Relationships-The "Piggybank Syndrome"

I am faced with a dilemma today. How do I get my son, who will be 20 tomorrow, to take responsibility for his actions and finances?

He was in college last year so was technically a "student" although his transcript would argue that point. He had his wisdom teeth out this summer and while the insurance covered $1000 of the $1710 cost of the surgery, the rest was paid for by his mother and me. That leaves a balance of $710 to be repaid by him as he is the responsible adult now that he is not in school.

He and I are differing on this point as he argues that "it isn't fair" that he should be made to repay that money as he hasn't ever had surgery before or hasn't ever broken a bone before. Why this has any bearing on the discussion is beyond me but he thinks that it is a valid point.

At this point, he brings up the topic of his birthday present and he feels that he needs a new bass amplifier and he has found one for about $350 that would be just what he needs. He is willing to put in $100 but he wants his mother and me to pick up the rest for his birthday present. You can already see that this discussion when downhill faster than he wanted it to.

I should also point out that he is working about 30 hours a week at a part-time job and can't possibly work any more hours than this as he just doesn't have time for any more work commitments at this point in his life. He also can't understand why "things" cost so much and how can he get these "things" because he doesn't have any money to buy them.

I told him to expect a real nice card for his birthday and I'm willing to go up to $3 for this card. His mother will also probably get him a real nice card but I'm going to sign the one I purchase as from Mom and Dad. I'm also going to find a picture of some teeth and print it out as we are going to give him the wisdom teeth surgery as a birthday present. This will take care of the $710 debt for the wisdom teeth extraction.

I can agree with him that this is not much of a birthday present as he won't have an amplifier to play a non-paying weekly gig however, I'm not willing to pay almost $1000 for both an amplifier and the wisdom tooth extraction.

My entire point of this is how do we get our "adult" children to take responsibility for their lives and get out of the "dependent" or "entitled" attitude. I have explained that he needs to get health insurance for himself through his job as if something happens to him, he will be responsible for any payments for these expenses. I don't think he grasps this and I know he will expect Dale and me to pick up any expense he might have as it wouldn't be "fair" to expect him to pay for these expenses.

I have another post for tomorrow as I'm waiting to see if he goes through with the piercings for his birthday and what will be the ramifications of these actions if he goes through with it.

Jerry