What is the obsession with encouraging children from 18+ to move out? Why not live together?

[SoloPolox]

I understand the importance of independence and feel someone doesn't need to live in their own home to be independent. I understand that later down the line when adult children get married and have children, it might not be realistic for everyone to live in the same house although even then, I'd like to think with some open mindedness and flexibility that it could work and has many benefits (in addition to cons of course). But I don't understand why we encourage adult children to live on their own? Obviously there are those who enjoy it which is a different thing. But I just read a story today about a young woman who took her own life even though she had a 9 month old due to experiencing abuse from her partner. It appeared she lived on her own with the baby at the time. I can't help but think that had she been living with her parents perhaps things may have looked very different. The elderly can often feel lonely, and I imagine would feel less so if living with or very close to children and grandchildren. Mothers are finding it hard to raise children on their own for a lot of the time whilst their husbands are at work (not exclusively husbands at work), and both Mother and child would do much better with the regular support of grandparents. I'm not taking into consideration those with strained relationships and difficult personalities where the distance is required, and I know it's not always logistically easy due to careers and other commitments. But I do feel there are many that could benefit from this but it seems to be frowned upon?

Multi generational living is very common where I live. Many people have 3 generations in one home. Grandparents help with childcare after school, parents take on the main bills as grandparents already own house.

Our house is large enough to do this. If Ds wants to stay as an adult he can have own bedroom, office space and living room

Mine two are off to Uni one this year and one next. I hope in the nicest possible way they become independent and don't return home to live. They will always be 100% welcome but I don't want their life to be restricted to having to live with me well into adulthood.

Because you sometimes find that they stay in "teenager mode" and don't contribute equally to the finances/chores.

Friend of mine still has her Dd at home at nearly 30 - has never moved out to uni. Pays nominal rent, cooks maybe once a week, doesn't do many chores, so it's just like having an overgrown kid at home forever. When they've never left, the status quo just carries on, nobody turns round at the age of 18 and says "I'm an adult now, I'll start doing a third of the chores and pay an equal amount of the bills".

One issue with multigenerational living is falling into care trap.
I know many people living like that and it is ALWAYS one of the women falling into carer trap. Whether it's caring for grand children (and more) or disabled members ir elderly who need it.
Every family I know has one.

I don’t want my kids home, they’ve turned into messy adults and I’m not living like that.
‘Plus, as much as I’d love grandchildren, I wouldn’t want the noise and mess of kids 24 hours a day again.

Because the vast majority of young people want to move out and enjoy independence. Wanting to stay at home with parents isn't a good idea unless there is an absolute need for it.

I absolutely agree.

Mine are early 20s, one just finished uni and staying in her uni town renting a room. The other lives at home but rarely here with work, boyfriend and social life.

So me and DH are often on our own and the house is tidy. I love it but I also love it when they both rock up with their mess, music and friends. I’m too young (mid 50s) to crave a quiet orderly life. They’ll always be welcome here.

I partly agree with OP. People are weird in thinking it's default wrong to live with older family. I know many people who lived as young adults with parents/older relatives happily. It can be perfectly healthy.

Sadly, I find other people my kids irritating. They can all move out asap. :)

Sex. I want to have sex. I don't want to have sex when my adult child in is in the house. My adult child presumably wants to have sex. I don't want them to be doing it while I'm in the house.
So we live in different houses. It works.

I come from a culture where it is the norm and it is very hard to get it to work well. I have maybe 12 or so cousins living with parents/in laws and only 2 who are genuinely happy with it, the others go on and on about how much they hate it. It is the leading cause of divorce for Indian couples in my observation.

The fact is that everyone can be generally nice but multiple adults living together involves a lot of compromise, much less privacy (think about the number of posters on here who don't want their ILs to see them after birth and then imagine living with the ILs) and virtually never being alone (for introverts, torture). The families it works for have very large houses, esp helpful to have two kitchens, and enough money for couples to be able to go out for dinner any time they need time out.

Well firstly I agree with others that there isn't an obsession with this, an increasing number of young people are not moving out.

But I think many people, both parents and adult children, just value having space. Not feeling like you have to compromise on every little thing - sharing the sofa, picking meals together, TV choices, being considerate about noise, dealing with other people's annoying habits. Just constant compromise. It's fine if this doesn't mean anything to you (and I think you are at quite the extreme scale of that since you are sort of promoting people staying with their parents even after marriage and children, meaning spouses having to live with in laws and grandparents having to live with young children, both of which I think most would feel very stifled by), but to each their own. Many want to experience freedom and just being in their own thoughts, in control of their own space.

I don't think many parents of young children are elderly yet, either, so I don't think the loneliness angle really fits. I'll be in my 40s when my DC are 18!

I moved out at 24, my parents didn't make me but I felt our relationship was too stretched at that point and we both needed our own space. Everyone's relationships are different but they certainly didn't make me leave.

(I moved back in for 3 weeks, 2 years ago whilst my house was being renovated and it was genuinely awful. Daily arguments the lot. As soon as I left it was all fine again)

I fully expect DC living with us until their mid to late 20's.
I also expect them to chip in with costs and housekeeping.

DD (18) is starting her first full-time job in September. We have sat her down and explained our expectations which do include cleaning and cooking as well as a financial contribution - cheaper than moving out. In return she has a roof over her head, can safe some money and boyfriend can stay over at weekends.

We'll see how it pans out.

