Adult children babies

[Rno3gfr]

To have just had enough of Mumsnet in general talking about people in their early 20s as dependent, incapable, children?

[expectopelargonium]

I've had enough of MN posters who start contentious threads and then bugger off, never to be heard from again.

[tttigress]

I put YANBU, however I do think something has changed in society.

Maybe due to high house prices? Or everyone going to University? Or tuition fees?

Which means young adults are financial dependent and thus infantilised.

[RampantIvy]

Re my previous post about parents of students, I have been reading more posts from some saying that they are glad that their DC (nearly always a boy ) is going into catered accommodation so that they can be sure that their child will get three meals a day.

I find posts like this so frustrating. Why aren't they encouraging their children to learn to cook and become independent?

I'll jump off me soapbox now

[jessstan2]

Good for you. It happens eventually for most people; it sounds as though you have worked hard, had some adventure too as well as bringing children into the world. It's encouraging to read posts like yours.

[Postprandial]

@jessstan2

Postprandial, it sounds as though you have actually done very well. We can all look back and think we could have done things differently, that is life. You paid out rent but you did not have the responsibility for a property, you could travel light when you were young. Most people do rent before buying.

Congratulations, you are successful.

Yes, I've no particular regrets, @jessstan2. The point I was making was just that as someone who is clearly slightly older than the poster I was responding to (based on graduation dates), I did more or less what she did, but without having any other options, because returning to live with my parents wasn't possible -- as it wasn't, really, for anyone I knew, even quite prosperous people where houseroom wouldn't have been an issue. Apart from anything else, if you'd wanted to live with your parents, you would have been hugely limiting your life, your job options etc, to the area and country they lived in.

The whole 'rent is just throwing away money and it should all be about the mortgage' mindset would have been alien to my 20something self. From my POV, if you wanted a roof over your head, you had to pay for it, and you lived in cheap, grotty houseshares in grotty areas or the less attractive property guardian situations I remember one disused office block where our space was a cordoned-off corner of a large, open-plan office which still had its cubicles and if you needed to save.

I do obviously have total sympathy for people dealing with the insecurity of the private rental market in the UK. We lived in three flatshares with friends in London before buying our flat, and the first turned out to be an illegal sublet, and while we wanted to stay on in both the other two, and were examplary tenants, both were taken back by their landlords after a year. In the end, it got exhausting moving annually. I think it was that the prompted us to get it together to buy.

[winnieanddaisy]

My children are all 45+ . When they were teenagers my husband used to tell them that they had to leave once they reached 18 and when the last one had gone then he would sell our house and buy a one bedroom bungalow . This was so they could come back and visit but not be able to move back home . I disputed that and decreed they could stay till they were 25 , still joking . As it happened all 3 left home shortly before they reached 25 . I still help them out if they need it . The oldest two have needed hardly any help but the youngest has always needed me to sort his life out for him.

[jessstan2]

Postprandial, it sounds as though you have actually done very well. We can all look back and think we could have done things differently, that is life. You paid out rent but you did not have the responsibility for a property, you could travel light when you were young. Most people do rent before buying.

Congratulations, you are successful.

[Postprandial]

@Mishmased

Myself and now DH got together age 16 and 17 moved in together when I was 18 and married at 19 same year we started university. I did a tough chemistry degree wile working 30 hours a week, just missed out on a first class honors and lost a PhD place as a result. Graduated mid 2009 recession and hardy any jobs.

We were buying a house at age 25 (me pregnant) but had to pull out due to tragic family event. Couldn't buy until 6 years later. Between 18 and buying a house at age 31 I calculated that we've spent over €150k in rent. Not including missed opportunities as we couldn't go off traveling like our mates that still lived at home. I could afford to do a masters after a few years of studying. Would love a postgrad but don't think that will ever happen.

We're approaching mid thirties now with professional well paying jobs and a third child due soon but if I had my way I would stay at home for much longer and save instead of being 'grown up'. I will encourage my kids to stay home and save as much as possible.

