Smothering articles: spawning again and postpartum rage

I'll join the rest of you codgers. I moved out at 23, drove old cars, brought a peanut butter sandwich to work every day, and had roommates. It never occurred to me to stay with my parents forever. I had to move back for a few months at age 25, but I got a job, a better car, and an apartment and never looked back.

My nephew is 28 and finally moved out of his grandparents' basement. He complained that "people were razzing him" about living with Mee Maw and Paw Paw at nearly 30. BTW, he makes more than I do.

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My estimation is that by in large, today's kydz couldn't fathom the thought of living like that. No iPhone? No data plan? No 200+ channels on TV? And paying for your own car? With your own low-wage job???

Good heavens! Do you want the poor darlings to live in poverty? Sure, we had a mattress on the floor and a bean bag chair, and if you were lucky, your folks would let you take the card table and an ancient black and white TV, but you can't expect today's younguns to suffer like that.

Those bean bag, milk crate years were the best of my life. The feeling of newfound freedom. I found out that is true for a lot of people, it just gets more complicated after that.

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blondie
Those bean bag, milk crate years were the best of my life. The feeling of newfound freedom. I found out that is true for a lot of people, it just gets more complicated after that.

Fer sure. I was having a blast. Nothing too dangerous, I didn't want to make an ignorant mistake like my sisters and end up with a kid, but that feeling of having to answer to no one but myself? Bliss.

Yeah, and after that I did the marriage, mortgage thang. Looking back, I wouldn't have placed such an importance on it. I've spent the last 5 years slowly shedding a lot of the crap that seemed so necessary to acquire. We were proud that we could get rid of the folding chairs and card table we ate from and buy a real dining room table. Dh and I could have quit working a lonnng time ago if not for the material nonsense, but it seemed right to buy it at the time.

I will join you oldsters in discussing my life of early independence.

I grew up in a household of immature neglectful alcoholics, so, as a child, I was the mature planner and responsible person in the household.
From an early age (about 6-12 years old), I made sure bills were paid, and did most of the household care, as well as childcare for my younger brother.
Due to the neglect, I was constantly guessing about the right thing to do for any of the above.


After years of that reality in my youngest years, from age 12 and onward, I started various streams of income and was expected to cover all of the cost for my own food, school items and clothing.
That morphed into covering some of those costs for my younger brother as well.
My burden for household responsibilities increased substantially as each year passed.

At age 15, it was announced by my alcoholic irresponsible and abusive parents that legally a child could leave home at age 16, so that I would be kicked out on my upcoming 16th birthday.
( I was a quiet responsible person who caused no trouble and did well in the community and school)
I had to beg to stay in their home to finish high school until age 17.
This was allowed if I covered every single cost attributed to me, so that all they had to provide was a room in their home and that I also agreed to leave immediately as soon as high school ended.

Due to all of these costs, it was a really tough time for me to enter college.
I had zero savings, due to covering all my living costs myself for about 5 years previous.
I moved to the nearest city and had to take full loans and work several jobs to cover all school and living costs.

Throughout the next decade, I alternated between 1-2 semesters at school and 1-2 semesters working several jobs.
It was typical to have one semester with full time college and part-time job(s) and then the next semester, I would quit school and work several jobs to cover about 60-90 hours per week of employment, so that I could cover living costs and afford school again soon.
Rinse. Repeat. Rinse repeat.

For that first decade, I owned virtually nothing in terms of clothes or household items.
When I moved, I could carry everything in a couple of bags and often walked a single or double trip to move all of my possessions to the newest home.
I frequently had to walk 5-10 miles (7-15 km) round trip because I could not afford any transportation.
My housing choices were always based on poverty and the ability to walk to school / jobs quickly so I could work more to cover current and future bills.

My early life was extremely difficult, and I do not think it was a great path for anyone.
It did create a sense of resilience, adaptability and the willingness to work hard to stay on my own.

When I hear of some of today's kids staying at their parents' home for decades as adults and not contributing to the family household in any way- it seems very wrong in the totally opposite sense to what I experienced.

