Millennials get real about moving back in with the 'rents

Parent Cafe
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S,29, still lives at home. He is a very unique case and H and I still do not really know how to deal with it. S is actually very smart. Graduated a physics major, math minor at a very top rated school. He is very talented musically. He has been in a relationship with a young lady for three years.

But he does not seem inclined to move out. He has been diagnosed with depression and is still being treated. But he has no, absolutely not an iota, of ambition. He seriously does not give a crap. So this high 700 +math SAT man is a teller.

He is involved with community theater and an a cappella group. I guess that is his real interest.

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@morrismm can he afford to move out? Tbh this sounds like you might have to force him out of the house. You don’t have to get all failure to launch on him though. Also if he’s been dating someone for three years, I would have assumed that they would want to live together. He might just be too comfortable at your house?

103

Yep he is too comfortable… But how do you force him out? He is our son and is so easy to live with, his personality is also so unique. He Is a calm, gentile person not given to anger.

104

Wow, this thread really touches a slew of chords with me.

My parents refused to contribute anything to my college so I had to live at home and go to CUNY. They charged me rent and as a result I had to work and take out student loans; it took me an extra year to graduate because I got sick and had no health insurance and couldn’t go to school or work. Like the poster earlier, I had no relationship with my parents as a result. I didn’t see them for 10 years before they died and I didn’t shed a tear for either of them. I moved out 2 years after I finished law school and never looked back.

My H lived at home until we married. His dad died and his mom worked as a live in nurse and was only home on weekends. We lived with his mom again after our D was born and we were fixing up our first home and again 6 years later when we sold that house and were fixing up our current home. Now, my MIL, who is almost 92, wants to come live with us.

Right now, my oldest son lives at home. He didn’t graduate college and began working for the PO a few months ago. At first, I was upset when he moved back home but I am now very grateful for the relationship that has developed between him and my youngest son, who is almost 9 years younger. When my oldest moved out, the youngest was about 11 and they had nothing in common. Now, the older is teaching the younger to drive, they’ve discovered they have common interests in music, video games and other things. I no longer feel like they will drift apart and have nothing to do with each other when H and I are gone. He’s also deepened his relationship with my 20 year old son; they were always close but are even closer now. The 20 year old is a homebody who attends cc and has been voted most likely to stay in this town as an adult. My D won’t ever move home and I have a feeling that my 21 year old son won’t, either.

In addition, we have been known to take in “lost boys.” Four years ago, my two middle boys told us about a friend of theirs who lived with his aunt and uncle in town. The day after HS graduation, they threw him out and he was living in what my boys said was a “skeevy dive.” H went over to check it out and came home with the boy in tow. H said the man who rented the kid a room was one step above a pedophile and he couldn’t leave a teenaged boy with him. The young man lived with us for 2 years, working and saving his money to get his own place. He didn’t go to college, wasn’t raised in a family that supported education and didn’t have an expectation of it. Then, for about 6 months, we had the son of friends who downsized and moved out of state when he went away to college. His sister lived around the corner with their aunt and uncle but they didn’t have room for him and, being childless, weren’t used to a great galoot of a boy (6’5") hanging around. He eventually went to his parents but now lives in upstate NY working. We had another friend of the boys here for a few months. Parents had a nasty divorce in which they completely forgot about their kids and moved out of town. He stayed with us to finish HS and first year of college. Now, we have a friend of oldest son’s whose parents also moved out of state. He is helping us to fix up a bungalow we own and when that’s done, we will let him live there for utilities only. I can hardly toss my own kids out when we are constantly taking in strays.

At some point, though, I want to downsize and move to that bungalow.

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@morrismm Do you even charge him some kind of rent? I know one family who charges there kids rent but the plan is to save it and give it back to them when the kids move out. (The kids don’t know that though)

Do you enjoy having him around and its more concern for him being an independent, self-supporting adult? Or would you prefer to have your house to yourselves? I get the sense it is the former and you don’t mind his company really. In many cultures/countries it is very common to have multigenerational households and there is not the stigma attached to it that there is in much of American culture. I don’t necessarily think its a bad thing depending on the circumstances.