Our lives were very similar to yours in that we met as students aged 18, worked virtually FT around university work, graduated in a recession where more or less our whole graduating class emigrated as there were no jobs, though we did both go on to funded postgrad degrees abroad. We bought our first place — a tiny flat — when we were 33, and postponed having a child till 39. I’m sure we paid a dizzying amount in rent all those years.

But perhaps the difference is that we’re older than you. Living at home after you left for university just wasn’t an option. Families were bigger, and I didn’t even have a room or shared room at home after I left for university, so there was nothing to go back to — and there was certainly no sense that paying rent or living in a house share was anything other than normal.

[rainbowandglitter]

I know what you mean. We've just had my dp's ds and dd move in with us. They are 19 dd and 23 ds. They are totally still like children. Their mother did everything for them when they lived with her so they have no idea how to cook, shop, clean etc. It boils my blood. A 23 year old that can't even cook one meal for god sake. The mother thinks she's been a good mother by doing everything for them when actually as a parent it's your job to be helping your children learn to be a fully functioning adult.

It's ridiculous.

[Mishmased]

Myself and now DH got together age 16 and 17 moved in together when I was 18 and married at 19 same year we started university. I did a tough chemistry degree wile working 30 hours a week, just missed out on a first class honors and lost a PhD place as a result. Graduated mid 2009 recession and hardy any jobs.

We were buying a house at age 25 (me pregnant) but had to pull out due to tragic family event. Couldn't buy until 6 years later. Between 18 and buying a house at age 31 I calculated that we've spent over €150k in rent. Not including missed opportunities as we couldn't go off traveling like our mates that still lived at home. I could afford to do a masters after a few years of studying. Would love a postgrad but don't think that will ever happen.

We're approaching mid thirties now with professional well paying jobs and a third child due soon but if I had my way I would stay at home for much longer and save instead of being 'grown up'. I will encourage my kids to stay home and save as much as possible.

[OutComeTheWolves]

Gutted - I thought this was going to be about people with that fetish where you dress up as a baby!

[Postprandial]

@RampantIvy

I don't think it is weird to want to own your own home. Our home rental system is too unregulated just now, and there aren't enough council houses.

Not ‘weird’ to want to own a house, no, but weird that this desire has led to a widespread acceptance of an extension of adolescence (under the rationale of ‘living at home to save for a deposit’).

So many posts in the Relationships forum on here are about the dynamic set up by children well into adulthood doing something ‘adult’ like cohabiting or having a child while still living in a dependent way with parents. There was a recent post by a pregnant twentysomething complaining that her parents didn’t see her as an adult and were assuming they’d be buying all the baby stuff — because she and her boyfriend were living (separately) with their parents, and had conceived in those circumstances. It doesn’t make for adult relationships, and it’s pretty poor preparation for having a baby.

[jessstan2]

@RampantIvy

I don't think it is weird to want to own your own home. Our home rental system is too unregulated just now, and there aren't enough council houses.

I agree and, let's face it, no child will be thinking, "When I grow up I want to be given a council house". It's hardly an ambition. Most young people are hoping to be able to buy a place eventually and living cheaply in the family home enables them to save a bit more. However it is possible to rent and share, plenty do that too and manage to save some money.

It's OK living with parents if there is sufficient room for all to have privacy, visitors, etc, and can do your own bits and pieces. It can't be much fun if you are in a small house and have to sit in one room with your family in front of the TV every night or else go to bed.

[RampantIvy]

I don't think it is weird to want to own your own home. Our home rental system is too unregulated just now, and there aren't enough council houses.

[NoIDontWatchLoveIsland]

And I think it’s spectacularly weird that the holy grail of home ownership now seems to act as an unquestioned alibi for a lengthy extension of adolescence.

This. Widespread home ownership was common on for a brief period of the 20th century, prior to this renting has always been the norm, and people in the past would have been marrying and starting families from late teens/early 20s

[LemonRoses]

The use of children as part of family income generation wasn’t universal in U.K. it was for poor people.
Rich young women usually went on a grand tour or to finishing school before they came out at eighteen. They married young but not in childhood. Some even went to university or studied the arts.
Rich young men went to university, just as they do now.

What’s changed is wider access to a longer education and greater opportunities for young people, young women in particular. Even in my lifetime the opportunities for young women have expanded enormously to allow them better opportunities than working in service, nursing/teaching or marriage. I see that widening of access as a very positive thing for society.

