1979 Dependent adult children

Hey CJ, I'm with you on that...the idea of any person being that dependent on me is horrifying. The next time some stupid breeder asks me "Who'll take care of you when you're old?," I'm going to mention the possibility that they'll have to care for their kids their whole lives, instead of just to early adulthood.

This is one reason why I don't want to have kids. It's not a guarantee that a kid would be born healthy! I feel sorry for these folks who have mentally and physically challenged kids and have to go through hell to raise them and be there 24/7 until they are way beyond adult-hood and never have a life. I also read once that the divorce rate is super high for couples that happen to have these types of kids. There's a lady at work who has an adult daughter who is in a wheelchair and is a vegetable. She can't even talk. She happened to aquire some disease as a kid that caused her to stop functioning (i.e talking, wlaking, etc.) The poor lady had to take 2 or 3 months off this year to stay at home and help out with the care giver when her daughter broke her arm! Luckally, she was able to work from home and still get paid, since she's a translator. The worse is when these babies seem healthy and a few years down the road they acquire these incurable diseases that make them autistic or non-functioning!This is one good reason to thell these damn breeders that you don't want to risk getting a sick baby. This is even a better reason for those who are approaching say 35. you can say that you have reached the high-risk age-group and don't want to take the chance. At least in DH's breeder family, 30 is already considered to be old! DH's damn breeder family members almost all had their children by 30, so for me at 33 I'm an old one!!!

Its not just adult kids (kidults) with special needs that might need caring for... How about the ones in their 20s and 30s still mooching off mum and dad? They dont even want to move out of home! lol...

sometimes the young adults cant go anywhere else, the price of housing lack of jobs in the area they live, and if they move all the money will be spent on the house, rather than anything else..

i know how it is in the UK, the average house price is about £100,000 - £120,000

a lot of young adults want to get out but cant for one reason or another.

but i agree there are people who dont contribute.

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

I have 2 friends (brothers) who are in their late 30s and early 40s. They both live at home with their mom. Both have college degrees, and one even has an MBA. Neither one of them has ever worked a day in his life.

The older one has mental problems (schizophrenia), but I have no idea what the younger MBA brother's problem is.

Who will take care of you when you're old? It's more like, who will take care of you AND your adult dependent children when you're old?

I have a high-functioning retarded cousin, 42, who lives at home with my aunt and uncle. The whole situation has caused so many problems in my aunt and uncle's marriage, their social life and every other aspect of their life you can think of. I am so glad that will never be my hell.

I feel for the poor old lady in the OP. She gave birth to her retarded son back in the days when That Is What Women Did. Also, there was no such things as amniocentesis, sonagrams, and abortion wasn't legal. It's also obvious that she never had the resources to put him in a special home or anything. I wonder what will happen to him when his mother passes away.

However, I have NO sympathy for today's breeders, who will often KNOWINGLY give birth to severely disabled children, and then moo and low about how haaaaaaard it is, begging the gub'mint for money to help care for them. Sorry, but there is little excuse for this now. Many of these problems can be detected in the womb, when it's still possible to abort. Many of these breeders have congenital illnesses yet still choose to breed. And, as someone pointed out about, older breeders run a higher risk of Down's babies and other problems. Yet they breed anyway!

I do realize that sometimes a baby can turn out fucked up, even after passing all of the in-utero tests in the world. But it just seems to me that too many of these kids are born to breeders who know about the problems ahead of time. I can only feel sorry for the kids who were forced to be born into fucked-up lives.

As for these *kidults*, the 20-30-somethings who still live with their parents...I agree with Merc in that in some areas, housing costs are insane...they certainly are here in the Boston area. As long as they are working and contributing to the household, and not lying around sponging, I don't see a problem.

When it comes to these able-bodied, fully-functional adults, it is up to the parents to lay down the law. Sometimes they just have to show some tough love and boot their lazy asses out if they won't work and contribute. That is the only way they will ever learn.

It must be terrible to have to worry about who will take care of your kids when you're gone. But then again, i guess that's a chance you take when you decide to have children; you may not get a 'perfect' child. When my sister was pregnant, she did a course on taking care of special-needs children. She wanted to be prepared just in case. Luckily, everything went fine for her and the baby. But a lot of people don't even consider the possibility - surely that would be a sensible and mature thing to do when you're planning kids.
As to the kidults who stay at home, and stay.... and stay.... and stay.... that drives me crazy! Sure, go back home for a while if you've finished college and are looking for work. Or if you've been laid off from your job and are really stuck for cash while you search for another. But we all know people who stay with parents even in their 30s and 40s. My brother-in-law moved back in with his mom when his dad died. He's openly admitted that he's waiting for her to die so he can get his hands on the house; he figures he's 'entitled' to it.

