I'm a 29-Year-Old Who Lives At Home...

"Do you really think that many people never left home because of their parents' financial need?"

There it is again. That attitude.

My "attitude" seems to consist of expressing an opinion with which you don't agree. You are showing quite a bit of attitude yourself, which is fine, it's a discussion board, but it's amusing that you criticize me for something which you then do yourself. More on that later.

Yes, I am skeptical that many of the people who are living with their parents are doing it because the parents need help financially. The more people I talk to, the more skeptical I am. Since I last posted I have talked to a lot of people about this and gotten their opinions. All the feedback I got, reinforces what I have been saying. I heard exactly one anecdotal report of someone taking care of a sickly parent, and none of living with parents to help the parents financially, but I heard LOADS of examples of people living with their parents for their own economic benefit. Not at all saying that sickly or poor parent examples don't exist, I'm sure they do. But if they were such major factors as you want to postulate, I wouldn't have heard, pretty exclusively, that people are living at home for the economic (and other) benefits to them.

And I'm not saying that all of those people are irresponsible. I know that's not true. For one thing, people who want to be independent (and had been) but had to move back home due to economics, are responsible people. But the most common theme I heard, just one example, a friend's husband works with 5 guys in their mid-20s, who are all quite candid that they never left the parental home because the household chores get done for them, and they can be irresponsible with their finances. Just out of curiosity, I asked what kind of employees they are. The answer: horrible. They have no work ethic, no sense of responsibility, don't effectively interact with people inside or outside the company, etc. He commented that he sees this much more with young men than women. Many others noted the same thing, which indicates living with parents is not just for economic reasons. Another person I talked to was a woman that age living on her own, who knows many men her age living at home, and commented that it's a way to put off growing up.

The friend's husband also told me about another young man he knew, son of a friend, who came to this area to go to college. He flunked out because he had no discipline to keep up with his studies, and lost a series of min-wage jobs for stupid reasons that anyone with common sense would not have encountered. One story epitomizes his learned helplessness. My friend helped him with his taxes. All left to do was for the guy to take his tax return to the Post Office to mail it. Later that day, my friend gets a call: the guy had walked into the PO, then called to ask, "what do I do now?" We're talking someone 19-20! No surprise, he ended up moving back home, and my friend sadly believes that this is someone who will never be able to live on his own. Not because he is dumb, he's not, but his mother (no father) never brought him up to be independent and responsible in even the tiniest ways.

And you say that why should I comment about a situation if it's OK with the parents and their children: the stories I heard from and about parents in this situation indicates to me that the satisfaction is lopsided. A lot more parents are spending THEIR money on their children, not the other way around. Often it's money they don't really have. Others want to stop being cook and maid to their children who take those services for granted. At the worst extreme, I heard about parents who are bullied by their son, who is so unpleasant when he asks for money that they ultimately give in, even though they know it will be used for drugs. Of course, any of these parents have the ability to change their situation, if they just got the courage to stand up for themselves.

As I've said from the beginning, you need to stop judging others choices, THAT DO NOT AFFECT YOUR LIFE, and just concern yourself with your own choices. Looking down your nose at others you feel don't meet standards YOU would set for them, and trying to pigeonhole them as simply irresponsible and spoiled, only make you look like a judgmental jerk

Yeah, you keep saying that. But then you come out with this:

"My parents would have laughed if I had said I wanted to continue living with them past the appropriate time because 'I like the house.'"

Wow, they sound really harsh. Almost would make one wonder why they bothered to procreate at all.

So when *I* comment about other people's choices THAT DO NOT AFFECT MY LIFE (your emphasis), I'm a judgmental jerk. But then you do the same thing. What does that say? Talk about hypocrisy. Especially given that it really DOESN'T affect your life (or anybody else's) because my parents raised 3 children who grew up to be independent, productive, contributing members of society. Whereas my comments are about young adults who are not becoming independent and responsible, and the fact that this trend has troubling impacts on society.

You must be the change you seek in the world. -- Gandhi

I posted earlier in this thread:
And frankly, I think a lot of people who say they "can't afford" to move out, could live better than many people did in the Great Depression. It's all a matter of perspective. Many people have been (as admitted above) spoiled by living at home, and don't want to give it up.

When you first get out on your own, it's not going to be perfect. Budgets might be tight. You might have to rent a place smaller or less desirable than you'd ideally want, and/or get a roommate. You have to do the cooking, cleaning, shopping. That's all part of growing up! Learning to deal with other people even when they annoy you, learning to live on a budget, compromise, economize. All that stuff becomes important when you want to start your own relationship and family.

I found an UK online article about why so many young people live at home. A big reason given is the unaffordable housing crisis, which is much worse in the UK than the US. But a parent commented what I have been saying:

Although I agree that there are a lot of factors like students graduating with large debts and so returning home, I also honestly think a lot of it is to do with people in their 20s today not being willing to accept the standard of living which comes with renting a fairly grotty bedsit or room in a shared house - which is a rite of passage that most of us in our 40s and 50s went through unquestioningly.

When I tell my 15 year old son that I lived in houses without heating, that we used to spend evenings with our duvets wrapped around us or out at a warm pub making a pint last an hour or more, that my friends and I would take our washing to the local launderette once a week and that we would queue up for half an hour or more at the local phone box to call our parents, he looks at me like I come from a different planet, but he also recognises that it means I value everything I've got now and don't take it for granted.

I've always told my boys, whom I adore AND whom I've brought up to learn independent living skills, that I expect them to pretty much leave home at 18. I hope it still happens so they can become the men they have the potential to be. Any man in his late 20s who's not paying rent or food costs, who has his food cooked for him and his dirty pants washed for him is, frankly, a lazy scrounger. And any parents who do that for him are stupid and irresponsible, because they've not brought up someone who will be an asset to future society.

[deleted]