What is wrong with adult children living at home?

[red92s]

As a current 20-something, I'll raise my hand and admit I moved back in with my parents.

I had been out of school, working a salaried job with a fortune 500 company for 30 months when I was laid off in 2009. I moved back home, since that is where I wanted to focus my employment search. Lived in the same bedroom I did growing up for about 6 months. Within a month of landing a new job, I was into a new apartment. They never accepted any compensation, other than dog walking and cleaning. It allowed me to essentially bank all of my unemployment income, in the event things ever got really bad. I Came out of unemployment with double the savings that I went into it with, and am actually much closer to my parents than I would have been otherwise.

I was 26 at the time, so maybe being a bit more mature and not fresh-outta-school made my experience different.

[Nika]

I think that basically, as long as you are living at home you are a child, not really an adult. Even if you have good income and contribute to the household. There is something different about the expectations and attitude of a late twenty something who has never been on their own. Their expectations of life, capacity to solve problems, their expectations of their spouse, of standard of living, etc..
(I think that is where guys who expect their wife to take care of them as if she was their mother come from.)

In normal life, groceries do not magically appear in the fridge just because you hand someone money at the end of the month, let alone cook themselves. It takes planning, time, thought, energy. Every aspect of independent life takes those things, from dealing with repairs to deciding what is a good place to live and what you can afford.

As hard as it is, our ultimate job as parents is to make sure that when our babies are grown they will do just fine on their own.

[nick__45]

We can't be good consumers if we stay at home. Think of all of missed opportunities for shops and industries because we don't need to buy an extra house, lawn mower, separate gym membership, and all the thing required when having our own place. If you think our retailers would allow us to save money, you are sadly mistaken. Therefore, retailers educate consumers via television shows, radio, and other forms of media that it is not cool to stay at home.

Here are certain things people can save on by staying at home:

1) One mortgage or rent. They are paying themselves instead of banks and landlords.
2) One set of washer and dryer. One set of appliances such as stove, microwave, dishwasher, etc.
3) One set of furniture. Maybe one extra TV and it will be a much nicer one.
4) One lawn service. One garbage disposal service. One ADT service.
5) Only one spare vehicle is needed. For a family of 3, that would be 4 vehicles instead of 5; 3 for the parents and 2 for the adult child.

It gets even better when the adult child get married. The cost stay roughly the same. Ok, maybe an extra vehicle or TV and a nicer set of outdoor furniture and a swing set for the grandchildren. Can you imagine if there are 2 adult children instead of one. Our economy will tank initially as retailers can't rely on commercial to be a big part of the product cost. I am sure everyone will adjust and celebrities, sport stars, and politicians will have to take big salary cut since real meaningful job holders get to keep more of their money.

My children will get to stay with me until adulthood or whenever they feel like it. I can't stay in 6 bedrooms and use 4 bathrooms at the same time but paying the taxes and utilities on them all so someone aught to use it.

[sagremus]

I know many people saw that living on your own helps you grow up. But is that a cultural belief versus reality (Western individualism versus Community)? There are a large population of foreign-born individuals where I live, and I know many of them are in multi-generational households. I am foreign-born myself but from a "Westernized" country.

[bdwilliams]

I left home at 17 and wasn't allowed to go back. At the time I resented my parents for it, but looking back (at 30) I'm glad they stuck to their guns. I learned self reliance early on and that has given me a tremendous leg up in life.

[josetann]

I think, just do whatever works for you. If everyone is benefiting from the situation, don't worry about what everyone else thinks about it.

My brother stayed at home for a while. I don't know exactly how much he contributed. But, I do know that my mom enjoyed having someone around. Now that we've both moved far away (him to another state, me to another hemisphere)...I think my mom wouldn't mind too much if one of us announced we wanted to move in with her (though logistically, it'd be a bit difficult for our family of four to move in with her).

Would it really be any different if we were talking about the parent(s) moving in with one of their kids? Hrm...that brings up another question...should the parent(s) be made to fork over most of their social security checks to help pay their fair share of the bills? An honest question; I think a child moving in with his/her parents should try to help out financially, but is it hypocritical to not expect the same of a parent moving in with his/her child?

[DayByDay]

Our adult child who rents/lives with us does his share of the cooking, grocery shopping, dish washing, and whatever else needs doing around the property. He does his own laundry. He does all that responsible adults do. He chooses not to share a rental with strangers and deal with the hassle that goes along with it just for the sake of saying he doesn't live at home.

I find it interesting that many adult children of our family and friends who had been living on their own have moved back with their parents for one reason or another. People do what is necessary to pay their bills, survive, and get ahead. I think the false belief that one should never live with their parents is as bad as the belief that everyone should own a home. People are willing to ruin themselves financially for the image of success.

We also have another child who left home at 18, moved out of state, got married, and has three children. To each his own. One way of life is not necessarily better than another.

[KingS]

I think living at home is a great way to save especially if you live in cities where rent is outrageously expensive. It is important to have a goal where you will be working toward financial independence and not plan to bum off your parents for as long as they are alive. Contribute to the household expenses if you can and be glad that you have this leverage that many people don't.

[Shaabenanizer]

Would it really be any different if we were talking about the parent(s) moving in with one of their kids? Hrm...that brings up another question...should the parent(s) be made to fork over most of their social security checks to help pay their fair share of the bills? An honest question; I think a child moving in with his/her parents should try to help out financially, but is it hypocritical to not expect the same of a parent moving in with his/her child?

