<p>I read only 20% of the class of 2009 graduated with a job… would parents really not let their new graduates come back home while they attempt to get started on their life?</p>
<p>Our kids are welcome to live here until they have their feet on the ground financially - I can say that because none of them would want to live with us, and the two who are college grads have made darned sure it didn’t happen for long. 
The oldest made a strong effort at living independently immediately after college, but needed to come home after several months to regroup professionally. This turned out to have been a great idea - less than a year after graduating, she was fully independent and hasn’t looked back. We’re all so glad we looked at the circumstances instead of her age (all of 21).</p>
<p>The second put “live on my own” at the top of her agenda and made every decision during her last 2 years of college based on what would allow her to do just that. The third is planning to follow a similar path - but of course, life is what happens while we’re busy making plans, so she might wind up at home for a period of time. I wouldn’t ever say to a kid fresh out of college, “We’re done - now it’s all up to you.” Especially nowadays. I would, however, want to see a plan for how he or she planned to become independent.</p>
<p>I think after 30, it starts getting weird. I knew a guy, 33 and attending school w/no job (never had a girlfriend either), and he was still living with his whole entire family. Turn-off for me.</p>
<p>My parents always tell me that I’m always welcomed back, but my worst nightmare would be to come back home, in my mid twenties, living with the folks. I would feel like such a failure. When I moved out at 18 (into my dorm room), I planned on moving out for good (only coming back for the holidays, that sort of thing).</p>
<p>There is weird and then there is awkward. Weird is when there is no good reason to stay (financial, infirm parent, whatever) but you are still there. Awkward but necessary is happening quite a bit out there - I know of women in their forties who have had to move in with their parents after a divorce for a chunk of time.</p>
<p>Speaking of women post-divorce living with families:</p>
<p>I have a friend who is about 43, who has a 10-year-old daughter. When she got divorced – right when the baby was born, 10 years ago – she moved back home with Mom and Dad. She has no plans to change this arrangement. She works full-time. She likes the arrangement because it’s free, she doesn’t have to pay for babysitters, she can use all her own money for trips and clothes and activities for her child. I find it creepy and believe that she’s remaining a child by continuing to live with her (elderly) parents at this point. I think if I were her parents, I would have kicked her out long ago.</p>
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<p>When the “child” is sexually active and doesn’t understand why he can’t have his girlfriend spend the night!</p>
<p>Our neighbor’s son didn’t go to college. He’s a waiter. The restaurant has approached him about entering the management training program, but he doesn’t want the responsiblity. He lives at home with his dad who is a fairly recent widower. The son is about 23 and it’s been kind of nice for the two of them to keep each other company. EXCEPT that the son has a steady girlfriend and the son can’t understand why the GF can’t spend the night with him at his dad’s house.</p>
<p>Isn’t that the kind of thing that is supposed to motivate a young man to get his own place???!!!</p>
<p>Unless there are extenuating circumstances, what oldfort said aligns with my thoughts well.</p>
<p>My sister is 46 and has always lived with my parents. It helps now that my mother passed away in May and my father had a stroke and then fell on Christmas Eve and broke his hip. My brother moved in with my dad and sister after my dad’s stroke. He is caretaking my dad but also benefits from the free rent and free access to Dad’s money. I worry about the money part but I am grateful my brother is there for my dad during this difficult time for him. The mere fact that my brother had to move in to caretake my dad while my sister was already living there shows how little help she really is.</p>
<p>For my own kids, I have told them that when they are through with college I expect them to be self supporting and not come back to our horrible town where there are no jobs for young people anyway. But if they needed to come back for lack of employment or divorce or other extenuating circumstances I would welcome them back, but there would be a plan. I would never, ever, ever want them to end up like my sister.</p>
<p>I used to think that of course grown children should move out and be independent after college graduation. Now that it is a reality for me, I am having fantasies of living in a “compound” with my grown kids and their families some day. In this fantasy, each family unit is autonomous, financially, but everyone helps each other when convenient. I see my grandkids growing up surrounded by loving people of different generations. I had this when I was little, before my family moved to the US, and I have warm memories of following my great grandmother around.</p>
