This wife and her husband had a pretty sweet arrangement with their oldest son: keep his grades up, stay on top of his anxiety treatment, help with a few tiny chores, and he’d get to use Mom’s car as his own.

For a while, everything worked exactly the way it should.

Then (like overnight) the kid dropped out, stopped taking meds, started acting hostile, and secretly took up pizza-delivery driving with their vehicle on their insurance.

Now he says the car is “his”…while Mom and Dad foot every bill. Fair?

AITA if I take away “son’s” car?

Husband and I (M40s and F40s) have three boys, Adam (20), Brett (17), and Colin (15).

Adam moved away to go to university for his freshman year, but moved home after that to take classes online because he was having trouble adjusting.

He has terrible anxiety, to the point he takes medication daily to be able to go out and run errands/drive/etc, so we had no problem with him continuing working on courses from home.

He was doing great and keeping an A average, so we worked out a deal.

Husband and I both work full time, but we work close enough to each other that we can carpool.

If Adam kept up his grades, attended the doctor appointments every few months to monitor his medications, and helped with the odd task at home, we’d give him my car to use as his own.

What a deal.

Note, Adam didn’t want to drive until just before leaving for college, and lived on campus so didn’t need a car freshman year.

By tasks I mean picking up a sibling from a sports practice maybe once a month, pulling something from the freezer to thaw for dinner so I could make it once we got home from work, or taking the dogs out at night if he was still up late rather than them waking me to go outside.

All the boys rotated through who took the trash from the kitchen to the outside trash can, and I sometimes asked for help with vacuuming or dusting from everyone equally because no boy will move out not knowing basic housekeeping skills.

Adam would volunteer to go out with his brothers and drive them places or they would all go to hang out at the mall.

Sounds like a good little system.

Life was great until about three months ago. Adam has decided he wants nothing to do with any of us, especially his brothers.

He dropped out of classes this semester, stays up all night on his computer to then sleep most of the day, and is nasty to everyone.

He is now demanding I cancel the upcoming doctor appointments, doesn’t want to take any medications, and finally admitted that some of the time when he is out at random times it’s because he got a job delivering pizzas.

Wow, wha ta change.

Our problem is that we’re still paying for the insurance, registration, tires, repairs, and most of the fuel being used for this job because it barely pays anything.

In addition, it’s a safety hazard for Adam to drive if he’s not taking medication, as in his license can be revoked by the doctor.

Husband and I sat him down and laid our concerns on the table regarding the safety problems, the fact this job is a money pit for us, and tried to find out what’s actually going on for the Nth time.

Something tells me that didn’t go well.

Adam yelled at us for meddling and stormed off.

According to Adam the car is his, so taking it back would make us bad parents. But how can we in good conscience let a dangerous driver behind the wheel of a vehicle?

So, internet, who would be the AH here?

Commenters agreed the car deal ended the moment he stopped meeting every part of the agreement—especially the safety piece.

This person said he can’t act like that without a consequence.

This person says hold true, and also add even more consequences.

And this person also votes NTA but has a lot of questions.

Turns out the only thing he’s “entitled” to is a reality check, not the family sedan.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.