I never asked my mom to pay rent and she never offered. In fact when I left I offered to continue paying rent on the house for 6 months while she decide what to do with her life. My friends were shocked that my mom accepted the free ride. The problem was me and Mom could never have a honest conversation because she's a master of 3 hours of non-answers. She was physically and fiscally healthy, but having driven away friends and family she latched on to me, her formally designated loser child now recast as the golden child. It was 6 years before I could extradite myself from her by moving away and refusing to take her with me. Couple years later she begrudgingly thanked me for letting her stay with me during the recession because she could keep her money in investments while leaching off of me.

[ecoadapt]

Personally,I don't find Adult living with their parents a bad thing. But it depends,as like you've said the family relationship between a person matters. If they have a smooth relationship this would be helpful.

So why is there such a push to get children out of the home in our society?

It's one way for the person to be independent which is a good character to be practice as early as you can.

[My Own Advisor]

I'll be a bit controversial....if you're an adult...you have your own place.

If you're an overgrown child, you live at home.

[SMSF101]

Adult living with his parents is not a problem as long as he gives share in all expenses. It will both benefit parents and sibling.

[heyaim]

I think the reason for the stigma is the part I bolded from your post. When most of us talk about adult "kids" who need to get out on their own, we're referring to the ones who aren't doing what you listed. They aren't supporting themselves. They aren't helping around the house. They aren't paying rent or buying groceries. They're mooching off their parents. It isn't good for the kids and it certainly isn't good for the parents.

I know numerous parents of older kids who feel trapped. They are spending money to support adult children that should be going toward retirement savings. They're also seeing their lifestyle dreams vanish. Maybe they wanted to travel more once the kids were grown. Maybe they had plans to move and downsize, or remodel their existing home. Whatever. They've seen their plans go down the tubes because they can't get their kids out of the house.

And the kids are eating it up. Many of them are working perfectly good jobs and enjoying nearly 100% disposable income because the parents are covering their expenses - no rent, no utilities, no groceries. They get to spend all of their money going out with friends, traveling, partying, etc.

I see all of that as very dysfunctional and unhealthy for everyone involved.

Now, if there is a very beneficial-for-all arrangement like you allude to, like an adult child moving back in to help aging parents both physically and financially, that's an entirely different story.

Oh my!! Have you been peaking through our windows? We are in the same situation...kind of. Our daughter is 19. She brings home $80 week (no taxes are taken out!!), won't find a decent job or even a 2nd job. Sits around the house all day/night (while we are working our butts off 50+ hours week...both of us). She doesn't go out and party or stay out all hours of the night. She is always home or at work.

Honestly, I have no problem with my daughter living with us for a while (she's not going to school)....IF she would take advantage of the situation along with helping out around the house! I want to see her work her butt off, bank as much money as she possibly can! She could be creating an awesome future financially. Yes, I talk to her about this often!

We've tried everything....talked, yelled, fight, ignore, pretend all is fine, discuss, having family meetings, make chore lists, envelope budgeting, budgets on computer and paper, etc., etc.

We can't get it through her thick skull how important it is to think about the future!

So yeah, I'm one of those parents ready to pull my hair out.

(I don't have time to read all responses...can't wait to go through all the replies)

[UnknownXV]

Oh my!! Have you been peaking through our windows? We are in the same situation...kind of. Our daughter is 19. She brings home $80 week (no taxes are taken out!!), won't find a decent job or even a 2nd job. Sits around the house all day/night (while we are working our butts off 50+ hours week...both of us). She doesn't go out and party or stay out all hours of the night. She is always home or at work.

Honestly, I have no problem with my daughter living with us for a while (she's not going to school)....IF she would take advantage of the situation along with helping out around the house! I want to see her work her butt off, bank as much money as she possibly can! She could be creating an awesome future financially. Yes, I talk to her about this often!

We've tried everything....talked, yelled, fight, ignore, pretend all is fine, discuss, having family meetings, make chore lists, envelope budgeting, budgets on computer and paper, etc., etc.

We can't get it through her thick skull how important it is to think about the future!

So yeah, I'm one of those parents ready to pull my hair out.

(I don't have time to read all responses...can't wait to go through all the replies)

It's about the money though, not working hard.

I guess I feel like people have that backwards. I also think a lot of people feel like they don't deserve to relax or enjoy life if they haven't grinded out a long hard day. I feel that's wasted, since you only live once. My goal is to live life in the least stressful way possible.

Of course, you do need to consider your financial future, and I said least stressful possible which to me includes the world of supporting yourself too.

[wifeytini]

I'll raise my hand as well and say that my husband and I (as well as our 15 month old) are living with my parents right now. I don't feel any shame or anything about it though, because our plan is to concurrently pay down our student debt as fast as possible (about $30K now) and save up for a down payment on a house. MOST of the money we make each month goes in our house fund or directly to Sallie Mae, and has for the last year we've lived here. We don't plan on living here forever, but it makes the most financial sense right now and my daughter gets to bond with her grandparents. It works out really well for us!

I think the stigma with the "boomerang generation", as we're known, comes from kids who move back home with no ambition, no plan to move out of their parents house someday, or god forbid, no job. It goes without saying that we buy our own groceries (and I cook dinner for the family most nights), do our own laundry, keep the house cleaned, and chip in on "communal" groceries like laundry detergent or paper towels or whatever. All my daughter's expenses come from my husband's paycheck (unless grandma volunteers to buy her a dress around christmas time, of course!). It's LOVELY not having to pay for rent/utilities (although we've offered several times to do just that), but we could if we had to. We're really fortunate in that we can spend money that would have gone to rent to save for a house or pay off loans.

I say as long as it's a beneficial situation for both parties, living with parents or other relatives is a great thing. I think it becomes troublesome when you're a grown adult who lives at home so you don't have to grow up and you're avoiding responsibilities. I hear of stories of adults in their twenties living at home and having their parents still cook for them and clean up after them, and they don't pay rent and blow their money on videogames or whatever. Unbelievable.