Many of today's kids seem very spoiled to me.
I don't think it does those kids any favours to have everything handed to them on a platter by their parents.

Yeah, my moo was deranged so I left at 18 and moved into a shitty, ugly basement suite in the East side of the city with my BFF. As soon as I did, my moo moved into a one bedroom apartment so I couldn't move back in with her. I didn't care, because there was no way in HELL I was ever going to live with her again.

I ate potatoes and rice for the majority of my youth, but I'm glad that I left when I did. Living with her was horrible. It was so stressful that I had to drop out of high school, but I later went back and got my GED. Shortly after that, I was diagnosed with having a mental illness.

Looking back at things, I wouldn't have done it any differently. I am glad that I left when I did, and that I moved in with my friend who was a total slob, but she was a good roommate otherwise. We were kinda like the Odd Couple in a way, when I look back at it. I didn't live with her too long before I moved in with my boyfriend in another part of town.

Ah, youth. Since then, many mistakes were made, but at least I didn't wind up inpig and single. That would have been a hell of a thing to do to myself, and I had brains enough to know it.

I have no sympathy for either parent in that Salon article. They could both feel their relationship slipping away, but they STILL kept breeding. Were they THAT afraid of stopping? And I want to slap both of them re: the pregnancy that resulted in twins. He was okay with more "in theory", but didn't want to do any of the work. Sounds pretty not-okay if you ask me. And she was all right with having more children with someone who'd already washed his hands of them? Ugh. What a mess.

She says that children/parenthood ruined their marriage. Nope. The stupid decisions made by the adults in the marriage are what ruined it. They ruined it all on their own.

As for independence...I was itching for it in my late teens, and I really loved my parents. One of the smartest things they did in raising me was NOT giving me what I wanted. Want a dog? Want a cool car? Want to stay out late and not report to anyone? Get your own place and make all that happen. I wound up getting cats instead of dogs, and couldn't afford a "cool" car...but I LOVED those early "bean bag chair and milk crate" years! I relished having my own place and furnishing it from the ground up with what I could afford.

I was raised that the mark of adulthood was not marriage or breeding, but self-sufficiency. Education was highly stressed, as was the idea that we were expected to be attending college or working full-time after high school. Living at home was an option until possibly 21 but only if we followed their rules and cleaned up after ourselves. My parents did not want roommates in their later years or permanent dependents. For them parenthood was a phase in life and the natural progression was the empty nest. Barring a horrible emergency, we were expected to be gone and fully self supporting with no plans to boomerang after 22. Marriage or breeding was not to be attempted until you had lived on your own for several years.
There are a very limited number of people I would allow to stay in my home temporarily, but in order to do so, I would have specific rules that would be put in writing and signed before moving. It isn't because I want to be a bitch, but I also refuse to assume the parenting role for other adults. Also, I saw enough friends have roommate arguments in my 20s that I just feel like having everything on paper is best. Obviously, I'm not talking about having this sort of expectation for a long term romantic partner. Cohabitation is whole different ballgame than having a roommate.

I get that not everybody grows up with utter assholes like I did, but I still can't imagine desiring to stay with parents any longer than utterly necessary.

After never ever even hinting such a thing was possibly coming, at any time in my entire childhood leading up to that point, my mother sat me down and demanded rent money and disinherited me in one speech.
I was already saving to GTFO, because I didn't want to be there any more than they wanted me there.

We grew up very poor, sort of, and if that had still been the financial case, I would have understood chipping in.
But! We received the house through a will, and my dad made $70k in the early 90s. I KNEW how little they had in expenses, and how much they denied me. I was not a greedy little shit, I just wanted clothes without holes and permanent stains, asking so much, I know.eyes2 Maybe a real bed, some pillows that weren't as old and flat as my parents marriage, conditioner for my afro frizzy curls.
If only they hadn't given more than 10% gross to their fucking church, they could have provided adequately all throughout my childhood. No way! Strange old men in suits deserved so much more than I did.

