Posted on 08/02/2005 8:54:52 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
After at least five years of media hype warning that a tectonic societal shift was slowly taking place, it has hit home. Millions of parents who used to worry vaguely about what they'd do when their kids fled the nest are now fretting about the opposite: how to get them to leave.
An estimated 18 million fledgling adults are now out of college but not out on their own. Parental nests are packed with offspring whose costly college educations so far have not equipped them to assume the traditional markers of adulthood: moving out on their own, finding jobs good enough to support themselves and, down the line, establishing their own families.
Reasons for their return
Social scientists have blamed this "boomerang" syndrome on a variety of economic factors: a tight job market, low salaries for entry-level jobs and the high cost of rent and large student-loan debts, making it difficult for many to afford independent living soon after graduation. The trouble is, many parents would like independence from their kids. Many have retired or plan to retire, want to scale down, or want to use what funds they have for their own selfish pleasures after years of putting their children first.
The situation has grown so pervasive not just in the United States — where 25 percent of Americans between 18 and 34 now live with parents, according to the 2000 U.S. census, the most recent available — but also in England and Canada, that marketers have begun targeting families who live with these boomerang kids, and social-service groups have begun advising on how to handle the situation.
DaimlerChrysler autoworkers, for example, received advice on the subject in the April issue of their union magazine, Life, Work & Family. The advice: Meet in neutral territory to discuss the kids' return before they come back home. Set up house rules, including a contract that deals with schedules and expectations.
A Florida newspaper columnist has asked in print (perhaps in jest) that the IRS offer a tax credit to parents whose grown kids have come home to mooch, er, live.
Life stages realigned
Author Gail Sheehy nailed this trend a decade ago in her book "New Passages," in which she realigned the life stages, adding whole new bonus decades based on changing societal norms and increasing longevity. Adolescence and partial dependence on family now linger until the late 20s, she wrote. True adulthood doesn't begin until 30.
In her new alignment, 40 is the new 30 and 50 is the start of a whole new life because by then many children have fled the nest, and their parents can begin to explore new options.
But that last part hasn't exactly worked out the way Sheehy predicted for those whose grown kids have returned.
Harriet Pollon of Malibu, Calif., has witnessed the transition from her vantage point as a long-ago college grad, then mother and teacher. She graduated from Boston University in 1964 and, she says, nothing could have persuaded her to go home afterward. "It just wasn't done in those days."
"I was shocked"
Pollon has four children, three of whom came home to live with her after their college graduations. One stayed for a year. "I thought, 'How convenient.' He's an adult who drives, and I still had a daughter in elementary school, so he could help drive her. I also thought it was not unreasonable to ask him to occasionally baby-sit. He was shocked. It was out of the question, he said. It would interfere with his social life. He refused. And I was shocked."
She tried, but she simply couldn't tune them out, she says, because they are, after all, still her children. "You don't want to be a bad parent, so you get sort of trapped into it."
Serious class difference
Elina Furman, 32, who wrote a book on the subject titled "Boomerang Nation," now lives with a boyfriend in New York after living with her mother and sister for nine years after college. From her interviews with twentysomethings, she says she saw a "serious class difference" in how people reacted to moving home.
"A lot of kids moving into big houses had a sense that 'this is so much better than I could ever get anywhere else.' Some had hot tubs, cars, a lot of privacy." In a small house or apartment, she says, the grown children may share TV time and almost everything else with their parents — a source of tension.
In either case, stigma is still the main problem that shows up in any review of twentysomething message boards. At the Web site www.quarterlifecrisis.com, which focuses on this age group, posted messages reveal angst but also sweetness, sincerity and poignancy. Someone named Melly writes that she is a Boston University graduate about to turn 25 who has moved back home after getting dumped by her live-in boyfriend. She writes that she felt like "a complete failure in front of the entire extended family."
Not spoiled
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a professor at the University of Maryland in College Park and author of "Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road From the Late Teens Through the Twenties," says his studies of the generation have shown that they are "not spoiled and self-indulgent. Typically, kids who return home are working very hard. They're not lying around waiting for their parents to order pizza. They're often looking for jobs or employed in jobs that don't pay very well, so they can't live on their own. Many are going to school as well. I definitely don't subscribe to the theory that they're coddled adults."
Not to nitpick, but it really does depend on the school. A film degree from USC or NYU can lead to a very lucrative career.
It was her estate that did this, no restrictions were placed on spending for education. (I should have made this clearer, sorry.)
No kidding. The career counseling office of my highly ranked alma mater just encourages kids in whatever silly plan they come in babbling about. It was like that when I was in school and is the same 20 years later. I often help current students with their resumes, usually after the career counseling office has done so, and I've been appalled at what those "professionals" tell kids "looks great".
