Agreed - that IS how adults act.

I'm one who moved back in with my parents for a time. I installed and paid for my own phone line, bought my own toiletries and groceries, and paid my parents $300 a month. They didn't want me to pay anything, but I insisted. I also let them know when I would be staying elsewhere overnight so they didn't leave a porch line on or worry about me. When I moved out, they gave me that rent money. I tried to get them to keep it, but there is no arguing with my Dad.

Two of my siblings also moved back home for short periods of time. Same thing: they paid rent and our parents gave it back to them when they moved out.

I lived with my parents for a year after college - I don't think I paid rent. I'm sure I helped out around the house because my mother would not have allowed me NOT to. And they made it clear my time there was limited, I needed to make a plan to move out - and I did.  I'm not opposed to adult kids living at home if they are decent roommates, pull their weight and aren't lazy freeloaders. 

My DS55, wife and dog had to stay with us 4 months last year after a hurricane damaged his house and later, his wife underwent a back op.  Recently, they stayed for 2 weeks due to her mother's illness.  We have had most of the kids move back for various periods over the years.

While DS didnt pay rent (we have never requested it from any of them), they bought massive amounts of groceries, laid in supplies for us, he set up and  taught DH how to use his cellphone (a loooong event), fixed everything, bought and installed outside lighting, ran outside the minute we returned from a shopping trip and carried in all groceries, shoveled snow, replumbed the bathroom sink, bought and programmed a cellphone for my mom in long-term, and many other tasks I've forgotten.  When they left, he gave me $ to have the carpets cleaned due to his dog's hair. In short, we were in better shape than when he arrived.

I think the right thing to do where adult kids and rent is concerned is dependent on circumstances.  My sister, who goes to a local college, still lives with my parents.  She helps around the house but does not pay rent.  My parents are wealthy.  They're trying to move money from their estate to their kids - taking rent money or money for anything else from their kids would defeat what they're doing and make no sense.

In a household where the parents are struggling, or where a stepparent is paying half of the expenses, it makes sense that an adult child would pay their share.  If a kid is not working or going to school and is a failure to launch, they need to be paying rent for different reasons - so they're not being enabled and to encourage them to launch.  To me this isn't a one size fits all, but I do think that most adult children should at least OFFER to pay rent.

Instead of moving home for the summer after I started college I stayed with my uncle for the summer (parental issues/control necesssitated this no way was I going home again).  He told me my parents were requiring him to charge me rent.  I was PO'd because they stuck their nose in, I had already agreed to pay 1/2 utilities and all my own groceries.  But in the end I had to admit it was fair and he charged me a nominal amount (I think he didn't agree with them either - he knows them well! - and he made a LOT of money).  I agreed. 

I lived with him again another summer and stayed with him and his new wife after I graduated for a couple months - paying rent too.  Kept things tidy, kept out of the way, my own food etc. Never a question about this!

And will volunteer to give money and not freeload.however alot of these skids we read about here have abusive manipulative narcs as parents and so they treat parents as an atm indefinitely and guilt them.

they have no pride in moving to independence and launching. Its all about them being pampered. Its a sad world that some live in!!