Most parents prefer to have their children nearby until it’s time for them to spread their wings and find their own place.
However, one mum faced backlash when she disclosed that her 12 year old daughter has her own flat. In a video, Audrey, who has the online handle Organized Chaos, began by saying that she performs a thorough clean of her daughter’s flat every couple of months.
Although the daughter usually takes care of the day-to-day upkeep, Audrey said that she likes to clean it herself occasionally to aid her daughter and show her affection. She said: “One of my love languages is acts of service so I actually enjoy doing this for my children once in a while
“And yes, she is very grateful that I am cleaning her room.” Addressing curiosity about her decision, she continued: “Now, why does my 12 year old have an apartment?
“We had a house fire, and it was really disheartening because we had a really low mortgage with a really good interest rate. It was like two and a half, two point nine, I don’t know, it was less than three percent.”
“We were very disheartened when we lost our house in the fire and had to start over. So we thought to ourselves ‘how can we turn this into a blessing?'”
She further explained how she and her partner decided to support their three kids through this unique approach, reports the Mirror. She continued: “And so, we just started thinking about generational wealth and our kids, and so we thought one thing we could do for them is create places for them to live in in our house, so that they can save up for their own house and they’re not ever going to waste money on rent or anything like that.
“We are not millionaires, but we can create generational wealth by allowing our kids to live with us as long as possible. And in order to do that, they kind of need their own space, so we built this room above our garage for our daughter.”
“And then our oldest son will have his apartment in the basement and then there’s 11 years between my oldest and my youngest, so he will either be in the basement as well or he will take over hers when she moves out.”
“And I will say, one of the reasons I do come up and help clean once in a while is because this is a very large for a 12-year-old, it’s actually very overwhelming for her to do herself, so I like to come up once in a while and just kind of help her out a bit.”
Viewers shared mixed views, with some arguing the daughter was too young to have her own space. One user expressed their confusion, stating: “I get the idea but 12 still seems really young to be living in it already? Could it not wait until they are an adult? Or at least an older teen?”
Another added: “I’m so confused. You give your child an apartment and you have to clean it? I struggle with bedrooms. Lol”
However, others were more supportive, with one sharing: “I had an ‘apartment’ as a teen too. It was so great to go to a local college and have a private place to come home to between work and studying.”