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.

No, it’s actually the middle class ones in my anecdotes.

I also forgot the eternal students. My much younger cousin has now done a degree and Masters at Cambridge and has been out of work for nearly a year while he dithers over whether to do another postgrad or (finally) get a job. He hasn’t done casual work in the meantime, he thinks it’s beneath him.

@Cherrytree86 I did live with her for a year when I was around 24 and she was exactly like that.
Some parents are more caring than others, clearly

I do I have young adults and while I think OP is NBU and I see parents of adults all around me slaving after them, I totally agree about how hard getting a job is. My youngest had a similar situation. It took 6 months to get a job and he tried everything.
That one job has honestly changed everything, he was getting truly hopeless.
However he was a bit startled when I told him I expect 15% towards bills, but he gets it now!
I wish the government would prioritise training and jobs for the young, because that first step can be the hardest.

There is a name for parents who can't let go and allow them to make mistakes and try to micromanage their adult children - parental separation anxiety

Isn't this what house shares are for?

So you learn to be an adult independently and then move on to living on your own or with a partner when you can afford it/meet someone.

Necessity doesn't seem to have helped you with empathy, OP.

We've been very fortunate in that while our DCs have had their various struggles, they've gone on to get good university places and are motivated and on track to good careers (assuming AI doesn't gobble them all up first). But I've seen them, at times, and a lot of their peers struggle, and don't think having parental support withdrawn would have benefitted them in the least.

You seem to lack understanding of how much the world has changed since you were 18 and of the increased number and complexity of the challenges facing young people now.

Is the op saying that?

There's the kind of parenting that provides a support system that will put a kid back onto their tracks and the kind of support system that negates a child's requirement to have any tracks at all and leaves them arrested in a state of permanent dependency.

The op is suggesting that the latter is so destructive that it is better not to have it at all.

But back in the day you could live in a house share AND save for a deposit. So you could do it for a few years and then buy a place. But now, rents are so much higher (proportional to salaries) that you haven't got any disposable income to save. So you're looking at living in a house share long term and never getting on the property ladder, or staying with your parents and saving for a deposit. Not surprising that most people choose the latter.

It's hard to judge, as I haven't been in that position, mine are still teens.

I agree things are much harder in many ways - no one's expecting to fall into a first job and have megabucks but at least, say, 25 years ago, roughly when i left home, a modest job would pay for somewhere decent to live shared with friends and a bit of fun. Now in a lot of places you're just earning to pay the rent.

I will fully advise my kids to say with us a few years after finishing education and saving up half their money because it will give them a better nest egg and we're not going to find 50k or whatever under a sofa cushion any time soon - but it will be totally up to them whether they want to do that.

Oldest I have no worries about, he is very well motived - youngest I can't tell yet really though I suspect he'll be fine.

We've brought both up to be quite independent, perhaps mainly because I'm lazy and I don't want to have to take them everywhere when we're in London so they can get places themselves on public transport. Oldest really avails himself of this and has been going all over London since he was about 14

I have mixed feelings about this, it is so much harder these days for young adults to "grow up" financially because rent is so horrifically expensive and it is only natural to want to help your children, I left home at 18 and was able to make my own way in the world (my mum gave me bits and bobs, treats and small sums of money and I really appreciated it). What i see as different these days is the emotional dependance, when I am out with a friend who has a daughter who has just turned 20, she always has to keep her phone on and to hand as the girl constantly messages her for lifts, asks what food she should make, asks for lifts to her mates, it seems more like an early teen than a grown young woman. But as I said, things are different and i may well not understand how much change there has been.

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 This sounds very harsh, sorry you had to deal with that.

I'm glad it worked out, but it sounds tough.

I think parenting is about teaching and encouraging independence. There also comes a point where its on the children to support the parents in times of difficulty. Suppoert shouldn't only go one way.

I do think there’s an element of kids are too protected but then the world is a worse place. Maybe I really mean too much is done for them, some of the things DH says about the kids in his high school and poorly prepared for life they see surprise me.

As a teacher today, I'm seeing more and more children with depression and severe mental health issues. We are completely over-stretched and under resourced. Unfortunately unlike you, op, many of them can't even access cahms or the help they need due to how stretched we are. I commend you on your resilience but it isn't as black and white and just "getting on" with it as it seems. My heart breaks for some of these kids who turn 18. I certainly wouldn't be pushing them out the door. I also haven't come across any who could afford accommodation at 18 if they were kicked out

@Nescafeneeded a single room in an HMO houseshare where I live starts at £1100 per room, before bills. That is before a travel card / commuting costs to any job.

Please tell me how an 18/19 year old could afford this if I, as a professional with an established career, would find this kind of cost leaving me with very little disposable income.

Yes, whilst there are some girls too these days, (who stay at their parents home for many years,) when I was growing up, boys/men never left home until they found a woman/a wife/a partner. And if they didn't find one, (or one who wanted to live with them/married them,) they would stay with their parents. And the mum waited on them hand and foot. The longer time went on/the older they got, the lower the chances were of them getting a woman!!!

And yes indeed, some were still with mum and dad in their 50s and 60s. Then when the parents died, the man inherited the house, or the tenancy. Some councils didn't let 'children' inherit, and wouldn't let a single male occupy a 3-bed house, but they would allocate them a 1-bed flat (or a small bungalow if they were over 65, and/or had a disability.) Then a sister, or an aunt, or a female cousin would 'help' them with housework, cooking, washing, and life admin. They were NEVER independent.

Girls/young women (including myself) left home and got their own place. (Often by early 20s.) With a friend, or on their own. Or they'd go work on a cruise ship, or work at a holiday camp, or work abroad in bars and hotels whilst travelling. I couldn't wait to leave home, and left at 19, and moved to a big city, where I did temp office work, learned new skills, travelled with friends I made, and learned life skills/how to budget and fend for myself. (Yes, some girls/young women went straight from their parents to getting married/living with a man, but some did go it alone for some years...)

