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

I do think there’s an element of kids are too protected but then the world is a worse place. Maybe I really mean too much is done for them, some of the things DH says about the kids in his high school and poorly prepared for life they see surprise me.

I think parenting is about teaching and encouraging independence. There also comes a point where its on the children to support the parents in times of difficulty. Suppoert shouldn't only go one way.

I was a very depressed teen (CAMHS, SSRIs, self harm etc) but left at 18 with the contents of my child savings account and expected to find work and look after myself This sounds very harsh, sorry you had to deal with that.

I'm glad it worked out, but it sounds tough.

I have mixed feelings about this, it is so much harder these days for young adults to "grow up" financially because rent is so horrifically expensive and it is only natural to want to help your children, I left home at 18 and was able to make my own way in the world (my mum gave me bits and bobs, treats and small sums of money and I really appreciated it). What i see as different these days is the emotional dependance, when I am out with a friend who has a daughter who has just turned 20, she always has to keep her phone on and to hand as the girl constantly messages her for lifts, asks what food she should make, asks for lifts to her mates, it seems more like an early teen than a grown young woman. But as I said, things are different and i may well not understand how much change there has been.

It's hard to judge, as I haven't been in that position, mine are still teens.

I agree things are much harder in many ways - no one's expecting to fall into a first job and have megabucks but at least, say, 25 years ago, roughly when i left home, a modest job would pay for somewhere decent to live shared with friends and a bit of fun. Now in a lot of places you're just earning to pay the rent.

I will fully advise my kids to say with us a few years after finishing education and saving up half their money because it will give them a better nest egg and we're not going to find 50k or whatever under a sofa cushion any time soon - but it will be totally up to them whether they want to do that.

Oldest I have no worries about, he is very well motived - youngest I can't tell yet really though I suspect he'll be fine.

We've brought both up to be quite independent, perhaps mainly because I'm lazy and I don't want to have to take them everywhere when we're in London so they can get places themselves on public transport. Oldest really avails himself of this and has been going all over London since he was about 14

But back in the day you could live in a house share AND save for a deposit. So you could do it for a few years and then buy a place. But now, rents are so much higher (proportional to salaries) that you haven't got any disposable income to save. So you're looking at living in a house share long term and never getting on the property ladder, or staying with your parents and saving for a deposit. Not surprising that most people choose the latter.

Is the op saying that?

There's the kind of parenting that provides a support system that will put a kid back onto their tracks and the kind of support system that negates a child's requirement to have any tracks at all and leaves them arrested in a state of permanent dependency.

The op is suggesting that the latter is so destructive that it is better not to have it at all.

Necessity doesn't seem to have helped you with empathy, OP.

We've been very fortunate in that while our DCs have had their various struggles, they've gone on to get good university places and are motivated and on track to good careers (assuming AI doesn't gobble them all up first). But I've seen them, at times, and a lot of their peers struggle, and don't think having parental support withdrawn would have benefitted them in the least.

You seem to lack understanding of how much the world has changed since you were 18 and of the increased number and complexity of the challenges facing young people now.

Isn't this what house shares are for?

So you learn to be an adult independently and then move on to living on your own or with a partner when you can afford it/meet someone.

There is a name for parents who can't let go and allow them to make mistakes and try to micromanage their adult children - parental separation anxiety

I do I have young adults and while I think OP is NBU and I see parents of adults all around me slaving after them, I totally agree about how hard getting a job is. My youngest had a similar situation. It took 6 months to get a job and he tried everything.
That one job has honestly changed everything, he was getting truly hopeless.
However he was a bit startled when I told him I expect 15% towards bills, but he gets it now!
I wish the government would prioritise training and jobs for the young, because that first step can be the hardest.

@Cherrytree86 I did live with her for a year when I was around 24 and she was exactly like that.
Some parents are more caring than others, clearly

Did you sit on your backside being fed all day by mum while you sat there watching TV?

@Nescafeneeded -youve hit it there. I was chatting with my dd and asking about her future plans-did she want a place of her own? She started talking about how she’d like to buy in Altrincham but can’t afford it (nice mc town next to Manchester for those southerners). I suggested buying somewhere cheaper-she earns a very good salary-and taking in a lodger. I told her how I’d loved my flat sharing days even though there were some grotty places. But mum, she said. You grew up poor, no fridge, no heating, nothing, so those grotty places didn’t seem that bad to you. Here, I have a nice room and bathroom and nice house to live in-it’s a massive step back and I don’t want to live anywhere grotty.

Wondering if she’ll ever move out!

I also think there has been a massive cultural shift. Many years ago, teenagers were expected to be responsible and contribute to the family and work. None of this ‘frontal lobe not developed’ kind of thing. I’m a history buff and in medieval times, we had kings who governed, planned battle campaigns and raised taxes-as teenagers. Henry V, Edward IV and The Black Prince were teens when they had huge responsibility. I think it’s become a thing in the last 30 years to extend childhood way beyond a time our ancestors would have recognised. If we trusted our young people as they grow up a bit more, we might end up with more mature people.

You're not talking about working class kids sre you?

Just to add; I don't think it's babying your kids if they live at home, work full time and contribute financially and physically to the household. It's not this generations fault housing is so pricey. I mean the ones who are not doing this.

I'm in a few months striking distance of being a Millennial. And I have three children, my eldest is a young adult.

I'm aware of the structural challenges ahead for my kids but I've also seen a well meaning approach to parenting that has accidentally engineered an anxious generation.

Yup I agree. At 18 when sixth form ended my mum gave me two choices.. get a job and pay board or go to uni. There was no alternative. Barring serious mental or physical health issues my mind is BLOWN by the number of late teens / twenty something's and beyond who live at home and essentially piss about working part time or doing fuck all. I know of a few, and their parents are not doing them any favours.

I blame en suite student accommodation.

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

I kind of agree. I left home in my teens (without a cushion of savings) found a job and had a baby to support. My DC left home in early twenties - I helped financially where I could and they have the emotional support they need from me, but I didn’t coddle them in their teens and made sure I taught them DIY, how to cook, how to manage finances etc so that they were comfortable with all that when they left. Mainly because I didn’t want anyone accusing him of being a useless man child who was looking for a mother in a GF. I work with too many young men of the same age that don’t seem able to do these things. And some are not resilient in that every other day they say they have anxiety or have been traumatised by what appears to be insignificant things (the rain has given them ‘trauma’, they can’t afford to go to cinema and it’s ‘traumatic’). People who were late teens or early twenties during Covid seem to be afflicted by this and I don’t know what the answer is.

To be fair in the 90s when you died in a game you died 🤣
You had to get good to progress.

But yea i agree that gaming seems to have made some ppl very angry online.

We need to stop benchmarking against the boomer and older gen-X generations. They could move out young and go on to start families because of societal changes/investment that happened in the post war years, including the creation of the NHS.
Pre WW2, multi-generational living was common place in my family on both sides, and I doubt my family are unusual!
My MIL remarked when I turned 25 (a long time ago!) that she was a mum of two children by that age (I had my first in my mid thirties). They also had bought their three bed detached house in the 1970s on my FIL fairly average salary in the suburb of a Home Counties town. According to the Bank of England calculator, in todays money that house would have cost just under 90k. But to buy it today it would be at least 600k, maybe even over 700k 😬