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On an absolutely, completely unrelated note (and only because it bugs me every time I see this thread): I don’t think anyone of my generation actually says " 'rents"

Carry on.

Oh yes and the whole independent house for your nuclear family only thing was only really something that happened among middle class and higher individuals from the post-war period onwards. It is an anomaly in our history and very specific to a certain subset of people.

107

My uncle lived with my grandparents until they both passed away in their 80’s, then he married and lived contentedly to age 87 with his wife. He was a Stanford chemistry grad and worked his whole career in the paint division at DuPont. He was a peaceful gentle soul and brought comfort to his parents and later to his wife. My parents couldn’t understand his lack of “drive” and often spoke disparagingly about him. As it turned out, my dad died of a heart attack at 60 after a “successful” high stress career. Our family ended up thousands of miles away from the rest of the clan and we remain scattered and distant.

108

@romanigypsyeyes, I had to laugh! D and S called us 'rents when they were in middle school.

My own D and S, and several of my nieces and nephews have had short (and long) times living back with parents for different reasons. Different kids have different needs. One niece, a 30-year old, has lived at home since college graduation. It works for her and her parents. They travel often and she takes care of the dog. I always loved having my kids at home, though it was never longer than a month or two. We told them both that they are welcome here always. Maybe we should get a dog…

109

My oldest graduated last year, took a 2 week vacation w his GF 4 days after graduation, got home on a Sunday and began his full time STEM research position at Columbia on Monday. We told him that he was welcome to live at home if he wanted to save money. We all knew that he would be applying to grad school for either the following year or one more year out. He’s paid enough to live on his own in NYC (with over time, which is easy to accrue in a busy lab, nearly $50,000) but he wouldn’t save any money. And he knew he’d be spending around 3 weekends a month in Cambridge visiting his GF, who immediately went to grad school. So, he opted to live at home this past year and has decided to do so for this upcoming year while he applies to grad school this fall.

It’s been delightful and easy. He leaves by 7:30-8, and about half the time returns by 8:30, so we have dinner all together. The other half of the time, he’s in the lab until around 10, and on a few occasions, he needs to pull an all-nighter bc certain experiments can’t be stopped midway.

One weekend a month he’s here and his GF often joins us, so we’ve gotten to know her better & we’ve enjoyed our time with them.

Best part for him: he’s saved most of what he’s earned, with the exception of spending money this summer on a trip to Europe with his GF. Columbia has an in-house financial consultant available to employees. He met with the guy to plan his portfolio, opened up his own Roth IRA and fully funded it with the intention that he won’t touch that money again til retirement. The rest is in instruments that he can easily sell if he needs money during grad school, which he will for rental deposit, and just to have a cushion. The consultant told him he was so impressed that someone his age is already planning like this bc he rarely sees Columbia people his age doing this. My son responded that’s because they can’t…they’re spending their incomes on rent. He’s living at home. I think he realizes how fortunate he is that he can do this, and also how lucky he is not to have any college debt.

For my husband and me, it’s been lovely to share our home with him. I’ve gotten to know him as an adult. When he left for college, he only spent a few weeks here during winter break and two weeks in the summer bc he stayed at school worked in a lab. He’s a different person than the one who last lived here as a high school senior. He’ll be sorely missed when he leaves, although it will be nice to have one less bathroom to clean as often :slight_smile:

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Doschicos- yes we do charge rent and require that he does chores. He pretty much pays for himself. He has all his own insurance; health, car, dental, etc. He has a retirement account. We don’t really pay for anything other than phone. But we still cover his sisters as well on the family plan. He also gets cheap rent.

I just decided with my H to just put his rent into his savings account. He will never notice as he doesn’t look at his statements. And we don’t need it.