I moved back 'home' at 23, (after 4 years,) and stayed til I was 24.5. I met DH at 23.5, and moved in with him a year after dating. Never went back. DH had lived with his parents til he moved in with me (he was 25.) If he hadn't met me, he very likely would not have moved out til his 30s, if at all. (Unless he had met another woman!) He was very close to his mum, and she spoilt him rotten, and he was hard work to start with, and expected me to be his mummy. He learnt fast!!!

.

I agree and think this will really show up when they have children and just don't have the skills to parent their own children when they aren't even used to caring for themselves.

Lucky you. My suicidal child couldn't even get an appt with CAMHS.

@Nescafeneeded and this looks like depression in 20 year olds as they spend all their time gaming and on tech in their rooms etc?

That's nothing to do with parents.

Contrary to what mumsnet thinks, one of the biggest influences in the lives of teenagers and young men is women. Men will do a plethora of things with 'women' being the sole motivation. Therefore, in their teens and early 20s, young men generally ventured out into pubs and clubs, and socialised, hoping to find women they liked.

The issue nowadays is that a lot of young men have discovered that women don't like them very much. So where do you go, or what do you do, when women don't like you? The answer is nowhere. So instead, young men will pour their energy into hobbies, video games, work etc.

It's a pretty empty existence, but an existence nonetheless.

I was a very depressed teen (CAMHS, SSRIs, self harm etc) but left at 18 with the contents of my child savings account

A "child savings account"? Lucky you. Before I started working at 17, there was probably only about £200 in my bank account.

I agree up to a point but the world these children have grown up in is very different from past generations. And being quite old myself, my parents, who grew up after the war, saw my generation as getting a lot more support in many ways than they had.

Moving out is very difficult for many young people these days. And why is it a necessity? Multi generational living is not necessarily a bad thing. I expected to be independent after university and I was, bar about 8 months aged 23 when I returned home, working locally, until I secured a professional position elsewhere. As did all my friends.

But now many stay home for years into their 20s and there's no stigma attached to it. My early 20 kids are simply not in a position to move out unless we stumped up their rent. They do have jobs. They take care of themselves most of the time, including making their own meals and paying their way for all their needs. Yes we support them emotionally and with some practical things: one is ND and the other has had significant mental health issues which they are coping with much better these days. We're also lucky that they can each have a decent sized bedroom - in some ways they are a bit like lodgers, without the rent.

Looked at objectively, I don't see it as so terrible. I wouldn't be happy with an adult child having nothing in their life and being house bound, but I suspect most people like that have significant issues and needs related to operating as independent adults, and there have always been people like that. Sons and daughters who stayed single and never left the family home; people in the past often lived in boarding houses with a landlady to cook and clean for them.

We just talk about them a lot more these days and have labels we can use to describe them.

@PrissyGalore

yep sounds like she’ll be living with you for a loooooooong time. She doesn’t wanna ‘slum it’ even slightly does she? Sad really, cos there’s definite pluses to living in a shared house or renting or whatever will deffo make up for not having the nicest bathroom etc.

@Upsidedownagain Moving out is very difficult for many young people these days. And why is it a necessity? Multi generational living is not necessarily a bad thing. I expected to be independent after university and I was, bar about 8 months aged 23 when I returned home, working locally, until I secured a professional position elsewhere. As did all my friends.

I partly agree, but one of the big issues with living at home is that job opportunities for many people within commuting distance of their parental home is usually very limited.

Previous generations before me made a very strange decision to reappropriate housing as an "investment asset" rather than simply places where people live. The consequence of that is that if young people want to move across the country to get a job or build up experience, they will be paying huge sums of money into the pockets of a crooked Russian landlord, hunched over in the shadows and rubbing his hands together with greed.

@Crapola25

why did you let your mother run around after you making your breakfast and dinner etc? A one off when visiting - fine, but everyday when you live together - nah!

That's not the ops fault. A little unfair to throw that at her. I hope she worked through and came out the other end. CAMHS is secondary the primary support, care and therapy comes from the parents. It must have been very tough on you as well to watch and listen to her feelings. As a child gets older though and becomes an adult you have to use tough love to help them move towards independence.

I think the issue of financial assistance and 'parenting' are two entirely different things. I intend to help my DC with a house deposit when the day comes and am saving for this, but I don't organise their lives or get involved in things. I believe these things have to start young as the child's personality is developing. My youngest is 12 and another early teens so obviously I control everything financially. But if they need something bought online they have to source it before I buy it, if we go to a shop and don't see what they want, they have to approach the staff alone and sort it out. Likewise getting a hair cut or ordering food I stand back and let them do the talking and then I pay the money or give them the money in advance. If they dont want to do the talking, then the job doesn't get done, that's their choice. If they are nervous and unsure what to say, we role play in advance so they are confident. I often see friends do the opposite, they take over, making the child look incompetent and probably feel it too. It's so damaging to self esteem.

I don't get involved in homework because that's their responsibility but obviously I would need to get involved if they are failing things. I don't drive to the school if they forget their lunchbox, or drop over a raincoat so they won't get wet. There are natural consequences to everything and as a result they never forget homework or lunchboxes.

So far my eldest has (I think) benefitted from this approach, at 17 it wouldn't occur to him to ask me to organise his transport or driving lessons or training schedules etc, but obviously I have to provide financial support until he has established himself in the world. Different challenges face him than in my day but ultimately we are the same, every generation has their struggle and each finds a way to get through it. My generation seem to be the only ones with massive egos that can't allow or trust the next rise up and face their own challenges.