Our 21-year-old son, however, recently moved back home. He had gone to a community college for a while and worked as a waiter in a number of restaurants, but now he is working in a trade and has benefits and a 401(k).

Our son also has a fair amount of debt to Uncle Sam and very high car insurance. He believes we should give him the same amount of money that we spent to put our daughter through college, but we think that we have done that, since we have helped him with his rent, his utilities, his car insurance and a whole lot more.

Although we are not asking that he pay any rent while staying at our house, I have asked him to pay us back eventually for other things, as a lot of the money came out of my own account. And that's the rub. He feels that he shouldn't have to pay us back.

Figure out how much money you've spent on your son and your daughter since they got out of high school, excluding the rent you could have charged them for living at your house. This shouldn't be too hard if you record your checks in a financial program like Quicken or even if you have kept your old checks. It may annoy you to do this, but your son will see it as a measure of your respect for him, for it will show him that you are taking his concerns as seriously as you take your own.

A rundown of the expenses you paid will let your son -- and you -- know whether you have really given more money to his sister, but even if you have, you shouldn't make up the difference. A family is not a business. It gives money with love and without interest, but it doesn't keep score.

Just tell your son that you won't equalize these expenditures, since he may need more financial help later on and you would have to say no to him if he had already received his share.

If you and your husband paid for your daughter's education, however -- and if you can afford it -- you should try to help your son repay any government loan he took to go to college, and you should also buy catastrophic health insurance for him if he isn't covered on this or some future job. This isn't indulgent; it's self-protective. Many parents get quite anxious if their grown children are not insured.

But that's all you should pay. Back taxes and his super-high auto insurance are expenses he incurred without any encouragement from you, and he should pay them off himself.

He also should eventually pay you for any loans he asked you to make to him so he could repair his car or pay off his credit cards. Whether the money came from your account or his dad's, it still should be repaid, but don't keep mentioning the subject. Instead, give your son a list of those loans, including the amounts, the dates and reasons for them, and give him a realistic timetable to repay them, one by one. With his job history, he will probably need more time than most young people.

It may be hard for you to impose a payment schedule, but this is not an option; it's a duty. You have to teach fiscal responsibility to your son, no matter how much he resists it. If he doesn't learn to handle money well, he will never really grow up.

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