To think we spend too long ‘parenting’ now, and it’s turned young adults into eternal children?

It’s puzzling but I suspect your friend developed resilience due to her upbringing and now has a lifestyle which means her own children don’t benefit from that. If that makes sense!

@YorkshireGoldDrinker

you don’t need to become a parent for your life to have meaning, ffs! There is a lot more to life than parenthood

Yes and they always say “the hobby” because it’s too “outing” to say football

The OP didn’t bring up the topic of rent or jobs etc, but I understood it to be about just general life skills. For example tidying up after yourself, putting your own clothes in the laundry basket, maybe even learning to use a washing machine yourself!
Too many teens are cosseted into thinking that household chores just magically happen and they can treat their home like a hotel, while completely refusing to help out with chores because it would interfere with their screen time.

Social media and constant access to phones doesn't help when you suddenly don't have as much contact as a parent or wondering how things work when your DC are at university etc.

When I was at university (many years ago) it was pay phone only as a means of contacting parents and parents had very little involvement (but to be fair that was pretty much the same for school, there were no groups of parents hanging round the school gates or going into school for this and that event, talking to teacher etc). So expectations from school onwards have changed.

DC are at university. I have found various Facebook pages helpful. And as a few years in I can give advice for newbie uni parents. Many parents are having to shell out thousands of pounds to get their DC through uni, they want to know what their money is being spent on.

And you can send your independent DC off to university and still have a cry. I love knowing DC are enjoying uni life, but I still miss them

It's a bit of both. The cost of living is trapping people at home longer than before. It was easier to get jobs and flats in the past, plus as young people we accepted starting at the bottom and working our way up. Young people have high expectations and lower opportunities, higher competition for those opportunities.

Editing to add - even just the sheer number of graduates now increases competition for graduate roles.

@Chipsahoy Always having your adult child’s back is healthy; running around after them doing everything isn’t. Your DS has an independent mindset and is working to acquire skills such as driving that will make him more independent.

The OP is referring to parents who do everything for their adult children and consequently, they don’t become functional adults. I wouldn’t call that support tbh, it’s actually damaging.

@RampantIvy if you think that’s bad you should see the parents pages for young people joining the armed forces. Some of them drove hundreds of miles to try and see their children through the fence when they were doing basic training. They were in constant touch with them and asking advice on parents groups about medicals, tests etc which were definitely things the young person needed to be dealing with themselves.

One parent had been awake all night and made herself unwell worrying about a routine kit inspection.

One of our sons has been serving for a couple of years and these were not things we considered doing or worried about during his training and we didn’t expect constant communication or to be aware of all this detail.

I think this over involvement is unhealthy for parents and children and to see it carrying on even after they leave home is definitely not good for anyone.

No, I’m surrounded by adult children. Everywhere you go. Emotionally immature adults. Workplaces like school playgrounds.

My oldest is 17 and has a job and learning to drive and will be off to uni in August. He’s emotionally mature and mentally robust knowing his mum and dad have his back, always.

I agree with this.

I rejoined the WIWIKAU Facebook page as DD is now doing a post grad degree, and the number of parents on there who are so enmeshed in their young people's lives is depressing. They seem so reluctant to untie their offspring from their apron strings. I have a great relationship with my daughter, but she is as independent as she can be (we help out with her rent as she is a student).

I must be heard hearted because I can't understand why anyone would sob all summer at the thought of their child going to university. As parents it is our job to give them tools to be independent and, as an older parent I felt is was essential that DD had these tools as soon as possible.

I agree OP. These days it is undoubtedly harder to get work and massively harder to afford rent. But that doesn't mean adults living at home should be treated like babies. They should cook, clean, do gardening and home maintenance, volunteer locally, do their own washing and generally learn to be responsible adults even if they do have to stay in the family home for economic reasons.

Hard agree.

There's a thread I've just seen on here where a mum is completely baffled that her adult child is completely melting down over having to care for her mum after an operation. Of course she is - if she's never had to lift a finger or take on any adult responsibilities, then she's totally ill equipped to care for someone after major surgery.

