To think uni was a way for parents to get their young adult kids to leave home?

[Thegrassroots26]

To think that in the past university, as well as sometimes being good for qualifying and future career, was a way for parents to get their kids to leave the family home at 18/19? Today, with less going and the financial societal and employment pressures, the landscape has changed for parents and their young adult kids immeasurably.

We mostly went and worked abroad for the summers, often working several jobs to bring home money to see us through part of the next year of university.

With one graduate living at home and another an undergraduate I cannot imagine our home will be an empty nest for many years!
a little light into the future is that DD1 told us the other day she ‘might’ be able to move out next year.

im always kicking my husband (metaphorically) saying we should have had them much earlier.

We’re now firmly into our fifties and still having to think of the ‘kids’!

My DD is off to uni this year and, much as I love her, I hope this is the beginning of her transition to independence and I am not keen at all for her to live back after uni if it can be avoided. It’s what I did so it feels normal to me. I am considering moving house/ downsizing so they can’t come back.

She’s had a gap year this year and tbh it’s been awkward having another ‘adult’ in the house and figuring out how much I am responsible for her or not/ whether she has to tell me what she’s up to or not/ how to manage shared resources food, bathrooms etc, friends and boyfriend wanting to stay over. It feels like I pay all the bills and do all the work but it’s not my house any longer. I would not want things to carry on like this for another 5 years

Plus in my work I see loads of young people who have ‘failed to launch’ still at home in late 20s/ early 30s with no career or relationship and often just drifting sitting around playing computer games, scrolling on the internet and eating takeaways I’m afraid. It’s not a class or intelligence thing either as many are from middle class fairly well off families and have qualifications. It really seems like quite a common phenomenon these days and I would do anything to avoid my DC going down that road.

My DH went to university i the late 70s.
His smother was broken hearted that he had left home. He had 3 siblings.
She kept his bedroom the same for about 20 years.

Well no I doubt Parents would make their kids go to Uni just to get them to leave home. However being the Mother of a 21 and 22 year old - one grad living in London and the other in second year I would much prefer them away and living an independent life at this age than under my roof with no plans and means to be able to leave for the foreseeable. I caveat this by saying I love my DC with all my heart but my life (and theirs) is full of freedom and it is wonderful 😂

My DH went to university i the late 70s.
His smother was broken hearted that he had left home. He had 3 siblings.
She kept his bedroom the same for about 20 years.

Why will they be on MW just because they don't go to uni? Odd take.

I started Uni in 1980 and didn't know anyone who lived at home with their parents.

You are right that you didn't need to be fabulously wealthy to not qualify for full grant but IIRC everyone was entitled to a minimum amount however well off. Lots of my friends got less than full and their parents were then expected to make up the difference. I always got a full grant as my parents were on a low income.

I always feel that the experience of living away from home and being semi-independent at 18 was very valuable. By the time I graduated I was ready to go on and make my own way completely independently. If I had stayed at home I am not sure that would have been the case, regardless of qualifications and job prospects.

I know for my mums generation (reaching 18 at start of 70s), young women from nice middle class families needed an acceptable reason to live away from their parents home before marriage. Girls going into “digs” with a friend but still close to parents home were considered to be of questionable morals. University or other higher education, or a job further away from home were acceptable reasons.
@FancyBiscuitsLevel My elder sisters are a similar generation to your Mum, both born in the early 1950s. Both left school at 16. The eldest started off in an office job in our nearest big town. Because we lived rurally with virtually no public transport this meant her getting lifts and leaving home very early. Eventually, at about 18, she was fed up with the long commute and early starts and announced she had found a bedsit in town My parents were initially very unhappy with the situation, but when they met her landlord and landlady who lived in the same house they calmed down. Very respectable family!

My other sister went to train as a nurse in the same town so had to stay at least during the week. She started off at 16 in a nurses home which was quite strict so they were happier about that.

Both sisters eventually moved in to shared houses and so on and they accepted it by then.

By the time I went to University in 1980 they didn't turn a hair

You're not doomed to a life of MW if you don't go to uni! There are lots of other career paths available!

It's definitely part of the appeal here. I mean, we'll obviously miss DD immensely when she buggers off in September, but the fact that we get the house to ourselves for the better part of 3 years definitely takes the sting out of how much its going to cost!

It was the opposite for me, uni was an easy way to leave home at 18 without all the motherly tantrums.

It was either uni or run away to join the circus…

I think many children wanted to get away from overbearing parents.

No, because "in the past" far fewer people went to university. However, most of us wanted to leave home as soon as we could to have our independence and we did this by working.

Not at all . You couldn't be more wrong in our case .

It wasn't even that for me, it was a way of getting out of a very overcrowded and poor household, where there wasn't enough of anything (space, food attention, privacy) to go around.

My series of spartan student rooms filled me with delight, because for the first time in my life, I had a private space, could leave books and notes spread out on a table without having to clear them away for a family meal, could come and go as I pleased in the full knowledge that no one would have swiped the end of my bag of Maltesers while I was gone. Simple pleasures...

My DD is in her 2nd year at uni. She was home ftom mid April until mid September as well as Christmas, so its not a given!

But that's her choice. Pretty much everyone I knew in my student days, unless they had a job near their parents' house, either stayed on in their university city for the summer, finding accommodation and jobs, or worked overseas to find travel and/or the next university year. I mean, I always visited my family in the vac, but it was definitely a visit.

I grew up in a tiny village and going to uni / halls / flat was the route out. Many returned to the area, but when they did they rented or bought their own house.

I expect my kids to do similar - it might not be uni. Might be college, apprenticeship or employment, but the plan is for them to be living (partly) independently. I'm so over running around after teenagers. I am looking forward to the next stage very much!

My parents live rurally so I don’t know how I ever would have left home if I didn’t go to uni in 2007. There’s pretty much nothing for young people in my area, and even my university was 2 hours away. While I didn’t get much use out of my degree, living away from home with loads of people my age was great.

For some people, maybe.

But it's a very British idea that living away from home is an important part of the university experience. It will always be a good idea for some students, but there's no harm in treating it more like a job you commute to, if you have suitable courses in commuting range.

People spend a lot of money to live in university or student accommodation that doesn't have to meet normal,standards, is often noisy and deficient in daylight, and has been seen as a quick cheap investment opportunity for the last two decades. Disastrous for mental health in many cases. Fine for others

If we are moving away from that expectation, great

She looked and applied for a lot of jobs in the uni city but didnt get one, in year one, and student halls were a 41 week contract so she'd have been home for at least 10 weeks anyway.

Same with ours, but we just found short-term (usually manky) houseshares. Some people worked in student residences used for tourists or summer schools in the vac and got accommodation as part of the deal.

I went to college at 18 in 1984. DM wasn't keen but DF was fully supportive (not having had the opportunity himself).
I couldn't wait to go and am not sure how I would have escaped either parental home (in the nicest way) or small town without that socially acceptable option.

Less going? Don’t you mean more? Surely more go now than in, say, the 70s/80s?