To think we spend too long ‘parenting’ now, and it’s turned young adults into eternal children?

[Nescafeneeded]

It’s all in the title really. I read endless posts on here from parents whose 20 something year old is ‘depressed’ and doesn’t work, and is waited on hand and foot by mum and dad (usually mum) all day who is convinced they need care and a softly softly approach.

AIBU to wonder if it’s a bit chicken and egg - these kids lives have been comfortable and cosseted for so long they’re failing to launch as they’ve never had to do anything through necessity, and this looks like depression in 20 year olds as they spend all their time gaming and on tech in their rooms etc?

I was a very depressed teen (CAMHS, SSRIs, self harm etc) but left at 18 with the contents of my child savings account and expected to find work and look after myself which I did, I’m now an independent and responsible adult. I really think if my parents had still ‘parented’ me at that age I would’ve just let them and never left home or done anything for myself.

My parents were still helping and support me in my 40s and same for PIL with DH.

It was reciprocal though. We help out PIL with stuff around the house and look after their dog. I helped my mum care for DF when he was very unwell and passed away from heart failure. I took great care of my mum in her final weeks along with an excellent palliative care team at home. They both had as peaceful a death as anyone could wish for. I'd do the same for PIL any time.

Also you can have two kids who are very different and have different needs and parenting. DD2 has ASD and ADHD and has always needed more scaffolding to be able to do things independently, and that's ok. DD1 automatically wants to be independent and you need to know when to step in or rein her in. It can actually sometimes be harder to help someone who doesn't ask for help.

I think it's all about finding a happy medium.

I'm probably guilty of pampering my adult daughter, but I see it as working with her to support her in overcoming her anxiety.
She's making progress, so must be doing something right.

My own mum was the opposite with me.
She took control of my bank card when I was working long shifts, took half my wages to spend on pamper treatments for herself while refusing to have the heating on for me. I had to buy my own food out of what I had left.

I think that's why I have gone to the other extreme with my own children.

My kids left home on average at 25, but they were encouraged to work and earn once education was finished. I did not accept them shut in their rooms gaming until all hours, not even looking for a part time job. then getting arsey because they had no money.
They were supported and encouraged, it paid off and now all are doing relatively well and happy in their lives.
I do think some parents molly coddle too long into the mid teens onwards though. Kids need space to breathe and find out about life in a constructive way, but it seems some mums just can't let go and hang on.

It sounds like quite nice place that you rented. I am out of touch but checking on Spare Room there are plenty of listings at £500-£600 and below.

The rooms at £1,000 are really nice and no way would I have expected to be in one of those fresh in the city and looking for work.

I moved to London in my late 20's and had to "slum it" in a small room in a non central area until my earnings allowed me to afford better. It was not ideal for what I would have like but perfectly adequate and I made do.

At that time all the good places were snapped up within minutes too, I remember it being disheartening but it was what it was.

I agree actually, although I acknowledge life is very different now to when I was growing up. We all left home at 18, went to uni, then got a job, bought flats, and generally cracked on. My mum was clear she wanted her life, and her house back, and I totally agree with that, she did her bit (very well) while we were children. I can see though that things are more difficult now in some ways, with housing being so expensive as an example. That doesn’t mean though that young people can’t be brought up with resilience and taught to face life head on, not have mum and dad continually support them… must be exhausting for the parents (who probably work full time and may still have their own parents on the scene too..)

Do you have 17-21 year old child ? I moved out at 18 ( got kicked out)and had a mortgage at 23. I don’t expect my children to move out at that age . They live in a completely different world , compared to me at that age and I’m early 40s

I think there have always been parents who ‘over-parent’ and infantalising adult children.

i used to manage graduates and my favorite story is the woman who range to check if her 23 year son needed a packed lunch on his first day and if I would go down and meet him at the front door🫣.

that was 15 years ago. He struggled with independent thought and needed reassurance all the time. That may have been his personality, dot I strongly suspect his mother’s parenting style contributed.

Support, yes. Allow them to waste their lives? No. We are constantly told that DC are so much more mature nowadays, and I look at ten year old boys and wonder how they would fare as an 18th century midshipman - probably not at all - or a picker in a cotton mill, or in service in a stable. Ditto girls as milliners' apprentices, servants, mill workers etc. They are not more mature, they are just allowed to be sexually active at too young an age and otherwise mollycoddled. I parent my DC but emy late DH did a better job on my son, his step-son, than I did. Being a youth worker by profession he managed to turn a teenage drop-out who thought work was something you turned up for as and when into a responsible young man who owns his own house and holds down a very well-paying job. It was hard words, I think, but it worked.

I don't think anyone has ever said that children are more mature now?

