Well, goodness, I am apparently the most inept parent ever. We think of our family as a team, a unit, a group – we stick together and if someone has to come back to live in order to…you know, not be homeless …then that’s what we’re going to do. They had summer jobs. They had chores. They paid for school, too. We did not give them an allowance nor a spending stipend. They were neither spoiled nor indulged. But, S1 did have to live at home for about a year – horrors!! (Yes, he paid rent) S2 is about to graduate and has not found a job yet, despite having excellent grades, good referrals, and the support of his professors. So I should tell him to …find an apartment and pay for it himself, when I have 3 empty bedrooms? That makes no sense to me at all. We lived destitute as newlyweds because my in-laws thought it would be good for us, and DH’s relationship has never recovered. Never.
Our extended family has several newly minted grads, and their job searches have been long and difficult. Yes, they are looking all over the country. No, they are not ax murderers. Yes, the economy in many places is still pretty crappy. ymmv.
(sorry to be snippy. long day, only getting longer)
I’m feeling a little depressed. Does this mean it won’t be impressive if I’m self-supporting immediately after I graduate college? I’ve made that a goal for myself, but after reading all these comments, it seems like I’ve been working hard just to be average.
Clarifying what I said earlier, I said most grads CAN support themselves… that doesn’t mean they do. Many move back home in order to save up money and build up a safety net. There’s nothing wrong with that. I moved back home between undergrad and grad school. I just disagree with the notion that students can’t support themselves if they need to/want to. Of course, there will always be exceptions to this.
But I wouldn’t have moved home if my parents imposed rules on me. That’s just ridiculous. Of course, people should just be good people and clean up after themselves, pitch in to help the house, etc because that’s just what decent people should do. I don’t really think of those as “rules” though.
My dad paid for our educations – but told us he would only cover 4 years, so we better graduate on time. Also that we had to be self supporting when we graduated. In retrospect, that was a good thing. It made us stay focused in school, and keep an eye toward being able to make a living of some kind. My parents were upper middle class – we could have floated along more if they had let us. And I don’t doubt that we all would have taken the easiest path and done so. But it wouldn’t have been good for our maturation as adults.
OP, there is nothing “average” about having a college degree and being self-supporting upon graduation. That’s a lot more than a great many people have. It’s also not the only way-some kids live at home for a bit. Others have no choice as their parents would disallow them living at home ever again. You have a good start-be grateful and proud of your hard work. If you have to live at home and your parents’ rules chafe, since you’re going to be self-supporting, move on out.
I am having trouble pinning down the reasons for the OP’s questions – seems like they are being intentionally vague. I have pretty much said the same thing to my kids that my dad did – 4 years where i will cover most of the cost, but no more. One graduated easily in 4 years, got a job, and is really launched as an adult. The other is on track to graduate in 4 years, although i think more wobbly on the trajectory to launching. And if something serious happened – illness, for example – I’d be right there for either of them, and they could live at home if needed. I have also said that they can live at home after college IF they are in grad school or working full time. And a short window (through the summer) is okay after graduation for job hunting and waiting for a job to start.
If they were at home, I’d expect them to keep things cleaned up, help with some chores, pay some rent if they were working and it was longer term, and let me know their plans well enough so I could shop/cook knowing when they would be around. I’d also want a text or something if they weren’t coming home as planned – just a safety check (“sign of life needed” sort of thing). I wouldn’t have a curfew, but they better not wake me up in the middle of the night unless I had asked them to.
I told myself I’d live under a bridge before I moved back home after college, and just didn’t give myself the option. After living on my own for years, any job and continuing to live with a bunch of roommates (like many of us did in college) was preferable to that.
Four of us were living in a 2 bedroom off campus when we graduated and everyone was used to living with several others and being relatively poor, so it wasn’t difficult to continue that lifestyle while everyone while got on their feet and found their way. And by then, we all felt like family. When I went off to grad school, another friend moved in to take my place, but I came back for a summer job and slept on the couch all that summer. By then, another friend had graduated, found a job at a bank and moved in. Not his dream job, but it was a job. He lived in the walk-in closet off the living room. He put a mattress on the floor in there, hung a couple of pictures, and that was his room. I remember having people over when he’d announce he was going to bed and seeing the looks on their faces when he’d walk into the closet and shut the door. LOL. We still laugh about when he was “living in the closet” and all remember those days as fun, simpler times. Everyone was there to support each other, talk about how work went that day, etc.
The moral of the story is . . . . when you give yourself no choice but to figure out how to survive on your own, a funny thing happens. You figure out how to survive on your own. You don’t have to find the perfect job or the perfect living situation. Just a job that pays for a roof over your head and your portion of the bills.
I too am confused at the motive of the OP’s question. At first I thought it was a quarrel with parents. On that, I don’t care if kids come back home but reasonable rules do come with it. A college grad can vote with his/her feet.
But what does it matter if getting a job looks impressive? Don’t worry about that. I can always find someone better off than me to justify my pity party or worse off to justify my ego. Neither adds to my happiness, success, or productivity.
According to Gallup, living at home for a period after graduation is common but doing so for more than a year or so is not. They found the percentage of all 18-23 year olds living at home to be 51% but the percentage of 24-34 year olds to be 14%. That’s actually pretty small, as it doubtless includes some post-grad school students, people with health issues, and people with family responsibilities such as the care of sick or disabled parents. This data is from 2013.
I’m all about kids “launching” after high school. I’m making sure that she has the skills to be self-sufficient. D knows I will help her as much as I can through undergrad and grad school, but I expect her to get a job and an apartment after that and fully support herself. In fact, we’re downsizing shortly after she graduates from high school so she will not have a room to return to, but will use the guest room when she visits.