It totally depends what kind of relationship you have with your parents
I left for uni at 18. By the time I came back, my dad was almost 60 and a grumpy old man. He was strict with me growing up, i wasn't allowed friends over let alone boyfriends. I wanted to go out, get drunk and party and my parents were not understanding, they wanted their freedom and I wanted mine.
People say renting is dead money. Why? I had amazing experiences renting and lived in some nice little flats. I'm very glad i did it. So what if I didn't get on the property ladder until my 30s? I enjoyed my life. I would have been miserable living with my parents.
That said, I have friends who went back after uni and still live happily with their parents in their late 30s. Everyone is different.

Perhaps because if you have an inter generational household, it's generally the woman who would be stuck as caregiver for both the elderly and the children. Most women don't want that these days.

Also this. The intergenerational household is pretty much predicated on the woman running around after three generations with no time whatsoever for herself or anything she wants to do.

No thank you very much.

OP, have you got kids of this age? I do, and to be honest they're a bit of a pain to live with at times, especially ones who've had a taste of freedom at university and then come back into some kind of limbo between independent adult living and into a family environment.

DD is home from uni at the moment; she's working, but shifts so her hours are all over the place.... I get woken at 5.30am when she's on an early, and if she's not working she's usually out with friends and coming home in the small hours - or sometimes not; I never know. When she is home, her boyfriend is often here too, which is another body about the place, another mouth to feed at short notice. I also never know whether she'll be home for dinner or to wait in for deliveries or to let the dog out when I can't. She's nice enough when she is here and quite often cooks for us all, which is appreciated but it's honestly so much easier to get your head down for a normal working week when she's not around and there is none of the stress on space or on the bathroom.

After two decades of family life coming first I am looking forward to being me again and only having me and DP to consider. I'm a bit done with child-wrangling and putting others first all the time. Of course I'll support them if they need supporting and they'll always be welcome here if they want to be here, but the truth is, for them, it's second best being here.

Yes! This is a factor too! How did I forget?!

it also only really works if your children want to stay where they grew up which is less common now. I like where I live now and where the DC are growing up but I’d rather they went somewhere a bit more exciting when they’re adults. Hopefully they’ll have opportunities to live overseas etc.

If one or both of the kids wants to live with us as adults then barring them changing dramatically in their personalities I think that would be lovely. We have space to create a small bedroom plus large living room for each of them and have a bathroom they could share on the first floor leaving us a bedroom/bathroom on top floor and private living room downstairs. We would all have to share the kitchen/dining/living space at back of the house. They are currently 5 & 8 though so who knows how I will feel having been through the teenage years. That said I don’t believe independence is learnt solely by living alone. I left home to go to uni at 18 knowing how to cook/clean/change plugs/troubleshoot basic issues with household appliances/manage most gardening tasks/change oil/tyres on the car . I also knew how to set up a budget covering annual/monthly/weekly expenses & track against it, how to sew well enough to mend clothes/take up hems and similar. Lots of my contemporaries at uni had no clue about much of that on starting uni and still didn’t know by time we left as whichever of us already knew were always the ones who sorted stuff out. One girl couldn’t even do stuff like change lightbulbs or light a gas hob. I was expected to do an increasing share of jobs round the house and started doing them when I was tiny. My kids are already doing jobs like loading and unloading dishwasher, wiping down table after meals, sweeping up spills of food, tidying bedrooms and help with things like mowing lawns, weeding, cooking meals, spring cleaning etc. I’m always amazed how many of their friends parents just do everything. I mean honestly the kids are a bit slow and they make mistakes and sometimes it might be faster to do it myself but to me the point isn’t that them participating actually helps me right now it’s that they learn how to do it. I’m hopeful by 18 they will feel well prepared to manage most household jobs and whether they stay here or go elsewhere they’ll understand that those jobs are shared by everyone

Life is different nowadays. People are more independent. There’s so much available in the world and free time is so limited now that a household requires two salaries. Women want to work and travel and enjoy their lives; they don’t want to be stuck at home caring for their parents or inlaws, or for their grandkids. They feel they’ve served their time and grandkids (and parents) aren’t their responsibility. They don’t want to share their home with someone who gets in the way and makes noise and mess and hogs the tv and bathroom, and especially not if they need looking after. They want to be free and unburdened.

It’s not great for the adult child to be stuck at home either. They wouldn’t be able to have friends round freely without asking, or have girl/boyfriends stay over. They wouldn’t be able to decorate or make their home their own. They would have to be quiet after parents have gone to bed at 10pm. As an adult you get sick of watching tv lying on your bed and you want your own space and freedom without parents sitting on top of you.

Despite being skint most of the time I have very fond memories of my early 20s flat shares. Yeah there was a seven of us living in a fleapit of a house in a so-so part of town but we had a riot. We all cooked together, got drunk, collectively helped to decorate the place, had one night stands, helped each other out and really looked out for each other. We were all starting out with our first professional jobs, we are all in our 40s now but we are still very good friends.

I don’t want to do it with my parents in the house either. Last year my mother broke her leg and stayed with us until she was able to walk well enough to look after herself again. Apart from the inconvenience of her constantly shouting for drinks and the grossness of having to empty her shit out of the commode because she couldn’t get to the bathroom - we also couldn’t have sex for six weeks because she was in the bedroom next door. I wouldn’t be keen to sign up for that on a permanent basis.

Grandparents help with childcare after school,

This does mean the grandparents are effectively tied, and can’t go out for the day or away as a couple should they want to? I know a couple whose daughter talked them into buying a larger house with her and her DP, they are used as free on tap childcare and they resent it. The man of the couple retired due to ill health so is not in the best shape.