I stayed til my mid 20s in my parents home. Until i got my first permanent full time job and was out within 6 months My brother a little later. But we cooked the family dinner/ the laundry/ cleaning and paid a bit of rent. (Our parents wanted us to save) We didnt expect our parents to wait on us.

I was speaking to a woman at the train station once and was shocked. She was complaining about her son staying up til the early hours yelling while gaming. I think she said he was 23. He had a part time job. But on his off time he just gamed. Didnt do anything round the house.

I mean i could be a bit insufferable in my late teens and early 20s and moan about chores etc. But to be that inconsiderate and yelling into the early hours?? And not even help round the house? Did smacj of over indulgence

and lots of posters showing off their "excellent" parenting

Ugh! This

people raising a solitary 10 year old, offering their "expertise" and judgement to families with older kids

I think if the teens are middle class and grew up in a nice and relatively expensive area they believe they’re inherently entitled to always live somewhere like this, so everywhere is ‘too expensive’ as they won’t consider moving somewhere cheaper

Gaming has a lot to answer for although I’ll be shouted down about ‘how great it is for their mental development’ and how 1990s Donkey Kong was exactly the same

We need to stop benchmarking against the boomer and older gen-X generations. They could move out young and go on to start families because of societal changes/investment that happened in the post war years, including the creation of the NHS.
Pre WW2, multi-generational living was common place in my family on both sides, and I doubt my family are unusual!
My MIL remarked when I turned 25 (a long time ago!) that she was a mum of two children by that age (I had my first in my mid thirties). They also had bought their three bed detached house in the 1970s on my FIL fairly average salary in the suburb of a Home Counties town. According to the Bank of England calculator, in todays money that house would have cost just under 90k. But to buy it today it would be at least 600k, maybe even over 700k 😬

To be fair in the 90s when you died in a game you died 🤣
You had to get good to progress.

But yea i agree that gaming seems to have made some ppl very angry online.

I kind of agree. I left home in my teens (without a cushion of savings) found a job and had a baby to support. My DC left home in early twenties - I helped financially where I could and they have the emotional support they need from me, but I didn’t coddle them in their teens and made sure I taught them DIY, how to cook, how to manage finances etc so that they were comfortable with all that when they left. Mainly because I didn’t want anyone accusing him of being a useless man child who was looking for a mother in a GF. I work with too many young men of the same age that don’t seem able to do these things. And some are not resilient in that every other day they say they have anxiety or have been traumatised by what appears to be insignificant things (the rain has given them ‘trauma’, they can’t afford to go to cinema and it’s ‘traumatic’). People who were late teens or early twenties during Covid seem to be afflicted by this and I don’t know what the answer is.

Or possibly with no kids at all but referencing what they did 15 or so years ago.🙄

I blame en suite student accommodation.

Yup I agree. At 18 when sixth form ended my mum gave me two choices.. get a job and pay board or go to uni. There was no alternative. Barring serious mental or physical health issues my mind is BLOWN by the number of late teens / twenty something's and beyond who live at home and essentially piss about working part time or doing fuck all. I know of a few, and their parents are not doing them any favours.

I'm in a few months striking distance of being a Millennial. And I have three children, my eldest is a young adult.

I'm aware of the structural challenges ahead for my kids but I've also seen a well meaning approach to parenting that has accidentally engineered an anxious generation.

Just to add; I don't think it's babying your kids if they live at home, work full time and contribute financially and physically to the household. It's not this generations fault housing is so pricey. I mean the ones who are not doing this.

You're not talking about working class kids sre you?

@Nescafeneeded -youve hit it there. I was chatting with my dd and asking about her future plans-did she want a place of her own? She started talking about how she’d like to buy in Altrincham but can’t afford it (nice mc town next to Manchester for those southerners). I suggested buying somewhere cheaper-she earns a very good salary-and taking in a lodger. I told her how I’d loved my flat sharing days even though there were some grotty places. But mum, she said. You grew up poor, no fridge, no heating, nothing, so those grotty places didn’t seem that bad to you. Here, I have a nice room and bathroom and nice house to live in-it’s a massive step back and I don’t want to live anywhere grotty.

Wondering if she’ll ever move out!

I also think there has been a massive cultural shift. Many years ago, teenagers were expected to be responsible and contribute to the family and work. None of this ‘frontal lobe not developed’ kind of thing. I’m a history buff and in medieval times, we had kings who governed, planned battle campaigns and raised taxes-as teenagers. Henry V, Edward IV and The Black Prince were teens when they had huge responsibility. I think it’s become a thing in the last 30 years to extend childhood way beyond a time our ancestors would have recognised. If we trusted our young people as they grow up a bit more, we might end up with more mature people.

Did you sit on your backside being fed all day by mum while you sat there watching TV?