How to help DS?

[Concernedmother004]

DS has recently moved back home after graduating from a top university. Most of his friends are still there doing integrated master’s degrees, so he feels a bit left behind socially. Or they earn significantly more so flatshare in zone 2.

He’s started a graduate job in the City, earning around £40k, with scope for significant pay rises if he passes his professional exams. We don’t charge him rent or bills as he saves and invests most of his money. And London houses are so expensive so he’ll be home for a long time to build the deposit and get his salary up.

On paper, he’s doing well, but he seems really down. He feels as though life is all work and studying, and says he wants to have more fun. However, he finds it difficult to make new friends and is tired all the time. Most of his colleagues are older, so there aren’t many people his age to socialise with at work.

He’s also very unfit, and any encouragement to exercise or eat more healthily tends to fall on deaf ears. I’ve suggested finding a hobby, but many of the ideas we’ve discussed involve sport, which he isn’t keen on.
I don’t want to nag or make him feel worse. Anyone got any ideas to help him out.

Honestly it sounds like he needs to grow up and learn to help himself more, he already has enough parental help. Listen and support him of course, but this isn’t your thing to fix. He’s in a privileged position, you can’t make him appreciate it

How old is he, why do you need to help him? He is an adult and should take more responsibility for his own life. He’s not 12 (I assume).

It’s a really difficult period OP. It’s transitioning from child to adult and I remember it well. I know a lot of people will say ‘he’s not a child!’ No he isn’t, but you go from this fairly cosseted sort of life at university and then suddenly you’re in the real world and have to adjust.

He sounds successful, keep reminding him of this. Without wishing to sound trite I think a relationship might make him feel better.

Don’t need to help him of course and tbh he hasn’t asked. He’s early 20s.
I just worry for him and his health as if left to his own devices he’ll just eat junk food and watch television/ news in his free time.

Yes that’s part of it. He’s had a lot of structure at school and his uni was very structured, not like a typical one. So he’s a bit lost now he’s in the real world. And it doesn’t help his friends that he does have are mostly in uni life at the moment.

I was going to say no he's an adult, but you are completely right. I didn't go to uni but employed lots in their first job after leaving. Some were mature, works wise and knew what life was about.

Some were still emotionally 17 and really found it hard to accept that they now had to adult and work for the rest of their lives.

I think op you are doing everything you can. Perhaps you need to sit him down, talk through your and his dad's lives and the struggles and sacrifices plus the fun and exciting things.

Point out its the real world and everybody who posts on socials and talks to old friends is earning £250k, owns a super car and is basically fibbing to present the best image they can.

Try to get him to go out, have a hobby, join a gym. Even to get out for a walk on a regular basis...explain the importance of me time and that its important he looks towards the end goal like when he was sitting exams, not the work to get there

Sounds a bit like my DSiL he worked very hard to do his chartered accountancy exams took him a couple of years. My DD (also a professional) and he then worked for a year then took 6 months out to travel before getting their jobs back. They now have a baby and have settled down in their new lives. This could be a way to dangle a carrot so to speak having a plan to treat himself once it’s all over?

I think it's typical of their age and generation. They have a different perspective of what life should be about.

We, parents, didn't question things. We went to work because we had to. However, work was more enjoyable. It was less pressurising and our colleagues were like a second family. We also had hope in our future. We had goals and believed in them.

This generation don't see the future in the same positive light. They don't get the same sense of belonging at work as we did. So yeah, their life don't feel as exciting as ours was at the same age.

I'd encourage your DS to find goals in life and believe he can achieve them, whether professionally or socially.

Suggest he move out into a cheaper flatshare somewhere.

The implication that he should stay at home for the next decade might be quite depressing.

He can get a tiny box room in zone 2 or a room in a scabby house share with people his own age and live some life, go out, make friends, build an adult life outside of his university bubble.

Don't worry so much about a house deposit at this point. He needs to be out and living a life now.

He takes home about £2.6k a month. A room in a house share in Deptford is £800-900 a month.
Before anyone gets snobby about it, Deptford is ideal if you are in your 20s and want to go to warehouse parties and independent breweries and so on.

I spent a year at home after uni, in starter jobs. Lovely zone 3 area, leafy west London, , wonderful parents, house etc.

And I was itching to get out. It felt like I'd gone backwards, that the world was moving on without me.

The moment my job was made permanent, I moved out into a scabby, cold, damp flat in South Tottenham with one uni friend and one friend of a friend and Life Was Lived.

Friends were made, house parties were thrown, nights out in warehouses or grimy basement bars, romantic relationships were had, adventures were had. Even if it was so cold in that flat that we sometimes slept in sleeping bags and woolly hats.

I absolutely could have saved loads of money staying at home. But I'm glad I did not.