tell her to move out without worrying that she’s going to be a danger to herself.
