Posted on 05/05/2013 1:47:55 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
As Rachel Zahn's three children were growing up, she liked to warn them, half jokingly, not to overstay their welcome. "Checkout time at this hotel is age 18," the 56-year-old nonprofit director would tell them.
It hasn't worked out that way. A year and a half ago, Ms. Zahn's oldest son, Sam, 25, asked if he could move back to the family's home in Solana Beach, Calif.—near San Diego—with his girlfriend in tow. He wanted to save money when attending graduate school while his girlfriend worked full-time.
Ms. Zahn and her husband agreed. Sam and his girlfriend moved into his old bedroom.
"We made that decision to let him save money," Ms. Zahn says. "The cost of living in San Diego is crazy."
The Zahns are hardly alone. As an expected 1.8 million college graduates descend on the real world this month and next, many of them will move back in with their parents. The trend is keeping the graduates from assuming responsibility for their own finances.
Parents, meanwhile, are finding themselves stuck caring for children, sometimes for much longer than they planned, with no exit plan in sight—often damaging their own financial health and retirement savings.
Financial advisers say hosting an adult age child back at home can cost between $8,000 a year to $18,000 a year, depending on how much parents are shelling out for extras like travel and entertainment.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I always told girlfriends don/t expect to be moving in to my place. First I would never live with a woman that I wasn't required to live with by law or contract. Second my mother wouldn't let me live with a woman I wasn't married to. NOW these idiots are letting their deadbeat son AND his girlfriend move into their home.
I wonder what nonprofit she works for. If I knew I would eliminate any potential donations, I wouldn't want to subsidize stupid. AND HE IS THE DIRECTOR.
However, this works both ways. This relationship often evolves into their children working as servants, cooks, a laundry service, drivers and house cleaners for their parents, thus either saving their parents a lot of money, or facing great difficulty getting to medical appointments, eating poor quality microwave food, living in filth and squalor, etc.
Having adult children living with their parents may effectively extend the lives of their parents by decades.
If the children have employment beyond this, it still costs them years of not being married or having children, but gives them an opportunity to erase college debts, and save up money on the chance that they will be able to afford marriage and children, which fewer and fewer are able to afford these days.
Also, it’s not as safe for young women (young men too now days) to live alone. People are getting crazy.
‘It makes me worry about how America is going to defend itself with so many weak-kneed, gutless adult-babies.’
The homosexuals will protect us. They and their significant others.
As it should be, to a certain degree.
Where is it written I must take in my kids’ bedmates?
Dear Ms Zahn: buy a map, lay it out on the table and look at it with your son. You will see that the USA is a very big place and 98% of it is cheaper to live in than San Diego. Empty the nest and atop indulging your overgrown baby.
Atop -> stop
A bed, maybe, but “travel and entertainment”???
Methinks that “availability” , willingness, mindset, whatever you want to call it on the part of the parents, explains it all.
“These last two years of watching my grand kids grow up has been marvelous.”
Yea, there are two sides to it. I’m (we’re) glad you guys enjoyed it so much and your grandkids will always treasure their time really getting to know you guys. Congrats.
Regardless of what others say, I have that dream too. Of course I’d expect junior to work and be married (if he brings a babe in)...but with little ones, it would be great.
No girlfriend or boyfriend of a child of mine would be allowed to move into my home. What is wrong with people???
bfl
How many of these parents wouldn’t face this problem if they’d made the kid live at home while attending college? Then they would go to a cheap local school and have no room and board, instead of paying an extra $8-15,000 per year for room and board - and then having to move in with Mom and Dad to pay off student loans.
The book “The Millionaire Next Door” described this. Those who give economic outpatient care, whether as a home as a gift or money or property, don’t get wealthy because of the financial drain. Their children don’t get wealthy because they get trained to live beyond their means.
The cat litter box is now in the second bedroom, I wonder why my guys never want to move back?
I see it as a combination of demographic stabilization and economic reality. Starting after WWI, Americans became a very nomadic people. Whereas before people lived their lives in a single state, or two, much of the population left the rural farms and migrated to the cities; there was the westward expansion, and then the great movement West to the new, post-WWII cities.
Over time, the national economy stabilized prices, and instead of seeking opportunities elsewhere, the emphasis has been to improve your life where you live. But then the post war debt oriented society has begun to spiral out of control.
Two generations ago, people graduated from college penniless, but thereafter everything they did improved their own lives. But today, graduating in debt creates a huge burden, it throws off the reproductive and success timetable. It is turning into a national disaster.
But this can be mitigated somewhat by people living with their parents. They are still delayed by a decade, but with hard work they can still get married and have children.
I’ve lived with roommates, I’ve lived alone and I have been married. Of all the different living situations that I have been, living alone was far and away the best for me.
I actually think the girlfriend is the one getting the shaft. She has to work full time, live with her loser BF parents and give up the best years of her life supporting some hipster going to grad school.
My theory is that the parents are allowing her to move in because they know she will be the one working full time while their precious son attends grad school. The parents will be looking to her to help pay they bills. I feel sorry for the girlfriend.
If your offspring asks to move back in, you should either simply say “no”, or treat them as a tenant seeking room and board.
Draw up a permanent non changing contract for a fair rent and put in any policies like “no pets” and “no girl/boyfriends”. Make sure they agree to everything before they move in.
Expect that they may never be able to move out again. If you can’t accept that, say “no”.
Don’t give them meaningless grunt work chores or make them your slave, just have them pay the rent and clean up after themselves as if they were a stranger tenant. If you can’t agree to that, say “no”.
Don’t do their laundry. Don’t buy their toiletries or detergents or buy anything for them unless you’ve included that in the rent. Don’t clean their space for them. Don’t cook for them unless you make group meals already and it wouldn’t make a difference if they eat some or not. Of course, include food in the rent unless you disallow them access to your food stores (in which case they will need space in the fridge, unless they have their own, and you mustn’t eat their food either). Allow them their privacy. If the space you give them has cable or internet, let them use it as it doesn’t cost you anything. If you are worried about the electricity bill, include that in their rent.
If you are afraid they are going to put you in debt, you didn’t set the rent correctly. You should actually be making a little money or at the very least breaking even. And you will have the most agreeable tenant anyone could ask for as blood is thick. If your offspring is a jerk you could never bear to live with, say “no”.
Your offspring will either find a way to move on in life or they won’t. Accept them either way. Or at the very least, ignore them as you would a stranger tenant. If you can’t do this, say “no” when they ask to move in.
If they break the contract or stop paying the rent, be firm and tell them to leave. If you even suspect your offspring would eventually do this, say “no” from the beginning.
That’s what I would do, and I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with doing it that way. If someone could explain to me why this is bad I’d appreciate it.
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