So yeah, I didn't want to be there, my mom hated me and projected her greed onto me and wanted me gone.
I obliged, and lived in my car because I didn't have enough for all the security needed to get an apartment as an 18 year old.

I guess parents today are much nicer to their little demons. I wish I had known I could "call CPS" on those jackasses... Probably wouldn't have gotten me anywhere in the 80s though, they knew enough not to leave marks..

It's none of my business if breeders and adult brats want to live together until the children are 50. I just don't want to hear any whining from either party about it. In some cultures, they don't really see the point in a separate dwelling for unmarried adult children. You get married, then you move. Right or wrong, that is how they see it.

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"I have found little that is 'good' about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all."
~Sigmund Freud

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peace-n-quiet
It's none of my business if breeders and adult brats want to live together until the children are 50. I just don't want to hear any whining from either party about it. In some cultures, they don't really see the point in a separate dwelling for unmarried adult children. You get married, then you move. Right or wrong, that is how they see it.

You're correct, some cultures are like that, but modern American culture is not. Still, I'm with you in that I don't care who lives where or in what arrangement.

I think living with your parents at age 30+ minus extreme circumstances is a little odd, but whatever floats your boat.

What I can say is that this sort of living arrangement gives me yet one more reason I am glad to be childfree! wink

It is one thing for adults as a group to choose to live together as roommates. I find it odd for people to want to stay with their parents but if the parents treat it as a business arrangement, not an obligation and the adult children are staying because every one has chosen this arrangement and they are paying their full share of rent, doing their own chores and leading adult lives I can see it making sense for people. And it isn't any of my business. Like Bell said above, when it gets annoying is when people can't or won't move, the parent won't kick them out, but all parties bitch all the time.
For instance, I have a distant relative, A. She can't afford or maintain her current home but won't sell it because her adult spawn, B and C still live there rent and chore free. She complains about this to anyone who will listen but takes no action. B meanwhile, uses the house as a crash pad, coming and going at all hours, staying gone for days and then popping up with a loser friend in tow. If A has invited people over, B will complain about her guest not having a place to sleep and will invite these unannounced losers to stay for a week or more, and complain when everyone else wants them gone. C is a breeder who thinks it everyone else's job to mind her brats while she bar hops, hooks up and gets her extremely expensive body art done. She also pays no rent and will dump her kids without warning on whoever is there. Then she complains no one treats her like an adult.
We used to be expected to visit during the holidays but I finally told my husband I was done and until they helped themselves, I wasn't going to their house to play Dr. Phil or a nanny. As far as I know, they are still wallowing in their own muck. Other than requests for money (hell no) we don't hear from them.

They sound like my parents, Pesto. My father made the equivalent of 110K in today's money, but I went to school in the 5th grade in the same clothes I'd been wearing since the 2nd grade. Those dresses barely covered my crotch. Kids refused to believe that I lived in my neighborhood, and my teacher thought we were on welfare, and offered to speak to my case worker and take me shopping. She also took it upon herself to do a clothes drive with the mothers of my classmates. Yes, that was extremely humiliating. We lived in a nice neighborhood and the kids weren't allowed to play with us because the parents assumed we were shack trash by the way we were dressed.

My father wrote a generous check to his alma mater every year, but never put aside a dime for our educations. He was also very active in the church and generously took the youth group to the circus every year. He never took us to the circus. The youth group cost a whopping three dollars a week so we "couldn't afford to join it". But he could afford to go golfing at least twice a week and buy a new set of clubs every year.

Even worse, my dear mother wouldn't let the dentist give us novocaine "because it was too expensive". Yes, you heard me right. I'd sit there in the dentist chair at age 6,7,8,9,10 while the hygienisist held me down and the dentist drilled into my teeth without any painkiller. Then my mother would scold me for crying. She was furious when as a teenager, the dentist (a different one) offered novocaine and I said yes. I wish I were making this up.

Back in those days no one would have believed me or cared. I was often told I was so lucky that my parent's didn't spank me. Believe me, I'd have rather have had bruises than emotional abuse.

Don't tell me that breeding makes you a better person.