Adult children babies

[Rno3gfr]

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

[MollyButton]

My Children will always be my children - doesn't matter how old they are.

And from my background (working class) family helps out whatever age you are. On the other hand when you can you start to pay your own way - I used to give my Mum a contribution from my holiday jobs while at Uni (which I didn't spend my time drunk - and was very frugal as I didn't have anyone to bale me out if I was in debt).

I have one child who has boomeranged (left home and then moved back), another who might do the same - it depends on his house shares lease. Neither are anywhere close to being able to buy - that depends on them earning a lot more. But on the other hand even the one whose moved out has offered to try and help me out if I need him to.
I know some people's families are rubbish and see the child moving out as the end of a need to care, and some young people have always had a grasping/refusing to take responsibility attitude. Its nothing new.
And if your family didn't support you after you were an adult- I'm sorry for you. But there is nothing wrong with mutual support.

[ViciousJackdaw]

I thought this was going to be a thread about those High Court judges who pay someone who calls herself Nanny Josephine good money to change their nappies.

[dancinfeet]

My mum died when I was in my early 20s, I sure could have done with not so much a parent figure but an older adult to turn to and ask advice when needed. My much older siblings weren't interested in me or any problems I had. I will make sure that I am there for my own daughters if/whenever they need me and they will always be welcome to come back home to stay should they need to, when I was in an abusive marriage I put up with it for so long simply because I had nowhere else to go. I would rather have an adult child living back at home than have them living in the same circumstances I was.

[FamilyOfAliens]

@ViciousJackdaw

I thought this was going to be a thread about those High Court judges who pay someone who calls herself Nanny Josephine good money to change their nappies.

The thread title certainly reads that way.

[RampantIvy]

You never stop worrying about your children, no matter how old they are.

[likeamillpond]

I do think that there is an unhealthy co-dependency culture developing between parents and their young adult children.

Evidenced by the number of people during lockdown who have struggled to manage even a couple of months without seeing their parents.

[MrsTophamHat]

@RampantIvy

You never stop worrying about your children, no matter how old they are.

I agree with this, and my children will never stop being welcome in my home for as long as they need it. But that's not to say that I think living on a permanent basis with their mum and dad beyond their early twenties is a desirable situation for any of us.

For example, I moved back in with my parents aged 23 following a break up where I had been living with a boyfriend in another city. I lived back at home for about 10 months while I got some savings together then moved out again. It was never seen as a permanent thing.

[Cornettoninja]

I don’t know if that’s completely fair @likeamillpond. Anecdotally on here most people are either concerned for elderly or chronically ill parents or they’re struggling without respite childcare. It’s not exactly a normal situation.

I’ve never had any support from parents; DP’s parents are too far away and one of mine is dead, the other very disabled, it’s really hard and I’m not surprised people who’ve had that kind of support are feeling it’s absence. Or, more simply, people just love their families. I certainly don’t think it’s evidence that they have unhealthy, overly dependent relationships.

[jessstan2]

I can't say I'd noticed it much. It is true that young adults are living at home with mum and dad for longer than they used to because of the cost of housing and that obviously entails a degree of dependence, however hard people try.

[Flowers24]

@RampantIvy

You never stop worrying about your children, no matter how old they are.

My mum says this to me all the time........

[Lentillover1900]

I would put money on the OP being

In her twenties
Dependent on her parents
Incapable

.... and drunk

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.

[RampantIvy]

You've summed it up pretty well @Postprandial

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.