Parents who infantilise their kids and do everything for them would do well to remember that they might need capable adults to help care for them one day!

Exactly @RubySquid Young adults can live at home and be functional adults, it’s not mutually exclusive.

We’re not helping them if we treat them like 10-year-olds when they’re 25!

My DD ( 21) has had work since he was16 ( during covid) He's kept various jobs through college and uni and has work now he's graduated
And he's never been in a position to have people he knows giving him a " leg up'

Doesn't mean that even if they are still living in the parental home it stops them being self sufficient. Theycan get jobs, cook organise their own lives etc

That's nothing to do with COL

They can get a job. But they've all been brought up to believe that everyone can be what they want as long as they want it enough. That and sold the other lie that a degree will automatically get them a better job.

My generation, the boomers, were taught that if the job you wanted wasn't available you took any job going even if that was cleaning toilets.
.

More's the pity!

A couple of years ago I was out with a friend for the evening. About 9.00 her daughter phoned and asked if she could take the children to school the next morning as the daughter felt like she was coming down with a cold and didn't want to go out in the bad weather. All fine and dandy, except -

The daughter was 30, married and had 3 children. They lived about an hour and 45 minutes away. It was February and the weather was snowy, icy and foggy in the mornings. My friend said yes of course darling. The evening was then cut short because she decided she would have to leave at around 5.45 the following morning in order to take account of the bad weather and work traffic, so would need an early night. WTF!

The daughter had a husband who worked from home but apparently he couldn't take them because he had a Zoom call at 9.15 and as the roads were bad he might not be back in time if he took the kids to school. It was all right to ask mum to do that journey though. Unbelievable. Surely to God having managed to produce three children they could have worked something out between them without running to mum. I blame my friend though for being such a wet blanket, always rushing off to help at a minutes notice and never saying, sorry, no can do.

@spoonbillstretford I agree, but if your child got to their early 20’s and still expected you to run around after them/pay for everything, you’d realize that they needed to start taking more responsibility for themselves, wouldn’t you?

Otherwise they’re going to have a very difficult life and we parents aren’t around forever. My Mum died when I was mid-20’s, for example.

@Bumdrops The weird thing is that sometimes hard working parents expect the opposite with their own children.

The Mum of the DD (24) whom I referenced upthread has worked extremely hard, has a good job (she had two jobs ant one point to pay off her DD’s debts 😡) and is generally a great person. But she doesn’t seem to have expectations of her children to do the same. It’s really odd and as her friend, it worries me that she’s going to burn out one day from sheer exhaustion.

People don't know they don't know. You don't get a life skills test before you are allowed to become a parent.

Doh ! I said I don’t include SEN - OK I’ll be specific or neurodiversity !
who’s the smug older generations ???
how do any of us learn the skills to function as an adult ?? If you are not functioning well enough to coach a kid in basic life skills -
sort your own first -
or don’t have a kid and don’t continue a line of fecklessness ??

@TempestTost I don't think they turn to gaming though because they find girls don't like them, at least, not many. I think the dopamine hits of gaming short circuit a lot of impetus to do anything. It's essentially the same mechanisms as gambling addiction, and games are designed to create that, just like the gambling machines in bars.

But if you discover women don't like you, then how do you spend your free time?

The answer is hobbies, gaming, etc.

The dopamine hit from womanly contact is a lot higher than any hit from video games, by the way. But if women don't talk to you... then games are fair enough.

How do parents teach it if they were never taught it themselves and don't know it?

If older generations are so fucking smug about what terrific parents they were why then have your children become parents who infantlise their children and are bringing them up in a way you disagree with.

And how are parents meant to automatically know how to deal with ADHD and ASD? Even professionals who work with children aren't trained? Why shouldn't you be able to get help?

At best we are all learning as we go, getting some things right and some things wrong. If you provide love, care and stability then all the rest is window dressing anyway.

It’s just lazy parenting!
anything for an easy life… thinks being their child’s friend is better than being a parent.
so you end up with lots of adults that have no basic life skills and are still overly dependent on their friend/parent