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."
Eh, I agree to a point, but I try not to make sweeping generational generalizations (say that five times fast). For every selfish arrogant Gen-Y'er (or whatever they're calling today's 20-somethings) there's one who's out there busting their hump to make it...or walking patrol in Baghdad or Kabul with forty pounds of gear, in 120-degree heat, looking out for suicide bombers and IEDs.
I see your point, I never thought for a second about coming back home after graduating college, but I had to do it for economic reasons. Not all young people who have to do this are moochers. And those that are, need the steel-toed Size 12 Work Boot of Reality right up the poop chute.
}:-)4
Sadly we are wanting youngster to follow tech jobs to keep up with other countries and it is places like that where the tech jobs are at right now.
Easy to say move when you look at a significant pay cut moving to a smaller venue not to mention the high tech networking of your peers. If you work at Wal-Mart that might be feasible, but are Wal-Mart employees the ones buying houses without wheels, nope.
And about what kind of parent she must be.
Maybe...but there is something to be said for duking it out on your own. And maybe until you are 20 or so...
But 28? 29? 32 (a couple of cases I know of)???
Forget retirement. I'd be more interested in my kids saving for downpayments for their own homes so that they can get out of mine and we can have adult to adult relationships.
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.
BULL FEATHERS! Mommy and Daddy has given them everything and expected nothing in return. Now they can't deal with real life.
Also, in that case, the children of liberal parents should move to where the pastures are green. Literally, where the housing prices are not out of whack.
We faced this very thing ourselves. And we lived in Austin. You get an apartment. You decide that for a time to get where you want to be, you sacrifice. You can get a two bedroom apartment in Austin in a decent area for about $800 a month. You find a roommate to share expenses with. You forgo the brand new car and get a used one, or you get an apartment near your work and you bike. You forgo meals out for lunch or nightlife. If you want to meet people, you find a church. And you put money away like mad.
And you have an extraordinary amount of pride as your income increases, as it will if you work hard. Eventually, you have enough downpayment for a house, and you trade in the rent payment for a mortgage payment. And you don't get to live in Travis County, but you live in Round Rock, Pflugerville, or Buda.
It can be done. We are living proof.
I wouldn't mind it a bit as long as there was enough room for everyone. I think the extended family can deal with life's ups and downs much better than when separated.
"Ah, the Playstation generation is proving their worth."
Don't worry, the Gen X'rs will be here shortly to blame the ill's of the world on the boomers.
"I told my wife - the best thing to get an 18 year old for his birthday is suitcases."
My Dad gave me a ride to the recruiting station.
My son is in exactly the same position that you were in at 23. He has just graduated, completed an internship in London, and we sold the house that he was living in while in school. Unfortunately, the house was very nice and he can't even hope to support himself in the style to which he has become accustomed. To top it off, we are building a house and living in a temporary rental, a 30 year old double wide. He has no where to sleep if he comes home, except a pull out couch!
Yep, the real estate "investors" have made the good life at the expense of our kids. And, they can take that to the bank. Their properties aren't worth more, the dollar is worthless (not a typo).
"I think one thing this article fails to mention is the selfish, superficial nature of the current generation"
Most teenagers are that way. It just takes time to get a little perspective. Most youngsters think they know it all. I look back now and wished I'd listened to the advice of my parents instead of learning the hard way but that's the way of the world.
I wished I had listened to my father when I was younger. A thoussand dollars a year for 40 years at 10% interest will be a million dollars. I wasted so much money when I was young.
ping
The stock market has gone nowhere for the last 5 years despite a 50% debasement of the money supply; interest rates are below the true rate of inflation.
Where are you going to find 10% a year for 40 years?
Don't know about those places, but here you would need several roommates just to pay rent. Then there's food ($3 for a loaf of bread, a buck for a bottle of water (you can't drink the tap water), and utilites.
Somebody is living a grand life, but it isn't the younger generation. And how are they supposed to make a living, unless they flip burgers. All of the real jobs either are extinct, or went overseas. If it ain't plastic and made in China, you can't find it. And then you can't afford it.
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