Well sure those things happen, but they are not guaranteed to happen. I went to college a couple hundred miles from home and was fine, and both of my sisters were that far or even farther away. We all consider having gone away to have been important, not from a partying all the time standpoint because none of us did that, but because we were on our own so that "being good" was our choice. We could have gone wild but didn't, meaning that how we acted was a product of being raised right and then continuing that path on our own as adults instead of a product of mom and dad still being there all the time. If a kid needs to continue living with his/her parents for financial reasons, that's one thing, but I had friends whose parents wouldn't let them leave town for school even though they could afford it. The parents assumed that their child would go wild if let out of the house. I don't agree with that assumption (unless there have been behavior problems) especially when you're talking about someone who is no longer actually a child (18, 19, even 20 years old.) Fifty years ago, an 18 year old was usually trusted to get married, have a house, and have a job. Many parents today won't let their kids grow up, even if the kid is perfectly capable of going out on their own without losing control.