<p>The problem for the parents is if the “adult” children are living at home, rent free–freeloading off the folks…and if the parents haven’t put a stop at it…
they are getting off “cheap” by exploiting the parents --its the parents’ responsibility to put a stop to it.</p>
<p>If the kids are paying some sort of rent/room/board - even if it is under-market rates…then at least the folks get some help and the kid benefits by % savings.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t want a son living like this nor a daughter dating someone like this…</p>
<p>Just thinking about our neighborhood in the couple of blocks around my house I know of 2 adult men and 2 adult women (1 youngish adult) who live with parent(s) on a permanent basis. Our neighbors on both sides have had the temporary daughter, husband, baby, dog - guests while young family gets finances and/or school together. We also have a couple who will sent their youngest to college this fall who moved up the street from husband’s parents. It was cute I say the H walking dowen the street with a bouquet on mother’s day. We have many folks who buy a relative’s house or take over house in some way (we bought my great aunt’s home). Housing is so expensive that any way to keep things in the family allows young people to stay in the area.</p>
<p>p.s. To take up fogfog’s point - some of the cases of adult children living at home on a permanent basis are a kind of “failure to launch” but is that all bad? If an adult child due to mental illness, LDs (less common for people in 40s-50s or older to have diagnosis and intervention) lack of employment skills that will provide a living in today’s housing market or some other such reason can find a home with parents it likely prevents homelessness, vagrancy, spiraling mental illness etc. that seems OK to me. Not everyone does “launch”. Of 9 kids, my dad had one brother who was like this - he was in the navy in WWII, then had a series of enterprises none of which went that well. Their mom had a big house in Portland and this son lived there, provided safe company and transportation and kept fairly stable and safe himself. The brother worked as a merchant marine and a trucker at times. After she no longer lived there he went down hill. He was unmarried but I don’t think living at home was the reason - he had enough difficulty taking care of himself. In many “old world” large families one child was often even expected to remain single and live at home to car for the parents.</p>
<p>I have to confess I and my husband, and eventually my older daughter lived in my mother’s 2 family house for about 3 years after just getting married.</p>
<p>On my street, at least two families with adult children (and live in girlfriends of some) never left home, going into their late 20s/early 30s. Why go live in a dingy apt when mom’s house is in a nice suburb? I remember I couldn’t wait to move out - even if that meant a bunch of roommates in a questionable neighborhood.</p>
<p>My parents wouldn’t have wanted me at home–as they would have considered it failure on their part as parents to raise in indepedent, capable, enterprising adult.</p>
<p>If my kids, after being off at college and supposedly having earned a useful degree-can’t find jobs, an apartment, etc
I would think that they and we had failed to have them ready for adulthood.</p>
<p>NPRs report a few months back talked about the problems with this and how these 20/30 somethings are having delayed-maturity issues…</p>
<p>Our neighbors on one side have a daughter who is an ob-gyn. They had a baby while her hysband was in dental school. They lived in MIL with her parents who provided childcare, took car of geriatric dog and eased the way while SIL finished school and studied for boards. Daugher had night calls as well. They have both “launched” quite nicely now. On other side SIL is doing and MIT degree and job searching, they have a toddler and are underwater on their condo. They are renting the condo and saving money. Not permanent, but good for all while it lasts. In the mean time by neighbor is loving time playing ball in the street with his granddaughter.</p>
<p>I saw a little bit of this on the Dr. Phil show. It featured Italian American men living in Brooklyn. They insisted this was “the norm” in their culture. They weren’t freeloaders-they had jobs and claimed to help a little bit. But clearly Mom was doing most of the work-their laundry, their cooking, picking up their rooms. The guys were not in the least troubled by it and were upfront that they would stay there until they got married, at which time their wives would be expected to do their laundry, cook for them, pick up after them, and, of course, raise a new generation of boys who would repeat the pattern. The Moms seemed quite content with this as well, so no harm, no foul, I guess.</p>
<p>None of that would fly with me, but to each his own.</p>
<p>In some subcultures where it’s common for adult children to live with the parents (I’m thinking about Italian and Greek in New Jersey), the girls are subject to much more parental control and scrutiny, while the boys get the freedom of the streets plus the domestic services of mommy. Young women are expected to “help” at home and young men come and go as they please. There is a double standard. Possibly that’s why girls move out: to get freedom which they know they will never get while living at home.</p>
<p>It is also the norm in many cultures for newly weds to take up residence at home. I would not like that one bit. We have a multigenerational home right now with the elderly mothers and our kids, as well as DH and myself all in one house, and I feel it is a strain that I don’t want to stretch any further. If you live in a way that you expect your kids to be out at a certain point in their lives, it is not the same as following a norm for your time and place. We all don’t sleep in one room either.</p>
<p>That’s the culture THERE, Juliette. If you love living next door to your MIL, good for you. I would not have cared to have done so. I now have her in my house, and only do because it is by far the best option for her, given the circumstances. She lived many miles away prior to this and we made every effort to allow her to continue that situation, but it did not work out.</p>
<p>I prefer to see my kids standing on their own two feet and in their own homes. That is the culture here in this area If it 's affordable. Can’t afford it, then that’s a whole other story. But IMO it’s always preferable regardless of where a person ends of living, that s/he can afford to be taking care of self, including housing matters. It’s never a good thing to be dependent on others. </p>
<p>My mother clucked and shook her head about so many bathrooms in our house. So did MIL. I am so grateful of that situation now, with the two of them with medical issues living here, and they do have their own bathrooms. I love having a master bathroom that I share only with DH, too. A true necessity? Absolutely not, but one I prefer having. In many countries that is truly unusual to have more than one bathroom. </p>
<p>So it’s really all about how you are used to living.</p>
<p>Oh help me! I have one son who is more than happy to live at home. And it’s okay for now since he’s “only” 24; I think we’ll have to move into an apartment to get him to understand he needs to take charge and move out. He reported, just the other day, how he likes living here, but if you ask him after I’ve been nagging him, he might admit it isn’t always so easy. That doesn’t motivate him to do anything though.</p>
<p>My other two? I think they fear it will come to this, but they’ll probably do anything and everything to avoid “coming home” for any length of time.</p>
<p>If S1 returns after he graduates, he will be expected, at the very least, to pay his cell phone, gasoline and car insurance (all of which are paid for him now) and a token rent. Doing his own laundry wouldn’t be a bad idea either.</p>
<p>Such a huge difference between a child whom is back at home because s/he is saving money for grad school, or for a down payment for the house, or even just because that is their cultural norm versus those at home because they got a degree but don’t have the major, GPA, or quality of undergrad school to get a job in this economy. I have two close friends with sons in the latter position, and I can think of a few acquaintances too. We have recently insisted that our son reevaluate his educational path to try to avoid this problem.</p>