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."
At 18, you can offer your kids a couple two options: (1) partial/full college financing, or if they don't want to continue their education (2), seed money to get their first apartment (or a ticket to the recruiting depot).
You'll never be able to have a cool parent/gown kid relationship until they get out there and grow up.
If you don't like the major, you won't like the job.
I would rather live modestly in a job I like than rich with a job I hate.
Many aren't interested in business administration etc.
Thanks for the advice.
If you are from Porterville, CA, you that a $200K home is fast becoming history. Also, getting a loan to buy that home is tough, unless you dig yourself into the rat race.
Yes, you need to earn a home. But, your home should be a place of solitude, not a burden to overcome.
State Representative Mitchell Aye from GA. This guy should run for President one day...
"We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other liberal bed-wetters.
We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim they require a Bill of NON-Rights."
ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.
ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.; but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.
ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.
ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.
ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.
ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.
ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.
ARTICLE VIII: You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.
ARTICLE IX: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.
ARTICLE X: This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you are from, English is our language. Learn it or go back to wherever you came from! (lastly....) NOW..
ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!!!!
If you agree, share this with a friend. No, you don't have to, and nothing tragic will befall you if you don't. I just think it's about time common sense is allowed to flourish. Sensible people of the United States speak out because if you do not, who will?
Particularly for kids who grew up in affluent neighborhoods. Their parents started with less in many cases and became affluent ... the children expect to start off at the level their parents achieved. It's the entitlement thing ...
I love threads like this.
Great point. Too many people are worshiping at the altar of a college degree at any cost. It doesn't make financial sense to go a hundred thousand dollars in debt to get a job making 25K a year. A course in entrepreneurship might be all they really need. Conventional wisdom isn't cutting it anymore.
For later reading
I don't have a problem with these folks living with their parents. The children they create deserve to meet the ones who will actually be raising them.
I disagree. I lived in Arlington for ywo years. My apartment complex had 500 units and my wife and me were one of the few married couples living there. Rosslyn, Courthouse, Clarendon, Ballston etc. are packed with young single people.
1. Require they pay room and board 2. Require that they have chores to help 3. Set a curfew 4. Treat them like they are 16
This is a great learning thread!
When the Boomers got out of school, even the most drug addled and lethargic had jobs literally thrown at them. And then, on the job, so long as the showed up most days, didn't piss too many people off and played a bit of office politics, they rose up in rank. Many ended or are ending their careers as execs or at least mid management or as high earning indy consultants. Those who have not attained such performance typically did not try or have serious issues. Whereas, subsequent generations have pretty much had to kick butt in order to even hold their own let alone get promoted. I have inched into mid management and still to this day most of my peers are Boomers. I don't envy new grads.
A joke between Dad and I goes like this:
"Dad? Do you love me?"
"Of course I do, Pookey."
"What do you love most about me?"
"The fact that you left home at 17 and never came back!"
LOL! ;)
My advice to you is to do it. This is really one of the last times you'll get a long period of time off. Once you start law school, if you do well, you'll find yourself working summers.
And whatever you do, don't move home.
The professor makes the major, and the job is what you make of it. A sad sack won't be happy anywhere for any money. A pleasant person will thrive anywhere.
The majors our kids chose were from a discussion of what the job market would, more than likely, always have a need for. Both our girls carried double majors and are both going for their MBA's while working and raising families and our son went accelerated in his first major, transferred and got another.
And a lot of people should postpone college education until they are in their 30s. This would be a much more popular approach if it weren't for the strings attached to many federal and state student loan programs that require full-time or at least half time student status, and also require being in a degree program and making satisfactory progress (as defined by the college) towards the degree. This rules out financial aid for the busy parent who wants to take one course at a time, changing schools from semester to semester according to where a desired course is offered on a workable schedule. It also empowers college administrations to require students to take worthless indoctrination courses in order to fulfill distribution requirements in things like "social justice" and "gender issues". Refuse to take this garbage, and then you're not making "satisfactory progress toward a degree" and you lose your financial aid.
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