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

@BluesBird19764 Tbf, it someone in their 40’s is still relying on their parents for financial support, I.e., it’s not an emergency situation, they’ve always relied on them, it’s pretty dire. Most of us aren’t financially reliant on our presumably retired parents at that age, are we?

I couldn’t have children despite many years of infertility and IVF. I don’t feel my life lacks meaning because of it. There are other things that give life meaning.

Unnecessarily snidey comment at the end there. Jealous?

Exactly @Bumdrops. If my kids get to 25, for example, and aren’t doing something productive and are generally functional adults, I’ll be really worried. It’s not whether they’ve moved out or not as that can take a while to achieve, it’s whether they’re independent and not expecting their parents to run around after them/financially provide for them, etc.

Like it or not, we all have to grow up!

More like making up your own interpretation of those stories to fit your bigoted views of young people and insecure need to somehow prove your generation is better than others. Sounds horribly familiar.

Not many people seem to spend years trying, miscarrying and spending thousands on fertility treatments and investigations, either. It's also worth noting that the suicide rate is quite high with subfertile/infertile couples. You're alive, but with no legacy or genetic connection to the future, life hasn't got a lot of meaning, so why keep getting up every morning? To pay bills and eat. That's really about it.

And don't get me started on how the workplace treats couples who need medical assistance with starting a family. It's like we're defective and they're perfect specimens of human, medical marvels even, given their seemingly gold star fertility.

Yes - parents job IS to create a functional adult

the world is more complex, cost of living is awful …

but still this is a predominantly parenting role - what irks me is when parents expect society to do the work - e.g money savvy / social skills / regulating emotions etc the “they should teach this in schools” brigade

or “there is no help” for my child’s bad behaviour / anxiety whatever

parents seem to think they can absolve themselves of coaching the kids in life skills and someone else should pick up the slack -

i DONT mean kids with actual mental illness. SEN, disability

but I think there is a whole cohort of kids who aren’t the above but need basic parental coaching in resilience / coping with day to day life (and help them overcome the avoidances that screens / devices can perpetuate, which parents can collude with)

I totally agree. There are a few young people I know like this and I hear repeatedly how they don’t want to push them too hard.

its really sad that these young adults are being so let down by their parents.

Re. The pandemic. The problem with people mentioning the pandemic is that it ended a few years ago now and at some point, people need to move on. A couple of DD’s (20) friends were badly affected (became isolated, couldn’t leave the house) but they’ve recovered sufficiently now to get on with their lives. It took a couple of years, but they’ve got there.

As parents, we can’t let our children give up on life because of a few months of lockdown. It’s not fair to them.

It's a lot tougher for kids these days. COVID didn't help matters. Unless they're in a fairly wealthy area, it's nigh on impossible to get work. Even after uni.
Older people think they can just get a job if they tried. It's nowhere near as simple as that. They also have the government constantly breathing down their necks.
No wonder mental health amongst them is so bad.

Why was "coming home and offloading" on you never an option?Genuine question
I wanted them to build resilience, not pass the responsibility to find ways to feel better and deal with whatever problem they faced on me.

I was there to listen and show empathy but not to resolve their issues on their behalf.

I think it's a really interesting point about there being a particular window of brain development for starting to take on more adult responsibilities, and how if that's missed, it's potentially lifelong damage.

There's a window for learning speech, and if that's missed, the person will never be able to master complex speech:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child)

I completely agree, so many parents now don’t seem to realise their role is to bring up a child to be independent, and capable to be an adult. I’ve seen so many families where parents do everything for their children and then the kid goes away to University and parents are shocked the child can’t cope, drops out, comes home etc - no send needs at all, how do these parents think they will cope when they have done nothing for themselves, ever, and then are living away from home . It’s all very sad , so many parents can’t seem to deal with their children growing up and being independent and not needing them anymore, they cling onto them being little by treating them like babies, they do them no favours whatsoever

I left home at 18 to start nurse training and liv in nurses accommodation, however that did not work out and I moved back home after 18 months and got a civil service job. However I was responsible for my own food shopping and cooking, buying my own toiletries, did my own washing and ironing, pulled my weight with cleaning, and paid my mum rent. I get the impression young adults living at home today get everything done and bought for them.

Problem is if they have autism or adhd, or add how to find the balance between help and support and doing everything for them, its hard

To me, this is one of the main problems. In previous generations, if we were left to our own devices, it involved us finding something to do - reading or playing out or meeting friends - the kind of things mentioned in @MagpieRobin 's post. Whereas these days, the majority of kids with no scheduled activities will spend too much of that time on screens with all the negatives associated with that. Over scheduling is the lesser of two evils IMO.

Some posters have tried to separate the expense of moving out from young people acting like children but I really don't think you can separate the two.

Growing up and taking responsibility for yourself has in theory has negatives (it's hard work) and positives (freedom to live your life as you wish), but if you can't access the positives because your stuck living at home, it's pretty disheartening.

I understand why someone quite frankly wouldn't want to do the hard bits of growing up without the benefits.