My S had a job and was waiting for his security clearance while he lived with us for some months post college graduation. The only “rule” was common courtesy–let us know if you will be joining us for meals or not, being quiet when coming in after others are sleeping, clean up after yourself, keep things reasonably neat, and pitch in to help from time to time. These were unspoken expectations, but fortunately we all enjoyed our time together and had no hassles. No curfew was ever discussed or needed.
I think there is tremendous difference between moving back home while you find a job or for a few months till you can save up from a job to move out. What I see a lot of is young adults moving back home for several years, not saving up to move out but rather looking at living with parents not as a short term crutch, but a medium to long term plan, and parents enabling that. No real plan in place on either side. I also see a lot of kids who are unwilling to take a job they think beneath them so that they have something, anything to at least start saving towards being self sufficient or to contribute to rent. Not saying that is the OP’s position, I have no idea given the deliberate vagueness. The OP asked what people’s rules are. Stating what they would be isn’t being aggressive, it is being honest. Blunt perhaps but in no way aggressive.
I am certainly not going to let my kids go homeless. But I am also not remotely interested in a college graduate living at home fully on my dime, that doesn’t want rules or curfews so they can go play video games or have sex (to use the example above). I’m not worried about my kids attempting that.
OP I would argue that for many many people the goal is to graduate, get a job, and be self sustaining. It is an average or common goal for many, if not most. Why is that a bad or depressing thing? That statement is a bit demeaning to a large portion of the population. It is still an accomplishment and a necessary one to really get anywhere or start to get anywhere. It is what you do with the path that matters. No one said it would easy, or always fun.
I wish the poster who was full of disdain for high school teens who worked rather than going to pricey summer academic programs could read the above.
My kid is accepted to law school and has applied for a dual JD/MBA program at the school she has chosen. She told me today that she interviewed with administration in the MBA program, and the interviewer was looking at her resume. He said “Why in the world would I view you as a candidate who would be an asset to our program when you have exactly ZERO work history/experience?” My kid was stunned, until she realized that the interviewer was missing the first page of her resume, and was only looking at her volunteer work and travel experiences.
It remains to be seen if she will be accepted to the program, even with her good work history and very good undergrad performance.
Clearly, work experience is important to many people in the position to advance a person through life.
@prpinrni - it’s great that your goal is to be self-supporting!
I don’t know if it is “average” or not - when I responded before it looked like you were making excuses for not having a job, by referring to the poor economy – when in fact the unemployment rate is quite low - see http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate – any able-bodied college grad should be able to find a job-- but if you look for excuses as to why you are not being hired, you’ll find them.
There’s nothing wrong with living with your parents in order to save money, if your parents are fine with it – but it’s childish to be worrying about house rules and curfews. Wherever you live there will be rules; rules are negotiable; and as an adult you have the option of moving out if you don’t like the rules. Your focus really should be on whether living at home is conducive to finding a job or not.
Both my kids got jobs right out of college. My son did come home… for 2 weeks. The first week he was home he interviewed for a job locally; they said that they couldn’t hire him for the local spot, but asked if he would be interested in a position in a different part of the country. A week later he was on a plane to New York (we are on the west coast).
My daughter didn’t come home – she was already attending school in NY and started her job within a few weeks after graduating. In the meantime she took a campus job that allowed her to stay several more weeks in the dorms, and then she moved into an apartment with friends from school–her pay was enough to cover her share of the rent.
Looking for a job can be hard work-- so there’s no shame if you don’t find a job right away- but you do need to try. And once you have a job and the financial means to become independent, then you won’t have to worry about parental rules. You may not earn enough to have your own apartment, but you should be able to earn enough to rent a room in a shared house or apartment with other young people.
Rules for after you graduate from college? Are you over 18?
Here’s the rule: You’re an adult. You’re on your own.
You and your parents are simply guests/friends in each other’s lives at this point. The biological roles/obligations are over. Neither has any obligation to/authority over/responsibility for the other.
When my daughter was interviewing for her first/current professional post-grad job, she was prepared to explain how her undergrad research internship made her well qualified for the position. Her interviewer (who later became her boss) zeroed in on her several years of part-time/full-time (in the summers) job at a local garden center, where she began working while in high school. Apparently the fact that she stayed with it for several years while increasing her responsibilities from cashier to coordinating landscaping projects, handling payroll, ordering supplies and handling difficult customers and workplace crises, made a bigger impression than her academic achievements and internships in the field. He ended up cutting short the protracted interview process and offered her the job the next day.
As to the question of post-grad kids living with their parents, I don’t think that there are or should be any hard and fast rules beyond their needing to be employed full-time and respecting the family home. I think most parents know their own children well enough to know if they tend to be lazy and will abuse the privilege of moving back home for a while, or not. Personally, I know that my kids are hard working and wouldn’t take advantage of us, and we do have lots of space, so I wouldn’t have any problem with having my adult kids move home for a while. In fact, I’d like of love it
And it really varies. My oldest was in grad school during the recession and was getting very few replies to her resume. She was too proud, in both the good and the bad sense, to take money from me, except once, which I knew was tough for her to do. She did the roommates and ramen thing for years. She’s well-launched now, but jobs in social work can be tough to get.
At the other extreme is my STEM CS kid. He’s a college sophomore, but this summer will earn $2k/week, plus use of a beautiful apartment, and a meal allowance.
Both of the kids are hard workers, bright, personable, etc., but some fields pay up and others, not as much. Their flight plans might look very different, but I’m comfortable that they will become airborne.
