Posted on 05/31/2012 6:41:01 AM PDT by Hojczyk
Just how much of a bummer is it to be well past the age of adulthood and still living under your parent’s roof? As this living arrangement grows increasingly common, the perception is that it’s not so bad after all. In fact, living with mom and dad can be pretty sweet. According to a new survey, young adults who live with their parents are nearly as likely to say they are satisfied with their housing situation as those who live on their own.
The Great Recession has brought with it a reevaluation of the American Dream, and even whether a college degree is worth the money. Now, the idea of living at home with your parents isn’t associated with failure or a lack of achievement. More likely, young adults living with their parents are thought of as victims of unfortunate circumstances, with plenty of good company.
They may also be considered to be pretty smart customers: At the very least, they weren’t foolish enough to buy a home that they couldn’t afford—and that promptly declined in value by 50%. That’s what so many adults, young and old alike, did five or so years back. To homeowners who are deeply underwater or facing foreclosure, living debt-free in your parents’ home must sound like a nice possibility.
(Excerpt) Read more at moneyland.time.com ...
Ya, how happy are parents about their adult children still living with them?
I think a big issue would be, are these young people being responsible in their lives? Are they working? Are they paying rent? Are they doing household chores?
I had a bad personal experience in this area. My son was unemployed, and didn’t seem to be working too hard in seeking work, from what I could tell. We had some discussions about that.
But the last straw from me was one morning, I heard strange noises from his room. I couldn’t imagine what was going on in there. It turns out he had brought a girl into his room!!
He and I had some sharp discussions, in which I told him, I was not going to subsidize his engaging in immoral behavior with girls under my roof.
In the end, he moved out, got a job, and has had that job for a few years now. And, he ended up marrying that girl. In his case, moving out and being compelled to work, and being compelled to pay rent so he could entertain whoever he wanted where he lived, pushed him to make positive effort to being a responsible young adult.
I’ve told my kids that they are welcome to come back and live with us, but that it’s not a party house. To live with us, they must be productive (working, looking for work, or waiting for a job to start); they must be supportive (help with regular chores, with home repairs, and with yard work, plus pay 25% of their income in rent to us); and they must be respectful (as polite as was expected when they were kids, plus continuing to follow our rules for what happens under our roof). Under those conditions, they are welcome when they are in need or just to save for a down payment.
We have a three generation home, and it’s great! Everyone contributes what they are able in time, talent and earnings.
That said, my teenagers will be expected to leave when they go to college. It is SO important to be able to make something of your life on your own in your 20’s. Its a step in a person’s development that is necessary.
What a great way to prolong adolescence.
(Been there did that ‘til 25. Push ‘em out sooner.)
Society has shifted back - we are all newly arrived immigrants to these expensive shores now. Young adults used to live with their parents - to build up savings to buy a house - wait until they got married and start out with money in the bank, etc.
The American dream is still there, like immigrant families of old, it will take decades to achieve independence in this strange new world.
Modern women don’t want to live with their parents because they are still treated like children at home. Sons who live at home don’t have to put up with the nagging and the (!!) setting of curfews that some parents impose of their educated, adult, working daughters.
My great grandmother and her first husband lived in the house she was born in until both her parents passed. By that time she had 3 kids. When her first husband ran off during the depression she got remarried and sold the house and moved to this part of the state where my great grandfather already owned a house.
Thats probably a safe bet. I have an aunt and uncle who had just retired very comfortably with two good pensions, when their oldest daughter got divorced and moved back in with her two kids (and remains unemployed after two years). Then their middle daughter lost her $60,000 a year job and is currently living on unemployment, with mom and dad making the better part of her mortgage payment for her so she doesn't lose her house. Now the youngest daughter and her husband couldn't find any work after college and have moved back in as well. So my aunt and uncle who had saved up and planned to spend their golden years traveling are now barely scrapping by with two kids (and two grandkids) under their roof and paying the mortgage of the third. They have even started thinking about going back to work part time to supplement their pensions.
The persistent occupant may be responsible and contributing, but not making personal progress. Other than saving money, there’s not much room for progress.
One exception I’d make: using the opportunity to buy/build real estate. Save enough money for cash payment for cheap/odd land upon which an inexpensive home may be built (search “tiny houses”).
So long as active forward progress is occurring, fine. Too easy to just tread water. Too easy for Miss/Mr. Right to be unimpressed and move on.
I think it can be mutually helpful. My ne’er-do-well brother-in-law now lives with my mother-in-law. He is a college graduate who was out of work for a year and is now underemployed as a produce clerk in a supermarket. But he is a great “house-husband” for my MIL. He has fixed up a lot of things around the house, is always respectful, does most of the cooking, and adores his mom’s really spoiled cockatiel. I thought he was going to be just a mooch, but he is good company for Mom, and now we don’t have to worry that no one will be there if she falls or gets ill.
Is my BIL as productive as my husband? No. Did he successfully get married and have kids and build a life for himself? No, and that’s not great for him. In many ways, his is a case of arrested development. But as to whether the two generations can live happily together as adults? These two people do.
I lived at home during my college years - commuting into New York City. I didn’t leave home until I got my first decent job - I was about 22. Had to go through years of miserable roommates and bad apartments but it made me grow up...and grow up conservative.
Your story is so interesting! A brother-in-law who isn’t perfect but has found a place in the world for himself.
I have a friend who is a landscape painter and makes a living doing handywork for all the elderly widows in his town. They love him and he’s very honest and helpful. He would have loved to have been a famous artist but it just didn’t happen.
Pathetic. That’s what it is. Pathetic. If my kid wanted to live with me at the age of 30 I’d have kicked his ass out and disowned him!
That’s true.
Neither was my Mother’s family. However, when situations deteriorate to the point where steps (legal and otherwise) have to be taken, you see how fast “families” turn into packs of animals.
Just talking from experience; do what you want.
In this economy people will likely have to double up. Some of the parents can’t make it, or the kids can’t make it- or both so in that case it makes sense. If done right it works for everyone. This is different than grown children that live off the parents because they are not responsible, don’t want to grow up- that is just wrong.
Some people are doubling up with friends instead of family. My oldest daughter and a friend of hers rented a really nice house and it is cheaper for them than it was each having their own apartment.
Watching the Hatfields and McCoys over the last few days and was struck by how similar some things were to the way I grew up. My extended family made up a pretty fair percentage of my hometown. I lived less than two blocks from my grand mother and great grandmother and had all kinds of aunts uncles and cousins around all the time.
We’ve got a monster of an eldercare cost crisis looming and moving back to extended families is probably a great way to lower costs and increase sense of purpose while decreasing loneliness for people in their latter years.
I wonder if her first husband went out to get the proverbial “bottle of milk” or “pack of cigarettes.” My family suffered pretty badly during the depression - and they all shacked up in one house in Queens.
The first husband tried to put my great grandmother and kids on a train to Chicago. She told him that he could come home with her or get on the train himself but she was going home. He got on the train and she never saw him again.
Funny thing was, they did find him back in the 80s, living less than 50 miles away in Traverse city.
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