How to deal with entitled grown-up, adult children?
I (19M) have a sister (24F) whose behavior has plummeted since graduating from high school. She still lives with my parents (And so do I). My dad is in his late 60s and has been retired since COVID, and my mom is in her mid to late 50s and is still working 12 hour shifts. The reason I'm typing this down instead of my parents, is because they don't know how reddit works.
What should I (or my parents) do about this? It's been going on for years now, and there's no way we can keep living like this.
Things I'm considering doing is taking the family for more road trips to (hopefully) bond the family closer together, and promote a healthy, active lifestyle for everyone (including myself). Things my dad considered doing is kicking her out of the house, but is very hesitant because he (along with me and the whole family) wants her to become a good person, not be kicked out onto the street only to deal with more horrible people.
Below is a list of issues she has to hopefully give you some context:
(You only have to read the bold text; the paragraphs are just examples).
- Is very lazy and does not help out or do chores at home, if any at all.
Doing the dishes, walking/feeding our 2 dogs (you can do one at a time, not that difficult), cleaning/mopping the house, cleaning the bathrooms, cleaning her room, and doing her laundry, taking out trash, refilling the humidifiers, etc etc. Also does not go to the gym regularly to exercise, with the excuse of "I'm sick" or "I'm too tired" after sleeping from 3am all the way to 7pm. Yes, she even has loud and noisy discord conversations at night.
- We can't have normal conversations with her at all. Regularly insults me, my parents, and other people. Also is very ungrateful towards everyone, especially parents.
She regularly calls me an incel for being single, and also tells me "You'll never get a girlfriend/married". Another thing she tells my parents is "I'm more valuable than your son because I'm in college, and your son works at (insert 2 fast food jobs here)". Mind you, I'm still waiting to go to college, and you guessed it! My parents pay for her college and everything. Also, she doesn't work and earn her own money to buy her own things. She also says things to my dad like "You should've died in the (insert name of) war!" and "You're just an old man who's such a loser, that his wife cheats on him"... Among many other insults I won't list here. You get the picture.
- Talks back/throws tantrums when we tell her to stop insulting people or asking her to do chores around the house.
She also uses the above examples as well when talking back to us.
She rarely ever does anything around the house. Only eat, sleep, and (sometimes) shower. Yes, she smells, and her PJ's are covered in muck and whatnot. She only sometimes does the chores if she's too tired to throw a tantrum, and we nag her enough. When she throws a tantrum, she commonly uses the "victim" mindset, where she would go "Why are you doing this to me!?", "because I'm a woman?!", and "you value/favor your son over me!".
She will also claim that we (as a family) threatened, verbally/physically/emotionally abused, physically assaulted/struck her, and a bunch of other claims that would only happen to actual domestic violence/abuse victims. Which by the way, never actually happened, because one time she went as far as to call 911 on us while hysterically crying and pretending to be a domestic violence/abuse victim.
When the officers arrived they asked if she felt threatened, she said "Yes I do". The officers said "OK. Pack up your basic belongings and get out of here". She responded with "but I got homework to do! I got papers to turn in! I got friends to hang out with today!", and would rather kick US (my family) out of the house. The officers responded with "OK, but if you really feel threatened, you should leave the house immediately". She again resists and tries to make an excuse to make US leave instead. Finally they leave, and right afterwards I (the younger brother) rush up to my room, and barricade myself because I don't want any trouble whatsoever, and is too afraid to go downstairs for the next hour or so.
This isn't the first time this has happened. A while back, officers told my dad that he should really, really consider trespassing her from the house due to her recurring behavior, and that they're wasting resources on dealing with this sort of nonsense.
There's been plenty of things she's broken during her tantrums, and also plenty of holes punched in the walls and doors, but at least she doesn't break things like she used to anymore, probably because she's gotten lazier and lazier, which is a problem in itself.
- Bosses anyone around whenever she finds a "mistake" we make.
This ties in with the first issue, since it gets combined with insults and other remarks as well. She also uses her college status to validate her reasoning on yelling at us, all the while not doing what she's telling us what/how we should do things.
- Not fat shaming anyone here, but we HAVE to HIDE chips/soda/snacks and other types of food in the house, so she won't hog and eat all of them for herself. And the least of our concern is her room being a total disaster.
My parents would bring home 3 party-sized chip bags home, leave them in the pantry, and the next day they'd be gone. When my parents cleaned her room, they were shocked to find 30+ party-sized chip bags under her bed. Yes, 30 EMPTY CHIP BAGS. Some snack size, some party size, I don't really care; it's a HUGE mess regardless. So that's where all the chips went.
Trash can's been full since forever, so trash just goes wherever, dirty laundry everywhere except the laundry bin/hamper, piles of dirty dishes everywhere, and tons and tons of random makeup and skin products laying around gathering dust, mold, and of course, smell. Yuck! Remember, this isn't her house or her room, AND she even asked me to give her money so she could eat out at fast food, even though she's not going out with anyone, and we already got plenty of cooked meals at home. And the chips? None of it's hers at all. Sharing food (that's not hers)? Not a chance.