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

It is tough is it.

Kids are young but I am already saying « you will need to work, so do your best now so you have options. »

Well people have high expectations now that can't be matched on leaving home. Why should they be able to afford their own flat? You get a grubby room in a shared house with sticky carpets and work your way up to better things.
And yes it's parents but also society generally. Let's face it if a teenager isn't allowed to go to a dentist on their own until over 16 how are they going to cope with doing anything for themselves? They're just not allowed to / brought up to it.

No.

It's about appreciating what you have. Things obtained with very little effort are appreciated a whole lot less than things that were extremely hard to obtain. That's just a fact.

A bit like money.

Money given has no value. Money earned is money that has more value and meaning attached to it.

Again, that is just a fact.

FWIW my husband's aunt had her first at 41 owing to fertility troubles. That little baby is now in her mid-20s and her mother is in well into her 60s. They're both doing perfectly fine. I'll be 38 when I have my first after years of miscarriages and I'll be in my early 40s for my second and possibly third. It's just the way things work out.

The OP isn’t talking about withdrawing help and support from her adult children but rather expecting them to navigate normal day to day life and not outsource it to parents. So I’d sit down and discuss a work challenge with my dd, or talk through pension options or be a supportive shoulder after a break up. Take her to the airport if necessary or pick something up for her if I’m going that way. Cook a nice meal if she’s had a busy week. Challenge her assumptions too. What I won’t do is her cleaning, organising services for her car, be a general taxi or make decisions for her. She helps us out too-cooking a meal after a hospital visit, airport drop offs and pet sitting. The normal things family members do for each other. What we don’t do is treat her like a child.

I agree the ere are too many stereotypes around age.

I see bad attitudes and good attitudes in people of all ages. Work this has declined since I started work - but it’s not just in younger workers. People of all ages have become more difficult. I think it’s a general societal shift, but because it wasn’t like this twenty years ago people just blame younger people.

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. That attitude worked to an extent back in the day but the world isn’t the same. You can definitely try hunkering down on personal responsibility and ignoring the current economic conditions and you might get lucky. But it’s not a personal moral failure if people aren’t managing to do this.

As an example, my DS has managed to fly the nest and eventually land comfortably with a lot of very hard work, but also natural talent, lots of good luck, plus moral support and advice from those around him. 3,000 graduates applied for the job he was offered. We all know how much luck came into play. He could just as easily be sleeping on our sofa and still job searching despite all that.

I don’t think you should kick your kids out at 18 but my parents made it clear after Uni we were expected to get a job and pay our own way.
My MIL babied her sons (apart from my DH bizarrely) and in essence they re all 40 year old men who’ve been saved all their lives & don’t have sticking power in a job, or are 10 years behind everyone else because they were layabouts for years. It’s a bit sad really.

I think that what you are actually talking about, OP, is not parenting for too long but not parenting in an efficient and age/maturity appropriate way.

Life is crap for the young - they had covid and brexit wreck their lives and now AI is taking away job opportunities.

I think a lot of parents are too helicoptery but it's no good saying they need to get out into house-shares if they cant get a job and have no income.

I think another dimension is that collectively as a society we've lost the ability to risk assess situations and instil coping mechanisms in our children to help them assess and mitigate risk - so we've become too protective of them. The proliferation of media and social media, which brings to stark reality the shittiness of the world around us, has made us scared to allow our kids to experience things. I've always focused on "this is highly unlikely to happen, but if it did, how do you think you could handle it?"

14yo ds is looking after 8yo dd this evening while dh and I go out. He knows that fires and robberies happen, but has a healthy awareness of risk, prevention and what he needs to do in those scenarios should the worst happen. He's developed a cool head, is incredibly sensible, and has demonstrated multiple times that he can react calmly to unforeseen circumstances in a range of scenarios (such as missing his bus). I know that his friends' parents look down their noses that we're leaving him in charge for a few hours. The reality is that he enjoys a bit of responsibility, we give him a bit of extra money for helping us out, and his relationship with his little sister is strong.

@Cherrytree86 what a stupid question

A lot of young people don't want to work1 job let alone 3. In order to carry on living the same life you have to work and that's what young adults don't have the belly for. As my partner likes to say "They have no ambition". There is a family living across the road from us. Their 3 children are all 19 and over all working and living at home. The oldest bought himself a BMW 2016. My partner said to me that all 5 of them work and could put their money together to buy their forever home rather than a car that depreciates.

I think it's a circular thing. We (parents of late teenaged children) were brought up to take responsibility for everything (actually, sometimes this was through a tual neglect).

Because we take responsibility for everything, we find ourselves taking too much responsibility for our children.

When our children have children, they may not take responsibility, because they never had to, therefore the pendulum swings back, as their children are forced to take responsibility for themselves.

That's the wrong attitude to have you have to instill it into your children to want more and work hard to get it.

Was much more affordable though.

I moved out of my parents house when I was 20, but most of my friends still stayed at home. But I could afford a mortgage (with my boyfriend) and could just about afford it when we split up Did have to work 3 jobs to do so though.

my parents have always given support when needed.

That sounds tough. You have to be careful not to overcompensate for what you should have got when you was a child. You suffered childhood trauma and you should try and tell your mother that. Bringing up idle adult children is not helping them to learn organising skills. They should be encouraged to clean up for themselves. My 10 year old empties his room of all his rubbish. I am not his maid to him or my daughter's. We all have to pull our weight.

