I’m happy my daughters aren’t chopping at the bit to leave our home. It helps that they are financially self supporting for the most part and saving money and take care of themselves and household chores.
Two college grads working in their fields (mechanical engineer and music industry - business) and one a junior with a 4.0 BSN major and the baby an accounting major who just scored a tutoring job for next semester and a full time summer job while still living at home.
Whatever works.
In my view, there’s a point in a person’s maturation process when it’s right and fitting for them to leave the family home and begin their life as a sovereign adult.
For at least the last hundred years, it’s been universally agreed in this country, that that age is somewhere between 18 and 21. Naturally, individuals, families, and circumstances vary, but for most people, that’s about the time period when one can successfully fly solo and not look back.
Generally speaking, that’s also the point in a person’s life when they begin to feel a strong desire to strike out and build their own life. Its a natural part of the maturing process.
I agree with you, that in some cases, things work out better all around if a kid stays home longer, but more often, staying at home beyond a certain age becomes a stultifying experience that weakens a young person’s natural ability and inclination to become self sufficient and independent.
I watched one aunt and an uncle (on my father’s side) delay leaving home for so long, they lost their capacity for independence, and became stuck for life. Neither of them ever married, and though both were college educated, they wound up as permanent dependents on their parents.
My grandparents are gone now, but my aunt and uncle still live in the old house, subsisting on my granddad’s investment income and gov’t assistance. What a horrifying waste of life. It’s like a sad movie that I’ve been watching play out for half a century.