One of my favorites was that of a very smart science/math major, with a high GPA, whose only weakness was language skills (at least she had the excuse that English wasn't her first language; the same can't be said for the career counselors). She was seeking a 1-2 year research position before going to medical school (one of the small percentage of students with sensible and realistic career plans). Her resume included the usual: unclear wording, jumbled chronology, names of college extracurricular organizations with no indication of what it was (e.g. Assistant Editor of The Acorn). But the real fun was the categories it was arranged into. It started out with a brief section headlined EDUCATION, followed by an even briefer section headlined RELEVANT EXPERIENCE, and a long section headlined OTHER EXPERIENCE. Most of the "other experience" was actually quite respectable and relevant, but you couldn't even get to the beginning of it without at least subconsciously thinking "And here's her IRRELEVANT EXPERIENCE".
Impressive.
I wish them lots of success.
Ah, I see.
Note to self: if bequeathing any money earmarked for "education", be sure to define the term in air-tight language.
Wow....that is quite the story.
Glad you got out of that relationiship.
It's only the business of the parents if they take in their kids for a period of time and it's only their fault if they don't lay out the rules of engagement up front.
Finally, as another poster mentioned, it cuts both ways. Both my father and my father-in-law lived with us in their final years - why is this any different? Get a grip, many on this forum have expressed the view that instead of expecting the government to take care of mom and dad at taxpayer expense the kids should be living up to their responsibility to their parents. Is it better to let the kids who run into problems go on welfare?
Not nearly so much so as those in LA, San Diego and most of the rest of the left coast. My daughter and her husband were able to afford a decent 3 BR, 2 living areas, 2 car, in spite of heavy grad student loan payments. They even were able to afford a granddaughter for us. :)
Younger daughter was (barely) able to afford rent, which is more expensive on a monthly payments basis, on a similar, although older home. Both in North Austin, and that was on a teacher's and IT tech's salary. Now she's going back to grad school for her PhD and they will scale down to a 2 BR duplex. (Of course the younger one has no grad school debt, neither had undergrad debt, because my wife is a proffessor at the college they attended)
Speak for your own kids Kemosabi. My daughters worked all during college. Waitressing in one case, at a vet clinic in the other. Older one is 30 and has a JD, younger one is almost 25 and has an M.S. They are solid responsible citizens, albeit with a few notions their Dad finds a bit strange.
Where a good chunk of it belongs. The "Greatest Generation" made some small negative contributions (the start of the federal welfare system for example) but the Boomers, and I are one, really stepped on the old crank. IMHO.
Maybe we should blame it on Dr. Spock? :)
Not a terribly high expectation. Assuming they majored in something actually in demand by the time they graduated. Engineers come pretty close to that, depending on location. Some computer science types as well.
I may sound a little harsh, although I will admit I come from a single parent family (father deceased). However, I was taught the value of hard work.
So you buy the largest size of the cheapest "house brand" water you can find. Many grocery stores have bottled water dispensers, where you bring your own container. Those are really cheap. Or you get a filter for your sink's faucet, or even one in a pitcher. (I do the latter at work, 'cause from time to time the water here tastes like chlorinated dirt). You don't need the name brand stuff, nor do you need to buy it by the single bottle. Walgreens has 32 20 oz bottles (of Nestle brand) for around 3.50. That's way less than a buck a bottle.
Fair enough, perhaps I am too harsh, but I come from a rich area. Maybe I have the blinders on, because the majority of the kids that I would know would fit the description of being selfish and with a overblown sense of entitlement. BUt like I said, I come from a well to do area.
Yes, but almost exclusively for students who already had significant professional experience in the field before starting the program.
Professional experience? Not what I've seen, at least. I knew about half a dozen guys at USC in the film school, 5 of whom got good, well-paying jobs before graduation. One guy sold a script two weeks before graduation for $250K. All of them went to film school straight out of high school.
I love my parents, but there is NOTHING that can substitute for one's independence. Its a natural part of being an adult, but it seems to me that these kids simply want to extend childhood.
" Maybe we should blame it on Dr. Spock? :)"
I don't think they ever heard of Dr. Spock where I was raised up. Of course all of us Tennessee Boomers were out in the backwoods plotting on how to use up all the valuable resources of the entire world before you were born. Now you are doomed to live in a broken down, third-rate, low-tech nation because of us. Bwahahaha!
A degree in something like Molecular Biology is obviously of value, even if the holder is a 22-year-old who's never even glimpsed the "real world". But a VERY small percentage of 18-22 year old college students in the U.S. are studying that sort of thing, and an alarming percentage of that small percentage consists of foreign students. More students WOULD be studying serious subjects like that if they arrived at college with several years of full time work and financial self-sufficiency under their belts.
The urban college where I've taken some science courses has a sizeable post-bacc pre-med program, with most of its students having several years of post-college employment. I've had and overheard many conversations along the lines of "So what did you major in in college?"; typical answer: "Creative Writing", accompanied by rolling of eyes and an expression that says, "Yeah, I know, what a silly naive kid I was". IMO, anyone who thinks it makes sense to major in "Creative Writing" doesn't belong in college, and most of the people who did major in things like that, end up wishing they had the time and money back, so they could do college over again the right way.
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