<p>My H laughs at me when I tell him my fantasy. I guess he’s right. At any rate, even if it were to come true, I think it’s important for everyone to have a period in their young adulthood when they strike out on their own. And I don’t mean marriage.</p>
<p>The daughter of my close friend moved back home for 3 years after attending college far away. She found a job and had plenty of friends, and both she and her parents were very happy with the arrangement. They are very close and simply enjoy one another’s company. They all knew that the situation was not permanent, and eventually she moved to a different city in order to take a better job, but they enjoyed it while she was there. She’s a lovely kid, mature, intelligent, and did well in college and there was nothing weird about the fact that she chose to live at home. It was simply convenient and comfortable and they were all happy while it lasted.</p>
<p>The American expectation that post-college kids should move out is very, very cultural. There is nothing particularly “normal” about it. All over the world adult children live with their families until marriage and they grow up to be independent adults.</p>
<p>anneroku, I very much agree that it is cultural, and normal is defined differently in different places. </p>
<p>The Koreans I have hosted think the American obsession with independence is a little over the top, as well as economically wasteful. </p>
<p>On the other hand, these things can disintegrate into dependency and dysfunction a little too easily in this culture. Maybe it works a little better when expectations are clearly spelled out, in a culture a little less anything goes. </p>
<p>When I returned from an overseas trip years ago, mid 20s, I chose to live with my mom, after thinking about it quite a bit. She needed the rent money and help, I appreciated our compatible lifestyle. As I never was a partier, I couldn’t imagine putting up with that sort of behavior from roommates-common in my age mates near ASU. Eventually I moved on. It made dating a little awkward, but the sorts of people I cared about accepted the situation regardless. </p>
<p>For a variety of reasons, she ended up living with my sister and her child years later, serving as the ‘other parent’ It worked well for everyone concerned, economically as well as socially, and my mom has certainly been a rock and inspiration in that granddaughter’s life. </p>
<p>However, it takes all parties having a strong sense of responsibility. I cringe at some examples of adult men living with parents and never really growing up. </p>
<p>I can’t imagine any family of origin member living with me, and wouldn’t want it for a prolonged period. But there are many ways to build a satisfying life, and as marriage doesn’t work out for all of us, it is worth exploring other ways to have companionship over time.</p>
<p>My own kids? Well, I’d be thrilled to have them around post college if they could be good roommates. My definition of good roommates might be a little too stringent for any of them to put up with me for long.</p>
<p>Eggson was about 8 and I was driving him to school. I don’t recall all the details, but suddenly he announced, “Mom, I want to live with you and dad until I am 30 years old.”</p>
<p>“Deal!” I said.</p>
<p>He’s 18 now and I doubt he will ever recall this conversation.</p>
<p>I worry about this very topic. My 21 yo son will be graduating in the spring. His job prospects are very slim to begin with (hasn’t even started looking, never held a summer job, and he’s got Asperger’s). Although I know he’d really like to live on his own, not only can he not afford it, but he’d do terribly (hygiene is still an issue). Not sure when he’ll grow up, but it’s still not happening yet. I think there’s a movie about this…</p>
<p>^ ^
If you mean “Rain Man”, limabeans, Kim Peek, on whom the movie was based, was actually not autistic. He just died last weekend, God rest his lovely soul, and the NYTimes had a wonderful obit.
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/us/27peek.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Kim%20Peek&st=cse[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/us/27peek.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Kim%20Peek&st=cse</a></p>
<p>Personally, I am a big fan of the Wright Brothers and they lived with their parents all their lives:
[Wright</a> brothers: Wilbur and Orville Wright](<a href=“http://www.wright-house.com/wright-brothers/Wrights.html]Wright”>Wright brothers: Wilbur and Orville Wright)
…as I keep telling my kids, who seem determined to keep the motor running when they visit home…</p>
<p>^
I actually met Kim Peek many years ago (he and his father visited my elementary school and spoke) and actually got a hug from him–I was fresh out of major orthopedic surgery and in a wheelchair with full leg braces/casts, so I stuck out. 