Pp have tried to downplay the hellish financial reality but even if there are rooms available for 700-800 a month, that's more than 50 per cent of full time minimum wage, which is seen as massively overburdened financially. Once you take into account food and transport, opticians, dentists, a bit of exercise and some books or films, that leaves very little to save the 80k deposit you need to get out of a flat share!

And of course very few minimum wage jobs these days promise full time work, most are zero hours contracts, and very few employers are accommodating if you need two or three jobs to stay afloat. Many "better' jobs pay very little more than minimum wage, and many are in London.

I just had a quick look on Spareroom and less than 5 per cent of the rooms available in London are under 700 pcm. Most that are are either 1) Monday to Friday 2) lodging rather than a flat share (not much use if you want to get into a relationship so you can move in with someone 3) probably a scam. No London isn't the whole world, but it's where a lot of people were born or need to be for work.

I think 50% of young people do some form of higher education before 30 but thats not all degrees.

in terms of going of to university at 18 is more 35% ish.

A lot of people get a job and then relalise they need more education to progress.

that doesn’t help the kids of parents who aren’t motivated in that way does it. Which is kind of what DofE is trying to fill.

mine still volunteer in their DofE roles now, but it was a group they were already known in (scouts) and would have volunteered in anyway. They did want a new role away from somewhere they were known.

Re DofE and finding a volunteer role - there's plenty of volunteer roles out there. Don't conflate two issues here. The DofE structure is part of the problem. I know organisations which do have volunteer positions for under 18s BUT they actively and deliberately won't take kids just wanting to do it for DofE as they've found it to be a nuisance rather than helpful.

Part of the issue here is that DofE requires only a few months of volunteering too - so the organisation doesn't really get much in return by the time they've taught you what to do. It's too short. They really want a longer commitment and for someone to be actively invested in the long term success of what they are doing.

What's the barrier? Honestly, not being known is the biggest one. If your parents / grand parents / friends volunteer and you are known to an organisation and it's known you aren't going to be liability or just extra work to train / supervise and will just crack on, opportunities will open up. They don't want kids who might dick about or need constant babysitting and that's the fear. Again it's about immaturity and kids not being viewed as responsible so it's a bit of a catch 22 for those wanting to break out of that. It's nuts that it's got to the point where you probably can only get such roles this way but that's part of the reality.

All the kids I know who volunteer have a) been doing the same activity / hobby for years before and shown real commitment to it b) asked or were asked to help off their own backs (not parents) c) have volunteered for more than three months and not just for themselves (eg not just for DoE) d) have proven maturity before taking on the role.

The kids I know who have had jobs as 17 year olds have tended to be the ones who previously volunteered too. Again being able to prove responsibility and they have initiated getting the job.

This means pretty much setting up kids from a very young age with interests that they take forward. Kids that don't do much and then decide age 14 they'd like to do DofE volunteering for a couple of months because it will look good on a cv in a couple of years have already missed the boat / missed the point.

I actually think DoE should be addressing this better tbh.

I’m probably going to get shot down for this, but I’ve only seen this with men (I know 3 adult males - 34, 48, 58) who live at home. The youngest did leave home for a few years but ended up back there after struggling with work and still doesn’t work due to MH issues. The middle one has worked a low paid job but lived at home all his adult life and enjoys buying high end stuff for himself rather than supporting himself independently. The eldest moved home for a few weeks after a relationship breakdown and has been there for over a year waiting for his next ‘get rich quick’ scheme to work!!

@Waitfortheguinness it became expected around 50% of young people go to university (encouraged by Blair’s government). Hence the huge expansion of universities and new accommodation. When DS got his first year uni accommodation all options came with an ensuite, it doesn’t then help with expectations of flat shares going forward.

When I went to university it was well under 10% who went.

You can no longer just drop out of school at 16.

In my MIL’s day only those who went to grammar school sat exams, she didn’t go to grammar school so left school at 15 with no qualifications and got a job (not a career). Her parents told her it wasn’t worth going to grammar school as she didn’t need qualifications or a career as her role in life was to get married and have children. So going to university was never an option for her. And I don’t think that was great parenting on her parents’ behalf. MIL is a very intelligent woman she could have passed exams if she had been able to sit them.,

So I am glad that opportunities are more available for more people.

this is v true

Leaving at 18 with the contents of a child saving account is unreal and not the case for most of us. I left at 21 and got my house but things were v different then, many of my friends have kids well into 20;s maybe early 30;s still at home,

Never understood why people think parenting stops at 18 its a life long event but agree to an extent that some parents do too much, although many are ND now and need extra support,

The question is why are this generation of mothers doing this, why can we no longer trust the young? I think its a control and ego thing, but I'm wondering where it came from. Every generation has its challenges, life was never easy for any particular group, yet each generation got on with it and carved their way. Parents accepted that is the natural cycle of life and played a background supporting role. Now it seems the majority infanise their adult kids while wistfully remembering the fun times of their own youth when they had freedoms. I just don't understand what changed.