To think we're too hung up about adults still living with parents

[Vintagejazz]

One of my friends is 38 and still lives in the family home with her parents. She's not a spoilt brat who still expects her washing done and her dinner ready when she gets home from work. She just gets on really well with her mum and dad and does not particularly want to move out to a flat on her own, and can't afford to buy a house in any kind of half decent area. She contributes to the household budget, helps her parents (who are getting on in years) a lot, and all three of them are happy with the arrangement.
But some people comment on it in a sad kind of way, shaking their heads and wondering when she's going to move out. My friend is aware of this and asked me recently if people think she's 'sad' to be still at home.

AIBU to think we've become very hung up about this sort of thing. Years ago it was quite common for several generations of one family to live in the same house. Now we have lots of lonely people of different generations reluctantly living on their own because there's a kind of taboo about adults not having moved out by the time they're about 25. Obviously there's lots of people who love living alone. But it's not every one's cup of tea so why can't people accept that and stop passing comments?

I've got two friends who are 30 and living at home. Both are lacking in life experience and I do wonder how much better their lives would be if they'd moved out for uni, or when they got their first job.

Neither seems particularly happy. One says she'll move out when she meets the man of her dreams. So finds someone else to look after her? And the other is there for good. I feel sad for them to be honest, but the older they get the less likely they are to take the plunge.

If you are paying your own way I don't really see what is so dramatically different about living with housemates to living with your parents. I have never lived 'on my own' as it's not ever been financially viable - always had housemates, at uni then afterwards, before I lived with now-DH. I don't really know anyone else who's lived alone either. Given a choice between being lonely in a nasty bedsit and living at home pulling my weight I think I know which I'd choose!

When you leave home and have to look after yourself, it does make you grow up. I think it would be difficult to fully develop, if you always live at home.

In terms of traditional cultures, I know lots of people who have grown up in those types of cultures, but move out and live independently as soon as they get the chance. A lot of the idea of living with your family was in the past based on economic necessity.

Heir - It is your life to live as you want. But of course it is different living with your parents to living with housemates. Parents love you and want to make sure you are okay. Housemates will never feel the same type of responsibility for you.

I think it's fine if everyone is happy with the situation.

"A lot of the idea of living with your family was in the past based on economic necessity."

Economic necessity is still a good reason for adult children living at home.

I think only if everyone is complete agreement that it is working.

So looking at the reverse of this debate. If your children grow up and one of them shows no signs of leaving home, lets say at 22-23 after university or training, should you kick them out because it is 'weird' or 'sad' for them to still be at home?

Even if they are working, contributing to the household costs and generally pleasant to live with? Sceptical:

To me it sounds like a good situation for all involved if everyone is happy then great.

The people who comment on this type of domestic setup are judgemental and bitchy and should learn to mind their own business. What makes one person happy doesn't work for another.

I work with someone who moved out of home at eighteen to get a job in a nearby city. Forty years later she is still living in a rented and not very spacious flat in an area heavily populated with students and full of takeaways, launderettes and pubs. I find that much sadder than someone remaining in the family home but living as an adult and pulling their weight while being part of a nice community.

A friend of mine has two brothers aged 39 and 42 who still live with their parents despite owning their own homes. I can only assume their parents encourage them to stay. But it's odd and very sad to me.

I would be devastated to think a child of mine would be still living with me in their forties. It's an unnatural state.

My sister still lives at home she is a bit of a spoiled brat though but it suits them all she gets on far better with mum than I do but i left at 21 and she was still left as a yo
ung child, she has no plans to leave and I think if it suits people it is fine, people say to me that they were surprised didnt leave home for Uni she got the train then drove it wasn't that far she was only 18 now 21 scared she is here forever she has no plans to leave yet

Yeh well i saved a 20% deposit while people all but told me i was sad and weird and needed independence etccc
I knew that in the past my people pleasing appearanc-conscious side would have taken over, and id have moved out to appear normal.

But for me it was proof id developed, personally, and could bear knowing i was a sad loser or whatevet. Morethan one person spoke to me 'gently' with their concerns.

It was like the stanford marshmallow test. Delayed gratification. And now i am gratified !!

But that is just my story. I respect everybody else's reasons too and dont feel i know "the right way to live".

There is a huge difference between children who have moved out (say, for uni) then back in with their parents for a little bit while they get their finances in order, and people who don't want to move out and never have.

In not sure the choice has to be 'mankey bed sit or parental home'. Many people manage to live in nice house shares!

It is strange and child like - it's deferring numerous adult decisions, considerations and responsibilities to your mummy and daddy. There is so much more to being independent than paying rent and doing a bit of washing and cooking.

I would find it hugely unattractive if a prospective partner was living at home, unless it was a temporary 'needs must' thing.

"In not sure the choice has to be 'mankey bed sit or parental home'."

It doesn't always have to be, but sometimes it is. While bedsits and house shares are okay when you're in your twenties, they're not always the way people want to live when they get a bit older. So if someone in that situation decides they'd rather move back in with a parent/parents and contribute the equivalent money towards the household budget I don't see anything wrong with that.
Obviously arrangements like that are only healthy if both parents and adult child realise that they must now live together as adults. Grown up sons and daughters still expecting to have their ironing done and their dinner on the table; or parents of grown up children still treating them like teenagers and asking them what time they'll be home, or giving out because they'd rather cook their own dinner and eat a bit later than sit down to mum's dinner at 6pm every evening really need to review the situation.