I don’t think many kids can just fall on their feet anymore. It was easy when you could rent a room for £60 a week, eat for a tenner a week, get a job by walking into any place in town and asking for an application form and have a good night out with free entry and £1 a drink.

I left my birth country at 17 out of necessity, I would never want my kids to go though that. As I tell them, I had to go childhood on speedrun, and the greatest thing for me is that they don't have to do that.

Yes, some parents end up in difficult situations with their kids, and some of it is a rod they've made for their own back. Some of it is their children are genuinely going through a difficult time, and the idea that ideally parenting should end at 18, 22/23 max is laughable, especially with what is being considered as high level parenting.

I also feel it’s an unreasonable burden for parents. We’re still people and deserve a life after 18 years of fairly intense parenting duties.

I have three teens and a twenty something, and I haven't had 'fairly intense parenting duties' in years, and that's with helping autistic young adults deal with the many non-intuitive things in our world. Technically they all still live with me, though the oldest is only here when he's on leave, otherwise he's housed by his employer. He's called for motivational chats regularly while away and the deep hug I got when I surprised him at the train station the last time he came home on leave is a memory I'll treasure as long as I can.

The idea that helping with job search is high level parenting duty made me laugh - I'm more than happy to pass on job adverts, be a sounding board for applications and interview prep for my friends, I've done it plenty of times, so why would it be high level parenting to do that with my kids? I'm more than happy to check in and have motivational chats with my friends, and I have a lodger who I've helped out when he was depressed...

I'm not stopped from having a life doing all this, I'm not stopped living life from having my kids live in the same house, it is life.

Why was "coming home and offloading" on you never an option?
Genuine question

Or possibly with no kids at all but referencing what they did 15 or so years ago.🙄

yep, quite a few of these experts on mumsnet

Young adults come in all shape and form and it's really not as easy to forsee those who will do well and those who will struggle.

Some teenagers/young kids suffer with mental health issues for other reasons than lack of resilience.

It can be hard to understand why others, who have grown up with little hardship and plenty of support seem ro unprepared for adult life

My kids are early and mid 20s and both are completely independent. Both work FT, live in their own place, one in a studio, the other in a house share. Both drive and have their own car. I see and speak to them anything from once a week to once every few months.

Making sure they became independent from a young age was always at the top of my parenting priorities though. They walked to and from school before their friends were allowed to. They were able to use public transport, buses and train (short journeys) by the age of 10. They were alone at home every morning needing to get themselves to school by the start of secondary school. They were told they had to get a job as soon as they finished their gcses, which they did. They worked weekends during their A levels, and PT during Uni (400 miles from home). Both got very good degrees.

They arranged and paid for their driving lessons. I helped them paying half for their cars (12 years old plus) and first year insurance.

They got jobs within a few months of finishing uni and managed all their admin and financial matters afterwards, but would contact me for advice on rental contracts, council tax, insurance, pensions etc...

They both experienced some ups and downs, and found it hard at time. I feel I was there for them during these times, but coming home and offloading on me was never an option.

They are very well balanced young people, confident yet humble and happy.

Their friends come in all shape and form. One became a dad at 18, moved with his partner to raise their child. He was a very lazy unmotivated teenagers but parenthood has changed him. He is doing brilliantly and coping admirably.

Another had the absolute ideal middle class, parents together, great school, nice activities and holidays, but he's never worked. Went to.Uni, got a good degree, but he has done nothing I the two years he's left. Lives at home, not working, not driving, not going out much at all, won't do any small jobs or says he can't get any, has dreams of great jobs in London. His parents are purring no pressure on him at all and seem to just wait for something to happen. Maybe it suddenly will. He is a clever person.

I agree, I do have a 21 year old that lives at home but they pay rent and do all their own washing. They keep different hours so do all their own cooking and clean up after themselves. Sometimes I forget they live here tbh. The only thing I ask is if they're going away, they travel a bit, to let me know. Other than that it works out surprisingly well at the moment.

My others all live at home but they're under 18 I parent them, although I am raising them to be independent... Bit of a battle with DH on that as I think he does too much for them though.

I agree to some extent op.
Even on this thread it has been mentioned that “kids” are leaving further education with huge debts. These are adults not kids and treating them as kids doesn’t help anyone.
Yes times have changed. I took on my first mortgage, with a 5% deposit, at 21, this is not an option for 21 year olds today, through no fault of their own but even if the 21 year old today still live with their parents they are adults and should be treated as such, they should have a level of responsibility that goes with adulthood

100% agree. I've met so many people well into their 20's with all of the maturity and cop on of a 15-year-old. And it is the parents' fault. In trying to give their children all the help and support they never got, a whole generation have been infantilised.

Not sure what your post has to do with mine but, yes, once my kids have jobs and can afford house shares they will both live in one - neither wants to live at home for long but until they can afford to move out they can.
I know you and others are trying to wrong foot me and prove I'm a molly-coddling parent but I'm not that at all. I am just realistic and am prepared to offer both financial and emotional support to my kids when they need it. I don't have an arbitrary cut off point for that and I'm not planning to stop them from becoming fully fledged adults.
Oh and, yes, I offer support to my elderly parents now too.

I think that covers it.