He and his father both made a good, strong impression, and his case is fascinating from a psych/neuropsych perspective as well.</p>
<p>THat is a wonderful story Anudduh mom, thank you for posting it.</p>
<p>We have always expected our children to have their own place to live when they finish college. So far, so good, but there are lots and lots of my older child’s friends whose families had the same expectation and . . . it ain’t happening yet. There is a LOT of underemployment in that set. One of her close friends had a job, an apartment, and a boyfriend after graduation, but seven months later there’s no job (except some waitressing hours), apartment, or boyfriend, and she’s living with her parents for the foreseeable future. It doesn’t seem to be too bad, yet. She’s matured a fair amount, and so there’s less conflict than there might have been a few years ago, and she isn’t lazing around or anything. </p>
<p>My daughter (visiting for Christmas) was over there a few nights ago, and the two young women baked the parents a cake for their wedding anniversary. Then they walked to a neighborhood bar, where they ran into two other high school classmates, one of whom is still in colleges, and the other of whom is . . . living at home and looking for a job.</p>
<p>My sister moved back with my parents when she was 33, and stayed for almost eight years. (She had decided she always wanted to be a doctor, but just forgot to take any science courses after 10th grade. So she had two years of post-bac pre-med, a year of applications, and then four years at the local medical school.) That was weird, and difficult for all concerned. It became even more difficult when my parents had to move to a much smaller apartment because of my Mom’s Parkinson’s right when my sister finished medical school, so she essentially got kicked out of the house, and she was furious, even though she was doing her residency in another city. I definitely felt for her – she was 41, and the place she had called home for 35 years was being sold out from under her.</p>
<p>What age is it weird to live with your parents?</p>
<p>Well, weird is a subjective term. It depends.</p>
<p>For me, it is weird already for someone to live with your parents when you are 80 years old.</p>
<p>For others, it is weird if they are 120 years old.</p>
<p>For some other people, it is weird when they are 1337 years old.</p>
<p>You see the point? Yes, it’s here. Oh, you missed it? It’s between ‘here’ and ‘Oh’. There is another one just before ‘There’. In case you are wondering, there’s one before the start of this sentence, and one after the last word on this sentence. Thank you for your attention.</p>
<p>It’s weird when the parties think it’s weird. For some, living with the parents works very well. In past generations, this was not uncommon. Very often, the “elders” either moved in with their kids or the kids moved back into the home. </p>
<p>In my family, I have a sister who is living at home. For a while, we thought it was “weird” but my parents and the sis LOVED it. NOW (parents in their 80’s) we are VERY grateful she is there.</p>
<p>I have such a dislike for making up rules about what is weird, what is not, and judging accordingly (especially when one can simply assign ‘numbers’ as if there is a magic age). The world is too complex for that.</p>
<p>So many factors come into play about where one lives, from socio-economic, to family style, to culture. And sometimes its a time period (e.g recession), or due to the location (e.g. where we live young people find it extremely difficult to afford a place of their own, even during boom times). </p>
<p>My parents let us five kids live at home with no rules about age…but we did so as needed at different times…but we all became financially and emotionally independent through different and unpredictable pathways. </p>
<p>My youngest brother lived at home quite late, helping to care for my very ill father while my mom did shift work. Now years later, my mom is widowed and has lived with us, and she helped care for our kids when they were younger. Now my brother and his family have bought a house with my mom, she has one floor, they have the other and she helps with their young ones. On my husband’s side, we helped to buy a house for his mom. Nothing weird about any of this for us…its just what some families do. We help each other out, so we are interdependent over time, but we are equal adults and one party isn’t continually dependent upon the other. </p>
<p>I think what is important is that the younger generation’s growth and development isn’t inhibited by the living arrangement and a state of permanent dependence emerges. But younger people can move toward psychological and financial independence and maturity, even if they share a roof, and it needn’t show up at some predetermined age.</p>