Do you have a "resource hog" in the family? LOL

Parent Cafe
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<p>My best friend called me today and she was lamenting that her younger DD is a bit of a “resource hog” in the family. Her DD seems to think that a disproportionate amount of family funds should be spent on her…whether it’s on clothes, hair and nails, a pricey trip for People to People (which they can’t afford), etc. </p>

<p>“Resource hogs” come in all types…time resource hogs, money resource hogs, space resource hogs, etc. Some teen resource hogs think they should have the shared car more often than another sibling. Some spouses overspend on themselves leaving little for the other spouse or family members. </p>

<p>Do you have a “resource hog” in your family?</p>

<p>If you do, what do you do about it? Anything?</p>

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<p>Yes we do. DD hogs our Internet when she comes home - she like to stream videos. No, we will not subscribe to a faster service, because when she is not home, we are OK :)</p>

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<p>S1 takes hour and half showers. It’s fine when he gets up at 10 am after everyone else is done, but if it is early morning H will go down to the basement and turn the water off.</p>

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<p>^^^</p>

<p>We have had that problem when DS1 is home from college. We try not to let him take a shower until everyone else has gotten a chance.</p>

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<p>DD= Hot water. Too long to be called “showers”. I call them hot water therapy sessions. (BUT not an hour and a half, so lololu wins!)</p>

<p>DS= DVRing (aka Tivo). Deletes everyone else’s recordings duirng same time slots so he can tape his shows, that he doesn’t have time to watch anyway.</p>

<p>ME= Anything in the house referred to as “dessert”.</p>

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<p>Actually it was never a problem until he went away to school. I think having a really private shower is a luxury he can’t pass up. Can’t say as I blame him, but it drives my husband nuts.</p>

<p>And I have to admit, I am the dessert hog in our house.</p>

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<p>Another DVR hog son here. He has been home on the weekends as his current medical school rotation is in a city only an hour from us. As his school provided housing has no cable, he comes home on the weekends to watch tv and do laundry. We recently switched to AT&T for our cable, so luckily we have the room for all his shows, but he plants himself on the sofa and stays there while home.</p>

<p>Daughter is the hog of our emotions; everything is a crisis or needs dealing with immediately!</p>

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<p>The “dessert hog” mention, reminds me…</p>

<p>Do any of you have a rule about food in the house, such as…There are X number of people in the household, so when a cake (pie, ice cream, whatever) is here, only take your fair share?</p>

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<p>Oh dear, I suppose lately it’s been me! Something to be mindful of…</p>

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<p>Do any of you have a rule about food in the house, such as…There are X number of people in the household, so when a cake (pie, ice cream, whatever) is here, only take your fair share?</p>

<p>Ugghhh…No…In our house it is all about survival and not being on the bottom of the food chain…lmao. The little ones have adapted well. When I was cleaning the pantry the other day, I found a box of pop tarts in a gallon zip lock bag, in the dog food container (the little ones are the feeder of the dogs)…goodness knows where other things are hidden.</p>

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<p>^mom2collegekids, Yeah we do this, but if I happen to eat the last piece, even if I’ve only had “my share” of something, I still hear about it!</p>

<p>Nasty dessert tricks 101, to combat dessert hogs and/or (in my case) eliminate the competition:</p>

<p>If your kid(s) hate nuts, always put them in a batch of freshly baked brownies.</p>

<p>If your kid(s) will only eat Chocolate or Chocolate Chip cookies, bake or buy Sugar or Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.</p>

<p>^collegeshopping, Look under their beds or (if you’re lucky) the trash can. You’ll find the empty wrappers!</p>

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<p>I thought I was the only one with a S who takes half hour showers. Apparently not…</p>

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<p>When we built our house we put in two separate water heaters. Kids baths all on one, master all alone on the other. I never run out of hot water.
Younger D is a time hog and she would love to be the money hog. If the other kids didn’t have college tuition she would be the money hog. Older D used to be the emotion hog but she has thankfully outgrown that role.</p>

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<p>As far as the money thing goes, the easiest thing to do is just say no. I mean, what is she going to do? Shake you down at knife point? Sometimes people make unreasonable or insatiable demands and you just have to say no, not to be mean but because if you give them everything they want then you’ll have to sacrifice everyone else in the family.</p>

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<p>Resource hogs - older D would be if we could afford it. Loves clothes, pampering, thinks money grows on trees. She was a bit of a resource hog for a bit when she was younger - she had many EC’s, while S had no interest in anything and younger D was too little.</p>

<p>S would have been a resource hog, again, if we could afford his video game habit. I would say he was a bit of a resource hog in this respect since he spent all of his money on fun stuff this summer instead of saving for his personal expenses at college. When the money ran out we did not jump in to fund his fun, so he learned the hard way.</p>

<p>As for desserts, and my diet coke stash, I will hide it. Because they will go though a case of diet coke in a day or two, and I need some small bit of dessert product every night, and that would be gone too. I usually leave something out in plain view so they don’t go looking :)</p>

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<p>*As far as the money thing goes, the easiest thing to do is just say no. I mean, what is she going to do? Shake you down at knife point? *</p>

<p>LOL…</p>

<p>I grew up in a family with 7 kids. My parents had a modest income. However, since there were 4 boys and 3 girls, the food budget was HUGE because of the boys.</p>

<p>My mom used to say, “I can tell the girls that I can’t afford to buy them new clothes, but I can’t tell the boys that I won’t buy them food.”</p>

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<p>Our two dogs have become couch hogs. We humans should not have to compete for a place to sit!</p>

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<p>When I lived at home, my dad was a snack hog. Every time my mom bought any snacks, they were gone in a day. My BF is kind of a TV hog. I say kind of because I don’t really watch TV very often so there’s nothing really that I’d rather be watching… so he’s not really hogging it from me… however we seem to watch the same TV shows over and over!! And if there does happen to be a show on that I want to watch, I usually wind up going in another room!!</p>

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<p>If we are including the pets then our dog and my daughter’s dog are big bed hogs!! When my daughter is in town I get to sleep with my knees under my chin while the dogs are sprawled out on the bed. Our 60 lb. dog seems to prefer to sleep on her back with legs everywhere, diagonally across the bed. When I threaten to move her, my husband says don’t move the baby!! Why should the dog be disturbed when mom can just turn her body into a little ball for the night? While my daughter’s dog is only 40 lbs., he is tall and long and also takes up more room than necessary; good thing we have a king bed!</p>

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<p>My H is a hummas hog. It’s gotten to the point that when I go to Sams Club and buy 3-4 big tubs of hummas, I have to hide one to even have a chance to taste some.</p>