Adult children babies

[Rno3gfr]

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

[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.

[OutComeTheWolves]

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[expectopelargonium]

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