To think there are more adult children left behind like this?

I’m not sure if I’d classify this as being left behind though. It’s on the parents to raise children to go out into the world.

I’m also fully convinced the reason there seem to be more men living like this than women is just down to pure enablement. Young women wouldn’t get away with that sort of behaviour.

I have 2 cases (2 brothers) in my family and I’d definitely blame my uncles for it. One has just started working in his 30s but hates. The other one is 35, never did anything besides an internship. Both finished uni, but my uncles seem to think all jobs were beneath their precious children and just allowed them to do sweet f all for years and years. The only reason one of them got a job is because he finally needed some sort of money to entertain his (predictably too young) girlfriends. The first one broke up as soon as she wised up, the second one is still around.

If his mum needs to go into care I don't think they can make you sell your home to pay for care, if a relative lives with them and it is also their home. When she eventually passes away there will be a bill to pay for the care, and then the home would need to be sold if there was not enough to cover the bill from her estate.

I have a cousin the same. No rent or mortgage, and she spends a lot on holidays and clothes. No mental health issues or neurodiversity.

What do you mean sorry?

Yeah but the clothes…

I worry that my son will be like this. He has AuDHD all he wants to do is game. He has no friends and very poor social and communication skills. He’s going to college in September so hoping he may meet some new friends. Having read through some of these posts I’m going to encourage him to start volunteering in the summer holidays when he’s finished his GCSEs. Anything to help him get “out there” a bit more.

“If it was left to fathers”

Such a shame that they weren’t around to sort that shit out.

My brother is like this.

He's in his mid 30s. Fortunately he works full time, and contributes towards all the chores, but he has absolutely zero desire to be independent. He has zero social life outside of work and gaming. Over the past few years, he has developed severe Crohn's disease, so he's even less likely to fly the nest now. As with the vast majority of examples (if not all of them) he is some form of ND (undiagnosed, but it's extremely obvious). I genuinely worry about what he'll do when our parents die.

It's also a case of "there but for the grace of God goes I". I am reasonably certain had I never met my (now) DH at uni I would likely be in the same boat.

There are a awful lot of undiagnosed neurodivergent adults who find life impossible to navigate who are just left behind.

My sister is like this. Lives at home with our Mum.

She's been married, but divorced and moved back home 'temporarily'.

She has worked in the past but lost her job and is making no plans to look for another - she's been out of work for at least the last 2 years.

She sits at home knitting and sewing and watching TV with Mum. I'm glad that she is company for Mum since dad died, but concerned that she makes no contributions to the household at all. She has no income and doesn't claim benefits.

Not in any way neurodivergent. Just very lazy. She once told her husband she didn't want to work and as Mum never did, she didn't see why she had to.

I have a cousin (female) like this. She is late 30s still lives with her mum, my aunt. No dad in the picture I think he was out of it before she was even born and I think they still live together as company and co-dependants. My aunt never found another partner and I feel my cousin feels a sense of duty as the only child to stick around and entertain etc. I have always wondered if this is maybe more common in single parent-only child households as a sense of duty. I’m unsure my cousin is neurodiverse and she doesn’t seem to have MH problems but she is what most people would consider ‘weird’ but I think that’s also from the single parent-only child codependency

I’d like not to, but let’s face it, it’s the mothers not kicking them out. From the responses, it seems to relate in the majority to sons.

Presumably you both got brought up the same though and you ended up with a completely different life. It's more personality and ND, depression, anxiety etc. not parents. I mean they could step in and threaten to kick them out which might work or might make the situation worse.

People who don't work in their productive years are a "drain" on the tax payer. They were costly when they were younger and needed educating and they will be costly when they're older and need pensions and health care. It is the productive middle years between 25 and retirement when they (should) pay the tax that covers this.

Yeah! Blame the women.

Some really cruel comments on here. First, stop with the parent blame. Second, there were no diagnostic services back in the day so these people existed among us and who took care of them? Their parents!! Most likely their mothers of course.

I suspect the Mothers have something to do with this. If it was left to the fathers, I think they’d be encouraged to leave and be independent. Very odd.

Hmm. One tried to marry a guy twice her age to escape, then got pregnant and gave her baby to a tenant on their land before eventually removing her and bringing her up herself, another married her cousin for the money and title, and a third died in child birth because her father wouldn't let her go to hospital. Hardly the picture of functional family life.

It's always been a thing, it's only now people are always commenting on it. It's bizarre to me when these people are probably the least problematic in society just minding their own business that people care so much-assuming the parents are ok with it of course. It's such a non-issue and I'm sure they realise they'll have to move out eventually and will cope just fine.

DP’s cousin is like this. He’s over 50, im 99% sure he’s autistic, he doesn’t even leave the house much. No job, relies on his mother for everything. DS will probably be the same in terms of jobs, he has autism, social anxiety, he hasn’t even gone to college since February because everytime he thinks about it he has a massive panic attack. Although he said he’s open to working from home with a relatively small team but that’s like finding a needle in a haystack. He does go for walks and such though.

I know someone like this. Zero motivation, limited social skills, pleasant-enough person. Lived with his parents until they died and then struggled afterwards.

I think its quite common! Tragedy for the parents!

One thing that people haven't mentioned is the way that mental health support has changed over the years. In the 1970s I used to be taken to visit an aunt in a large old psychiatric hospital. She was a lovely lady with quite obvious learning disabilities, and lived in a supported 'cottage' on site with other people in similar circumstances, along with the people with schizophrenia etc. I believe that this would have been true for a proportion of people who were obviously ND, had LD etc. so to some extent they were 'hidden away' unless their family/ wider family supported them, until the 1990s when these places were being shut down.

Sometimes I think this happens 'insidiously'/ accidentally rather than deliberately. I have an autistic son, who managed to get a full time job after A levels. He lives at home, because the job exhausts him, he's not interested in learning domestic tasks and I have very little pull over him now he has his own money (but not enough to rent a place). However, he copes really well when we go away, so perhaps not all is lost! I will continue to at least inform him about how the world works.

Don't rule out the possibility of it leading to something more. There is a huge shortage of practically minded engineers and engineering technicians if he eventually us able to get a relevant HNC, or higher qualification.

Many of us are quirky and/or neurodivergent. Makes for a fairly tolerant environment.

My great uncle was like this. He lived with his mother and then my granny - his sister. I actually thought he was my grandad when I was young. He held down a job and tbh I think he was used for his money. He'd have to ask for his pocket money (the money he earned) and it upset my dad. He had a stutter and was shy and got bullied. He'd likely have a diagnosis nowadays. He was looked upon as quite innocent and a bit 'slow' not my words. I feel sad when I think about his life.

That's really sad and similar to my nephew's situation.