Still living with your parents at 30? Get a life!

Here's another article on helicopter parenting and entitled, enfeebled children: Still living with your parents at 30? Get a life!

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They can't get on to the property ladder?" Boo-hoo. Most young people in previous "luckier" generations weren't anywhere near the property ladder. "The cost of living… blah, blah." Again, so what? When are young people going to realise that roughing it and feeling permanently broke when you're starting out has always been with us. It's not some ghastly new concept exclusively devised to torture the youth of 2012.

More specifically, why aren't their parents refusing to house them for a period of, say, nine months, but no longer? Why aren't parents clammy with fear that, without the priceless hurly-burly of cash-strapped independence, their children will turn into cosseted, emotionally stunted freaks? Their hopes of attracting a partner will wane with each second they live at home. In my day, this was up there with halitosis, syphilis and alphabeticised music collections as a dating no-no.

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Bar exceptional circumstances, this level of over-parenting is approaching child abuse. While it is one thing to help adult children through a short-term crisis (catastrophe, debt, relationship breakdown), surely the endgame is their successful autonomy. For most people, independence is the magic ticket to self-reliance, self-esteem and the future. Take it away and what's left? A place in their parents' life? That gilded cage, that domestic prison. It simply isn't enough.

I admit that I still live at home at 20, but I do live in a rural area where jobs are scarce. Yeah, I definitely agree that breeders today help their damn overgrown children way too much without realizing that kids need to learn independence. Why should parents feel obligated to pay for bratleigh's college, car, and housing at 30?

I'm a homebody too, and I'm kinda in the same boat as kellic. Hick town, no jobs, jobs that are here won't take you unless you've got a decade of experience, rent is higher than it is in some cities. Believe me, I am not here by choice. I'm not that much of a masochist. I don't mind being broke - I'm already fucking broke. As mentioned in another topic, in my case, there's a lot of oil/gas drilling going on here and everyone is renting rooms at obscene prices because they want to rent to these drilling crews. If you can't afford $900 a month for a one-bedroom on your piddly retail income, then you can go fuck yourself. Shit you not, some dick fart was renting out their log cabin with no electricity or running water and an outhouse for $1000 a month. That's how nuts people here are.

But my mother, much like other helicopter parents, just refuse to let their kids fall on their ass now and then and learn from their mistakes. Rather than establish work ethic and independence so their kids can stand on their own two feet, these parents will just do everything for their kids and give them everything. They may even discourage them from working, having social lives, making friends, or doing anything with their lives because they just want to take care of helpless baby-dults forever.

Now, what happens when the parents of these kids get senile and need to go into a nursing home, or they die? These grown men and women who have been living rent-free in their parents' homes will be floundering around like a fish out of water when the rug is pulled out from under them and they will have no fucking clue how to do anything. Some people don't know how to do their own laundry or cook their own meals because they have Mommy do it for them.

Granted, yes, some people are still living at Chez Mommy because they're lazy assholes who are perfectly content to sit on their asses for 18 hours a day playing XBox. But some people - like myself - may very much want to get out, but it's not as easy as 1-2-3, go out and pick up a job like a quart of milk. Living on your own without debts is hard enough, but considering most people in their late twenties and thirties have student debts, that can make being independent a lot fucking harder. How can you afford an apartment (even a shitty one), food, transportation, utilities, other bills AND $1000 a month in loan repayments when you make $600 a month?

Part of me thinks the author of this piece might possibly not realize that everyone who is still stuck at home is not just a moocher. She sounds like she's preaching about shit she has never experienced, like how a thin person with great metabolism will tell a fat person to lose weight like it's the easiest thing in the world. Maybe she has lived in a few dumpy places, but has she also had to deal with trying to find a job in a shitty economy, assloads of student debt and lenders who won't budge, high costs of living, employers who will hire your ass for 39.5 hours a week to avoid giving you benefits, and all the other issues people now deal with? I'm not trying to vote in favor of being a 35-year-old homebody, but this woman sounds a bit ignorant and seems to think everyone who is still living at home is just a child with no life.

I openly admit I lived with my parents for about a year and a half after I finished college. I was looking for work, and in my profession there's a big hiring sweep at certain times of year, and just about nothing in between. So I came up goose eggs the first hiring season, and lived with mom n dad for a bit.

BUT...during that time I was working at a job, saving $$ for my own place, and paying for gas and groceries. I helped around the house, did my own laundry, mowed the grass, and generally acted like a self-reliant person. My parents knew I was headed somewhere in life, and told me they didn't feel I was taking advantage of them in any way. I was very conscientious of this, and while I did go out with friends, stay out late, and do things people usually do at 21 or 22, I was respectful and considerate of the fact that it was THEIR house. I may have grown up there, but I felt that I was on borrowed time.

When the next hiring sweep came along, I jumped into job interviews and such more aggressively, and I was MUCH more willing to relocate. Bingo, I landed a job in my field, just several states away. Which is what you DO when you're young and just establishing your career: you move to where the jobs are, because you probably don't have that much stuff to move with you. It worked fine. Being flexible and willing to move to other areas is important. You don't have to live your entire life in whatever town where you get that first job...you can live anywhere for a year or two.

I reside with my parents as well. I made stupid financial decisions when younger and am eradicating them as we speak. My parents are also seniors, and frankly I would not feel comfortable leaving them alone. I am afraid I would not hear from them for several days, go check out the house and find they starved to death while doing an in depth search for the FIOS remote...

I lived with mine until after college because it took me a long time to get a job. I also admit 5 years later, I ended up moving back in with them. I went through cancer treatments, job problems, and a near breakdown from things that I had never dealt with in my past finally coming to the surface made it hard for me to work at one point. I eventually moved out again and haven't been back in 16 years.

