Ha! As much as I’d love to have her back for the short term, we have informed our oldest that she needs to figure out her life post-graduation.
Which is why I’m hard at work on a spreadsheet for her of her grad school acceptances – and pros/cons of each. 
We are working on the spreadsheet too! It’s scaffolding is made -but not filled out yet. She wants to wait until all the decisions are in. 
Yeah- no empty nest plans after D26 starts college here! S23 still seems pretty far from moving out, although we are ever hopeful that he starts back at some college for Fall 2026 or at the latest Spring 2027. 
I have a feeling my D22 will end up back at home after graduating from college this June. She plans to backpack around Europe for a few weeks (unless she gets a job that requires her to start right away). She’s looking for a job that’s basically a needle in a haystack, and we haven’t talked about how long such a search might go on before she starts expanding her search into more realistic and easier to land possibilities (or grad school).
Is she in a very niche field or does she only want a non traditional career from what she studied?
I’m always curious who would put a needle in a haystack.
My D22 will be moving back home in a few weeks. She finished her degree in December, but stayed in Seattle to co-lead a seminar during the winter quarter. I’m excited to have her back home! I’ve missed her energy and the added dimension she provides to our family of 4. But she may not be home for long since she’s applied to a variety of summer internships in different cities. If those don’t work out, she’ll be home until she figures out next steps.
And if S26 ends up choosing CU Boulder, and D22 finds a job in Colorado, then we’ll have continued opportunities for quality family time! (But I’d likely have to bribe S26 to join us.)
That will be us! Although I know S22 wants to not live at home for long. Hopefully he’ll be employed and will get an apartment somewhere. We will see. But I’m only counting on August through April.
She studied communication and history and she wants to be a journalist. More specifically, she wants to be a cultural critic and entertainment journalist. She has a lot of experience for someone just coming out of school—she’s interned (without pay) for the last 6-7 months for a fashion and entertainment magazine in LA and writes for the Daily Bruin Arts & Entertainment section too. She interviews movie and tv stars, rising musicians and artists, has a ton of bylines in digital and print publications… but it’s a very competitive field and it’s tough to find a regular, salaried position (a lot of freelance opportunities, which she will do, but she’d prefer to be on staff as an Editorial Assistant or entry level writer). Hence, needle in a haystack 
I majored in magazine journalism back in the day, so I get it. But yeah, the industry was soooo different back then. Wishing her luck as she pursues this goal!
If it makes you feel better, my D22 majored in linguistics and classical languages, and her dream job is to be hired to create “conlangs” for authors or screenwriters. (It stands for “constructed language” – like Klingon or any number of the Tolkien languages.)
Um, yeah. She will be pursuing other avenues, lol. We often joke that there is probably ONE guy in the whole country that has the conlang job, and he’s not quitting anytime soon.
My cousin was a history/music major. Ended up writing for LA Weekly for a bit and doing photography for different bands. She goes on tour with bands as their photographer now and has an Airbnb she manages with her husband. Still writes for online musical outlets as well. She’s not rich but loves being in the music industry. I don’t think she ever spent time on a salaried position it’s always been contract gigs for events.
I used to work with a well known sports pyschologist - he helps Tennis/Golf pros on tour. His daughter was a theater major at UCLA. After she graduated, she was doing gig work and handing out free samples at Coachella while looking for local theater work.
He’s happy that she’s pursuing her dreams but not sure about her long term goals.
What I want to know is, who is the person whose job it is to describe the music in subtitles? We can’t help laughing at some of the descriptions. (Of course none spring to mind right now.)
The subtitles that say “
soulful music ” or whatever? Yeah, sometimes those are pretty funny! 
My S23 plays in his university orchestra. At some point the university made a rule that EVERY video on any university channel must be subtitled. And apparently this technically applied to totally non verbal orchestral concerts as well. So they took all the performance videos down, added “ music playing ” subtitles to each video, then restored them.
How timely - we just received our LHD26’s diploma and framed it in the University of Texas Austin mount - as expected this thing is huge (Everything is bigger in Texas).
We are currently paying a $ 2500/month stipend to our eldest as graduated semester early so we don’t end up in this boat… for now. We were already committed to the rent/utilities thru August, but continue give her the full stipend for her food and personal.
We had a pretty frank discussion when she was home for the Holidays -
We will continue to provide the monthly money thru August, so that you can live independently and work on resume, on job applications, summer internship opportunities, graduate/law school applications from your ‘fortress of solitude’ off campus and continue to see your friends and professors regularly.
But come August 1st your options will be;
(1) You have settled on where you are going to grad/law school and we have made plans on how we get you there and set you up (C’mon Texas, take your own alumni -Please!).
