"Boomerang" generation comes home to roost

Seattle Times ^ | Monday, August 1, 2005 | Bettijane Levine

[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."

[redneckerinBoston]

You're right college isn't all it's cracked up to be. I just had to take a leave of absence when BU had a paperwork glitch and lost my $46,000 scholarship. Come to find out, I can get a good-paying job and a cute two-bedroom house near my parents if I want. I was going for a degree in education so the pay is actually better just getting this job. So, college may not be all it's cut up to be.

[MinorityRepublican]

bttt

[Porterville]

I wouldn't confuse your misunderstanding of economics with your certainty of the world.


Say it with me "6 percent" come on you can say it..." 6 percent" it isn't much harder than that. Sour grapes doesn't amount to true market value. I hear the ocean at night. It is 73 degrees on the hottest day. My grass has trouble growing because of the sand. My truck should be parked in the garage because of the salt air. Every breath is a blessing. My town is a tourist destination.

Just because you don't have doesn't mean you got to hate. Create and stop being bitter.

[centexan]

My daughter and I have a contract. After she graduates college she will pay me the amount due on her college loans. (I work 70+ hours a week and make money so she was not eligible for scholarships even though she was top 3% in her class.) I will repay the loan and invest the money she pays me for her in trust. The money invested will be hers when she's 30 as long as she's kept her end of the bargain. She thinks it's a great deal (so far)

[MinorityRepublican]

bump

[wtc911]

Alternately, you can turn it around and say the boomer parents are being selfish by trying to punt the kids out the second they turn 18.

-----------------------------------------

Only if you want to be dishonest since that article says "after fours years of college". How long should you mooch off your family?

[rochester_veteran]

For the most part, those of us who never sent their kids to college are luckier.

My kids all live on their own, have productive jobs, make their way and they do it with hard work.

Guess College ain't everything it's cracked up to be.

I agree with you, college isn't for everyone. I knew it wasn't for me in the traditional sense. I knew if I went right after high school, I would've flunked out within a year. I enlisted in the service and 4 days after high school graduation, I was marching in formation and getting yelled at by drill instructors! You grow up fast in that environment. :-)

Taking up a trade is just as honorable and often-times, more profitable as getting a degree. I have a friend whose son did not want to go to college and became a mason instead. He made big money and used it to buy a diner with an apartment upstairs and will be opening that soon.

I'm trying to raise my kids to be good citizens who have a good work ethic and contribute to the community. I'll do my best to help them out for college, but it they choose a different route, that's fine by me.

rochester_veteran

[rwfromkansas]

Sounds like a great plan.

I was kind of in the same position....luckily I got scholarships for academics (though I went to one of the best high schools in the state, so my 3.98 GPA just meant there were still 20 students out of 1000 better than me). However, other than that I was stuck with mostly loans since we did not qualify for aid based on financial need.

70 + hours a week? Wow. What work do you do?

[MinorityRepublican]

bttt

[MinorityRepublican]

bttt

[MinorityRepublican]

bump

[obnogs]

I wonder what percentage of households have both kids and a parent (3 generations) living with them?

[MinorityRepublican]

Economic neccesity is bringing back the extended family. Nuclear family is now obsolete.

[k2blader]

This "I moved out at 18 and have never looked back" stuff is getting so boring.

There's nothing at all wrong with *responsibly* living with one's parents after age 18. There are good reasons why this may happen in some, if not many, cases.

[MinorityRepublican]

BTTT