Whats the difference between a house share and sharing a house with your parents and paying a decent contribution? Parents and grown up children can be housemates.

I suppose the key question is how would she cope on her own.

My late BIL never left home but then he never had a relationship and ther friends either - he was very insular and shy as was his mum and the longer it was just the 2 of them after his dad died they made each other worse. We did used to get lots of raised eye brows and enquiries of why did he not have a girlfriend and was he gay questions.

He hanged himself 18 months after she died. I blame her for never encouraging him to be independent - she killed him with kindness.

I love my DS to pieces but I do want him at some stage to leave the nest and go and form his own life with someone else.

But, if she is happy, socially skilled and has lots of friends and is just living there for convenience then fair play to her.

Parents love you and want you to be happy. They will put adult children first at times. Housemates are totally different and much more a relationship of equals. If you act like an idiot, housemates won't even like you, never mind love you.

I don't mind what people do, but if my children still lived at home in their 30s i would feel as if I had somehow failed them, had not been able to give them independence and a chance to grow up.

So many people want to go straight from their parents house to their own house, but IMO it is valuable experience to live on your own, even if it is a dingy flatshare.

Being on your own, and making your own way in life, mean you get focussed on achieving what you want. When you are thrown back on yourself you learn who you really are, what is important to you, and how to change your life.

It seems a bit apathetic to me to never leave the parental home, it may be comfortable, but it is a bit sad, like a life half lived. There is a whole world out there!

Betty that definitely sounds like a very dysfunctional situation. But I feel sorry for the many people who are responsible adults well able to contribute financially, help with cleaning and maintenance of the house, give parents lifts to places etc. but find themselves tarred with the same brush and categorised as odd bods. That old series 'Sorry' starring Ronnie Corbett has a lot to answer for

What Greenwinter said, parents will indulge and favour their children, it isn't a relationship of equals and can leave you unprepared for life in the wider community where you are not insulated by your family.

Living with parents can be a safe option, children benefit financially and parents are guaranteed care when they get older, but at what cost to personal development?

It works in traditional societies, but I want to be part of a modern technologically advanced prosperous culture.
Not a clan based culture that clings to tradition and extended family ties.

Summer it wasn't dysfunctional really but the longer he stayed at home the less inclined he was to leave. He had a full time job, owned 2 properties and was actually quite well off but he just never cut the ties....and it did him no favours.

He was a great guy though, he just didn't have the courage to go out and make his way and sadly for him his mum was more than happy for him to stay with her. I have vowed never to make the same mistake with my DS - if he was still living with me when he is in his late 30's but with the means to be independent I would be very worried and sad for him.

It should be perfectly reasonable for pretty much any combination of people, related or not, to decide to share the paying for and maintenance of a home, especially if it means they get to live in a nicer, more convenient place.

But I think if someone is going to live with their parents long term then, eventually, presumably quite gradually, there needs to be a shift from the situation where the parents are the carers and in charge of the child, to a situation where everyone is more equal. (Then perhaps beyond that you could even end up with a situation where the adult with the most responsibility, the one who is doing more of the paying, and perhaps even one day bringing a partner to live there too, is the one who was originally the child - a bit like the next generation taking over a family farm.)

That way you can still share a home while moving beyond the parent-child dynamic. I agree that living away from home (specifically living alone - I know people who've never done that either) is a really good experience to have, though.

Families pooling resources and possibly only running one household in times of financial struggle makes perfect sense - it's what families have always been 'for', partly - pooling resources and looking after each other, making economies by going in jointly, being close by and available for support.

I think there's a world of difference between sharing a house with family or parents, and 'still living at home', with all that implies about still being in the care of one's parents. Which you have is going to depend on the personalities involved (and probably also available space).

I think it depends on the individual circumstances. Where the offspring are treated as other adults in the household and are making a useful contribution financially and/or practically and where all parties are happy with the situation, then why not?

However, AveryJessups post at 00:37 where she talked about "infantilization of adult children" struck a chord with me. The situation she describes is very reminiscent of a family I knew when growing up.

My aunt (by marriage) was one of three children and the only one to have left home. She had an adult brother and sister who lived with their elderly mother until she died and then stayed together after that in the house they had grown up in. For various reasons we sometimes had to visit this family when I was a child and I thought the set up weird even though I was still very young myself. The mother treated her son and daughter just like small children even though they must have been in their 40s by then and they just accepted it. They only went away on holiday when their Mum took them. It was confusing to me as a child to see people who looked like grown ups but were clearly filling the role of child.

OK they were probably an exceptional case but I suppose I always get the shudders and think back to that family when I hear of people of that age still being at home.

YANBU
There are some great examples on here of why it can work to live with your parents, the situation can be mutually beneficial.

Of course if It's a case of having an unhealthy 'apron strings' relationship with your parents as opposed to being independent then I wouldn't feel that was right, but in the OP's case her friend I think, would be totally different.

I moved out very young, did go to uni and then went straight in with housemates... and would never, ever have been able to move back in with my parents even if it was that or live in a crappy bedsit or whatever a bad example is-it just wouldn't work, I wouldn't be welcome and I wouldn't be happy there. I find that the other extreme-some people are in a position to have such a good situation and relationship with their parents that it is an option and It's lovely that people can co-exist happily in the same living space and it works for them.

Economic insecurity forces people to be cautious, limit
Their horizons and not take chances, they are thus often constrained.