To think there are more adult children left behind like this?

[Dappy777]

My middle-aged relative lives with his widowed mother. He sleeps in his childhood bedroom, doesn't work and has never had a proper job. He pays no NI and won't get a state pension. We're pretty sure he has an avoidant personality disorder (he ticks all the boxes), but he won't see anyone. If his mother has to go into a care home, the house will be sold and he'll be homeless.

A new lady has started at work whose brother is almost exactly the same. Last week we were discussing them when another colleague said she knows two adult children like this – one male, one female, both in their 40s, neither working nor claiming, reclusive, and living with ageing parents.

She added that she has a friend who works in social care and who says you'd be surprised how many are out there – adult children living at home, struggling with undiagnosed problems (anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, poor social skills), who don't work or socialise, hide away until their parents die, and then have no idea how to cope.

Do you think it is more common? If it is, why?

My uncle is like this - now lives in my Nan’s house. I have a cousin who seems to be going the same way. She is 35 and works (as did my uncle) but still lives at home. Doesn’t live an independent life at all and seems to only go out with her mother. It’s quite sad.

Why did you change it just out of interest?

Our next door neighbour was like this. He was mid sixties when we moved in and his parents had died a few years before. He was still sleeping in this childhood bedroom in a single bed and his parents bedroom was empty, basically a shrine to them. Very sad.

I don't think they can sell the house if he is still living there, I don't think they can make someone homeless to pay for the care if the adult child is incapacitated. He should probably get a diagnosis to ensure he isn't made homeless and also apply for benefits.

Yes I have family members like this.

It’s the parents failings and emotional invest in my family.

They may not get a pension but currently they would be entitled to pension credits.

I actually don’t know anyone like this. I know people who live with their parents - but as part of fully functional multi generational households where all the adults hold down jobs and can socialise. No one in my extended family does this. So am quite surprised to hear others say it’s commonly occurring.

I hope someone replies to you with something useful. I really worry about how my brother will cope and would love to know if there was anything I could do to help make his life easier for him to cope with eventually.

My BiL was like this. When MiL died, DH gifted him his share of the family home on the condition that BiL started working and paid for the home's upkeep / bills. After a rocky start he found a job in a warehouse and doesn't earn much, but it's enough for one person in a small, mortgage-free home, and he is so much happier now he has a regular income and sense of purpose. So many wasted years, though...

Many years ago, when I was a young civil servant (now retired), there was a scheme to employ a percentage of people who could work but who did certain jobs eg messenger, filing, photocopying etc. They all lived at home with parents or other family - sometimes, they were in a sheltered housing situation - many were ND and/or had other MH or LD issues. Working and being part of a team was great for them and their families, they were included in social activities and managers ensured that they got home safely after nights out- they were always treated with respect in the workplace. I remember them with fondness and hope that they had good lives. This thread has made me think of them and how much schemes like this would help some of the parents on this thread and their AC.

Or more likely they're just bone idle and their parents have facilitated this all their lives. Not every personality defect can be excused as a MH problem.

Ewwww, aren't you a fucking peach!!!!

They didn't have all this Neurodivergence on the 80s

What's the point of a diagnosis.

These are the undiagnosed Neurodivergent kids of the 80s. Unsupported, unable to fully access education, unable to function independently despite seemingly being relatively capable in some areas.

The very reason those of us with Neurodivergent kids want support, want education access to be improved, want services and opportunities for our children is so this isn't their future. It melts my head that people cants ee that

The goodwill was going to run thin at some point.

Isn’t this also a result of our modern society? Few people have supportive extended family, or live in small communities eg villages where people know each other and lend a hand. So individuals who struggle in new situations/ around strangers basically just have the nuclear family to fall back on ( if that).

What goodwill

If that's really all it is, nothing but laziness, don't blame the parents. Laziness is most definitely one of the things you don't get to blame your parents for your whole life.

Maybe they like it? Maybe very lazy and lacking work ethic? If the parents don't mind (presumably that's the case) then there isn't really a problem I don't think.

I knew a couple of adults like this, the parents were very odd and controlling, the adult kids in their 30s were quite incapable as a result. Someone should have intervened much sooner, it was basically terrible patenting which caused it.

In other countries families live together unless there’s a genuine need to move out. I don’t see the problem myself. Extended family is a positive thing.

"Sorry", with Ronnie Corbett, was on BBC 4 tonight. I don't know if he worked though.

Fine, until they have so many cars, nobody else can park outside their houses.

What a bizarre objection to intergenerational living!

My cousin is disabled and it seems to me as if she is deliberately holding her daughter back so that she can be her carer. It’s been fine for her son to move out and have his own life, but not her daughter. She was “allowed” to go to university but not to stay in halls - she had to go back and forth for an hour on the train every day. She had to stay at home every weekend. She got a first class degree from a good university, and she’s back doing her Saturday job full time, stacking shelves and on the till at her local Tesco.

I know one person in particular whose son is like this. In her case, she suffered horrendous tragedy of death of son's father and then stepfather, and has a job that works her ragged to keep them both.
In theory she should do more to help him but she's run off her feet as it is.

Oh I don't know.

It looked quite nice on Downton Abbey.

The goodwill in existence when the welfare state was conceived.