What kind of parent charges their 16-year-old $800 in rent?

If your parents are asking you to pay rent to live in your childhood home, there’s a good chance they don’t even want you to pay rent and want you to move out. Many parents are willing to be a soft place for their adult children to land when they’re going through hard times, so they allow their adult kids to stay at their home rent-free as long as they need. That works well if their adult kids desire to be independent and would only move home in the worst-case scenarios. That works less well if their kids are willing to leech off of them for their entire adult lives and don’t feel a need to support themselves.

There’s a big difference between parents asking their 26-year-old to pay below-market-value rent when they’re living at home, and asking a 16-year-old to pay market-value rent to live at home. Even if you’re only asking a 16-year-old to pay $100 per month in rent, it’s not a reasonable request. No minor should have to pay rent out of fear that they’ll be kicked out of their parents’ home, and that’s exactly what’s happening to the teenage girl in this Reddit story. She deserves so much more than what her parents are giving her.