Do these people live in the Cosby show???? Moving back home time and time again, bringing spouses and kids along for laughs?

At least it was kind of funny when it was bill cosby..... 'These children will never leave!'

sometimes the young adults cant go anywhere else, the price of housing lack of jobs in the area they live, and if they move all the money will be spent on the house, rather than anything else..

Exactly. I'd LOVE to have a job and move out of my mom's house, loveloveLOVE. But I've been out of college a year and a half and have found exactly TWO jobs: both part-time, neither paying more than $7 an hour (one of them is the current one, at a cafe, which I only got because I know the owner, and that's only 10 hours a week). It's ridiculously impossible to get jobs when you haven't been working for years and don't have the 2-3 years of experience they want, because with the economy the way it is (esp. MI, which has really high unemployment), there will ALWAYS be someone applying for any job I apply for that has more experience and who will be chosen over me for that reason. I'm applying at places like Barnes and Noble and Bed Bath and Beyond and often still being rejected, it's ridiculous. I would've skipped the four years of college/almost $20 grand in debt and just started working at those places right out of high school had I known it would end up like this. Unfortunately, in high school they brainwash you that you'll never get a job if you don't go to college, that you'll go to college and get out and have this great job...and it's totally not true. There is some magical formula to getting a job that I haven't figured out yet: some people I know my age have jobs, good jobs; others like me can't get one to save their lives. Yet all of us are pretty much the same: smart, did well in school, don't have bad resumes, don't interview badly, don't have criminal records or anything like that, etc. Go figure.

And of course, some of us are also helping out our parents; my mom lost her job almost a year ago and is on disability but it doesn't cover the bills; I'm frankly not sure I'll ever be able to move out because she might always need my income.

I just wanted to say that I totally feel your pain. I am in the exact same boat. I also graduated 1.5 years ago, and cannot get a decent job for the life of me. I've had a few jobs since graduation, either the dead end type, or the abusive boss type, both part time. I have been searching for that elusive "normal" job with no luck. Same story, the interviews are fine, but I never get a call back.

I feel like a bum and have to tell people I have a normal job. Everyone who is employed thinks its just so easy to get a job. And yes, I also have to contribute to the household.


Hopefully soon we will both become normal working adults.

i resorted to doing volunteer job, in order to help my job prospects, a local old persons charity. but it didnt work, they saw he was doing good work, and so didnt want to stop me..

this is england btw, where i live the unemployment rate is 6%, want to run our own business but you need money, but you cant get money, want to move out, but you need money.. i am stuck

*********************************************************************************************************************************
I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

After I moved into this complex in the Summer of 1995, I had neighbours for three years with a disabled adult child. R**dy ended up in a wheel chair and had brain damage after a motorcycle accident many years before. It was hard on his parents who took care of him so he would not be insitutionalized. The constant care took it's toll on Au***y and J**n. The lady passed on first. The man had to hire out for care for the son. The gentleman's health declined and both he & the son went into a nursing home. I heard the father did die. I often wonder what happened to the son. The H*v*ls were good neighbours and always very kind to me.

It is not only the disabled that are dependent on their parents as adults. Many able-bodied adults are also depending on their parents. Those are more common than sick adult kids. The neighbours I mentioned had an adult daughter who had a live-in boyfriend for years who was a worthless piece of sh*t. The couple lived in the dad's apartment after the mom passed away. They were lazy and never wanted to help with the brother. The two ended up getting their own apartment on property but J**n had to pay the rent a couple of times so they would not be put out.

Another instance of able-bodied adult kids is this former friend who started to bug me about being childfree with the claims of how he "worried" about me because of the TM statement of, "Who will take care of you when you get old?" I am so over this question and blasted another ex-friend for telling me that she wished I would change my mind and have a baybee. Please...

I was in no mood for Ri***rd so I shot back how he and his wife better be prepared for old age since NONE of their adult kids took care of themselves. One couple lived at home with their two sprogs. The daughter did not work...claimed she could work due to migraines but had no problem being a professional student at UCF (University of Central Florida). The son and his wife got Daddio Ri***rd to co-sign for a car...but my former friend often got his checking account dinged when the little @ss did not make the car payments. I told "R" to worry about himself because he needed more concern of his old age than I needed about mine. Needless to say, we no longer speak.