(2) You are engaged in the middle of multiple job interviews, and we figure out how to pack you up and move you into a Month-Month HomeSuite style living situation until you either have a job or run out of the interview process).
(3) You have neither grad/law school plans or job interviews mid-process… and then we will need to seriously consider packing you up to move you back to Raleigh for you to continue the job hunt, and re-evaluate grad/law school options for the following year.
I believe everybody agreed that the ‘shine’ of having her back home with just the two parents here would probably wear off long before the start of the holiday season… so this would be our very last option.
*I would almost rather continue to subsidize her with monthly stipend than have her move back home… but I don’t want that to be sitting in the back of her head while she’s working to find solutions… plus, she will need that money for grad/law school anyway, I hope.
These merit scholarship applications are no joke! I swear they make them tedious to minimize the number of people who actually apply for them! D26 spent several hours yesterday working on them and in the end was able to submit 10 yesterday. She has another 10 to still complete that are the local ones for the high school. These are the ones that are especially annoying because the same scholarship committee evaluates all of them, regardless of which specific scholarship it is. They use the same application but she has to fill out a new application for each specific one, upload a transcript, resume, cover letter, etc., etc. It is the SAME people reviewing all the same information so makes zero sense why the duplicate info for each one. Any that require a teacher recommendation she then has to go in and fill out a Google form for EACH scholarship- no checkboxes where it would all be one place because that would be too easy And there are a couple that had to be emailed instead so she had to print everything out, scan everything and then email the scans- just very redundant. We are really hoping that all this work pays off. It is money that she can put towards school in whatever way she needs. I keep thinking about the kids who have no help or support trying to slog through these and it makes me sad that the kids who need it most probably have the least available help and support to complete these.
While we are a long way away from there since D26 hasn’t even left home for college yet, we have no issue with her moving back home after college if she wants to return to the Bay Area. It is ridiculously expensive for a young person here who is not planning on working in tech or finance. We actually think a reasonable approach is to move back home and work as you save up money for a nest egg, emergency fund, etc.
We know plenty of families where the kids have moved back home for a few years while working their first full time jobs.
It seems although C26 didn’t take any AP English, they’ll automatically get credit for the required freshman writing class for their standardized test at UIUC (given at 730+/34+ on SAT/ACT English component) - that’s a nice to know.
I wonder if this is more common in your area because it’s so ridiculously expensive?
If D22 needed to do this because it made the most sense, we would be fine with it – but I’ll be honest, the amount of growing up and independence that happens over four years of college is mind-boggling. She was home last summer, and it was very clear to all of us that the kid was now very much an adult and needed to be out on her own, making her own decisions and doing her own things.
We weren’t able to easily form a new dynamic last summer where she was another adult who happened to be living here – but I imagine if it were longer-term, we’d have to find a way to make that happen.
DH and I are roughly planning to keep this house until D26 graduates from college – provided all three are either settled or have some kind of plan where they don’t need to move home – and then we’ll downsize. I can’t wait to do that, actually – we have way more house than is necessary.
Fully agree on timeline for work post college, a friend has a daughter who dropped out halfway thought school because of her bf, went back to a local community college to finish a degree and then just drifted around.
He’s now paying a stipend for her and her dog as she works part time in a local store and volunteers. It’s caused a lot of fights between him and his wife and last I talked with him there was no end in sight, he expected that they would continue to support her until they passed away or simply couldn’t afford to.
Had that discussion with S26 last week, he was complaining that he couldn’t find a job and had applied online to every place he could think of (Starbucks, McDonalds etc). When I suggested walking to the mall or downtown and talking with the shop owners I was told that’s not how it works anymore
He’s traveling overseas with my wife this summer so there will be no work then either. I told him not to expect anything in college beyond tuition/meal plan. Any money that he wants for hanging out, gas for his car, partying etc will have to come from a job.
We’re here too, vs the kids who want their “home base” available in perpetuity. Nope, they’ll have to get used to a new home base in due course!
D19 really battled with landing a decent job for about a year after she graduated - not for lack of trying - but wanted to stay in New York and didn’t want handouts. She worked barista jobs for a year and not only managed to fund all her expenses but steadily increased her savings. She now has a “proper” job albeit still part time for now, and her savings have built up to around the equivalent of 2-3 months gross pay which given her circumstances I’m pretty proud of her for doing. They still go out and have fun and travel but in a fiscally responsible way. We do have a friend whose son graduated at the same time (business major) and has been living at home since, refusing to take jobs that he considers “beneath him”. They complain about him but keep enabling him to do this. So at this point he has almost 2 years of just unemployment on his resume.