Not everyone living at home as a total loser like the author of the article and some in this thread would have everyone believe.

JD

Extenuating circumstances aside, I got the impression that these people were more like "Failure to Launch" where the 30-something kids all had good jobs but lived with mommy and daddy because no one thought to kick them out of the nest.

Those are losers of the highest order. The early 20s for most of us included shitty apartments and multiple roommates. Late 20s may have been one roommate in a less shitty apartment and by your 30s you may be able to afford something nice. A roommate may be optional. I just got on the mortgage ladder and am closer to 50 than 40.

Now I know people my age at home again, but there were extenuating circumstances: ill parents, job loss, divorce with massive debt and foreclosure. Those would be exceptions. OTOH if you idolize Matthey McConaughey in “Failure to Launch” you are a dating dealbreaker.

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From a bottle cap message on a Magic Hat #9 beer: Condoms Prevent Minivans
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I want to pick up a bus full of unruly kids and feed them gummi bears and crack, then turn them loose in Hobby Lobby to ransack the place. They will all be wearing T shirts that say "You Could Have Prevented This."

The younger teachers who work in my school have such huge college loans to pay off that they either have roommates or they work second jobs. All three have told me that there is no way they could afford to live on their own without this supplemental income. One has a roommate, one bar tends every weekend, and the third coaches.

How nice of this dame to judge us if we aren't living in big McMansions with two SUVs, a whole Brady-sized family, a giant menagerie of pets, and a busy, busy, busy schedule of 9 to 5 jobs and overtime, driving kids around to soccer and music lessons, running endless errands/chores, going to the church, AND doing volunteer work around the town BEFORE we even see our 30th birthday. eyes2

I think the author is too unkind toward people who have legitimate reasons for staying with their parents, but she is touching on a point about kids who don't even have a desire to get out because their parents make life so easy and comfortable they are never inspired to start on their own life, away from their parents.

You know with the economy the way it is... there are A LOT of people having to move back in with their parents. I am fortunate enough to where I don't have to. I am in agreement that this woman doesn't know what it is like to have a hard time. So she really shouldn't even comment on it.

However, if you are a failure to launch.... then that is a whole other story. I wouldn't date a man like that. I wouldn't want to be a person who does that either. The whole reason why I have had roommates, lived in crappy apartments, worked multiple jobs (that I really hated), ate the cheapest food, and didn't have cable (or any other luxuries for that matter) was because I wanted to avoid having to go back to my parents.

Hell in my first apartment, I had a bed and a television. That was it. My "dresser" was a big rubbermaid container. I had a shitty cellphone. I didn't have internet or a computer. I would go to the library or a friend's house to use a computer.

Ofcourse slowly but surely (after many jobs), I was able to get furniture. A couple years ago I signed up for cheap internet. I was able to acquire more things. I was able to afford better food. I had upgraded to a nicer apartment in a better area.

If I wasn't fortunate to have met my boyfriend around the time I was starting out... I might've had to move back in with my parents last fall. We have been together for five years. Last fall, I lost my job. I couldn't afford the rent for my apartment anymore. Luckily, we decided it was about time to move in together anyway. Shortly after, I got hired at my current job. Things are much better.

Also, what this woman hasn't taken into consideration that there are cultural reasons to why someone still lives at home. I have a few Hispanic friends who have always lived at home. The older kids didn't leave until they got married. That is just one of many examples.

What happened to people minding their own business?

Basically, the living arrangement is between the breeder and grown brat--no one else (as long as no one is getting hurt or taken advantage of).

And yes, jessikitty, living at home is the thing in certain cultures. If you are not married and/or raising crotchfruit, a lot of hispanics, East Indians etc. do not see the point in setting up your own household. They see it is a waste because two or more people can live together more cheaply than one lone ranger. Instead of maintaining several households, maintain one. I can understand this to a certain extent if you are staying in the same city/area.

Me personally, I have too much on my own plate to worry about what other folks are doing. If the Lifescripters want to follow the Lifescript, then fine. But why do they insist on bothering other people with their drivel?

Yes, in many cultures the extended family stays together.

Boot the kids out at a 'certain age' - because that's the Western Way - and then wonder WHY - they don't want your old ass coming to *live with them* in the future.

Capitalism is behind these ideas - get them to move out - this drives RE and construction industries.

And the Elderly wonder why they get shoved into 'old folks homes' instead of being invited into their children's homes?

Well, it's the entirety of Western culture, based off of consumerism, that promotes these ideas.

Meh.

For all my parents' faults, they always took people in. My dad cared more about other people's kids than his own, that is a discussion for another time, though.

I grew up used to living with people in addition to my parents. I lived with my parents for a time after age 18, even though since high school, I've always had a job. I learned to do my own laundry at age 10, I did a bunch of the household chores, and even did the cooking. I didn't have the kind of parents who would have mollycoddled me and allowed me to sit in the basement all night, being a slacker, washing my undies and bringing me Hot Pockets on a plate.

If I werent married, I would even consider living with my mom again if it were going to be financially sound decision for both of us. Right after my dad left my mother, my husband and I had to live with mom to help her with the mortgage and the household bills.

The way I look at it is, if spoiled ass kid grows up to be useless adult who does nothing, I don't care. If they are not living off the "dole", so be it. It is not my business if Mommy still changes their bedsheets.

I'm almost 21 and live with my mom. My BF moved in with us as well because his mom is a psycho. We're here because it benefits us all. My mom lost her job and though she has a new one now she's not doing well financially. We pay some of the bills and all do household stuff. Its more like a roommate situation. We did move out for a while but the people we moved in with we didn't get along and we had to come back. We havn't moved out again because my crappy job I have no money left after paying for my car and health insurance so I wouldn't be able to contribute to rent or anything. We're trying to save up to get a house though.