[jessstan2]

When I was a youngster, many people stayed at home with mum and dad until they got married! Particularly the working and lower middle classes. They paid some housekeeping and mum did everything for them, considering it to be her job. My older cousins did that as did my parents and theirs.

Personally, I couldn't wait to escape the family home but I was not typical at that time.

[RampantIvy]

You've summed it up pretty well @Postprandial

[Postprandial]

That was because the concept of ‘childhood’ as being a time of play, education and innocence as we think of it in western countries is a fairly new one. Children would have been iewed as economically useful mini-adults doing crucial domestic chores in families from the time they could pick up firewood or look after younger ones, then doing agricultural work and industrial work after the industrial revolution (because they were usefully small and cheap) until various changes and reform acts pushed compulsory education instead, and by the 20thc greater prosperity — and children’s economic uselessness in the first world — meant people started having fewer children and lavishing more resources on the ones they had. So childhood had changed to a separate phase of being non-productive, and children viewed as consumers rather than workers.

Same with teenagers — the word had existed but only took off as a concept in the period after WW2, when children now had to stay in compulsory education for longer, and push back their economic independence further, ditto again with far larger numbers now attending university and the stress on ‘saving for a deposit’ meaning the teenage years stretch easily into mid-20s and beyond.

[Xenia]

Yes, I found a male ancestor in the 1800s down the mine aged 10 in the census in NE England where I am from (everyone remember to fill the census in today if not already done (not Scotland those as theirs is next year)). In another branch both parents died within a year in 1848/9 in NE England. The toddler was taken in my a relative by the time of the 1851 census, one of the boys aged 12 went into the navy (and his older brother was also in the navy), my female ancestor became a servant (live in) as did another sister.

[RampantIvy]

It is one reason in the 1800s getting girls away into service at 13 or as some of my ancestors off on board ship to train for work as a mariner at the same age was so popular

Or down the mines from the age of 7 where I live

It is probably also why I am not keen on gap years

I think there are too many variables here. DD's medicine application was unsuccessful, then she wasn't sure what she wanted to do, and pulled out of the alternative degree course that she was offered. She then had more time, without being stressed by A level study to really look around and see what she wanted to do and where she wanted to go.

She used her gap year to work, volunteer and travel, and I think it did her the world of good as it increased her fragile confidence quite a lot. And as she is an only child we don't have the issue of supporting several students through university.

Surprisingly, a year off didn't affect her academically, and in spite of health issues, she has managed to achieve excellent results in her exams so far. I just hope she hasn't peaked too early.

[Xenia]

It is one reason in the 1800s getting girls away into service at 13 or as some of my ancestors off on board ship to train for work as a mariner at the same age was so popular (except on farms when children are useful) as it was fewer mouths to feed. It is probably also why I am not keen on gap years - I want the stage when I support them including further education over and done with so they are self supporting.

[Redjumper1]

It all depends on how the relationship is with the adult child. Some parents can live with their adult children and are supportive and help financially until they can move out. They respect that their son/daughter is now an adult.

However, some parents meddle, interfere and harvest a co dependent relationship making it difficult for children to break free. They molleycoddle their child and control them so much that they can't cope with making their own decisions.

On the other scale, you have parents who are very focused on "standing on your own two feet" and believe the minute the child turns 18, they are on their own. This isn't , in my view, any better. In fact, arguably worse.

I do see a focus, due most likely to increased cost of living, of adult children living longer with parents. For normal balanced parents this is fine but it gives more leverage for the controlling/co dependents ones to extend their behaviour under the guise of caring.

[ArseInTheCoOpWindow]

They can’t leave school at 16 anymore. The leaving age is 18. So they are much more dependent on their parents for longer unlike the 16 year olds of yore.

And also society has moved on, parents and children have much more relaxed open relationships.

[RampantIvy]

@Susie477

YANBU.

When I was growing up most people left school at 16 and got jobs or apprenticeships. Now, 21 year olds are treated like children. It’s ridiculous.

I don't treat my 20 year old like a child. I want her to be independent.