Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Parents and adult children moving forward...

37 replies

XingMing · 10/04/2019 22:38

How do parents tell their technically adult children who didn't take the expected path to university that it's time they look for a way forward and move out so parents can step back? There's no fight to excite here because we are close, but we were elderly parents and have a late teen son (decent A levels) who is finding it hard to leave home (no clear direction yet), and it's time for him to fly the nest and have adventures. As we did leave at 18, never to return home full time (the 70s), how does it happen in 2019? (Good work ethic, money saved... everything is ready to press the button)

OP posts:
Bookworm4 · 10/04/2019 22:40

He is still a teenager and you want him to move out? Why the rush? Not many teenagers could afford their own home, do you resent him being in your home?

HeddaGarbled · 10/04/2019 22:43

He’s 18-19? Give him a few more years. Not everyone finds their “direction” to the same timetable.

Marlena1 · 10/04/2019 22:44

This sounds a bit harsh to me. That is very young to be expecting him to move on. Confused

Original poster
XingMing · 10/04/2019 22:44

NO, of course not. I want him close forever, but he wants to be elsewhere, he just doesn't know where elsewhere. Or where he starts...

OP posts:
Original poster
XingMing · 10/04/2019 22:48

He's angry at being marooned at home in the deep country, and working in a job he doesn't love, while his friends are having whoopie times at university. But he also doesn't want £50K in debt to study a subject he's only interested in superficially.

OP posts:
titchy · 10/04/2019 22:55

Degree apprenticeship? Save some money and backpack round the world? Job in another city and house share? Stay where he is but houseshare?

StillNotMe · 10/04/2019 22:56

Get him to emigrate.
Find him a temporary job somewhere far away and send him off for a tear with a view he can always come back.
It will feel like an adventure but will teach him lots of skills. If he's can't manage he can come back.
What does he fancy?

StillNotMe · 10/04/2019 22:57

*year not tear, dat fingers typos

titchy · 10/04/2019 22:57

Or go to university...? The debt isn't like a real debt - does he/ you understand that?

Original poster
XingMing · 10/04/2019 22:57

Let me make this clear: he's not being pushed out... he wants to be elsewhere... becoming his vision of what he wants to be; he just doesn't know yet what that is or might be. We have explicitly stated that there's always room and space for him to return and regroup.. as long as we breathe... but the first step off is difficult, perhaps because it's comfortable here.

OP posts:
Original poster
XingMing · 10/04/2019 23:08

Thanks all. Yes, we/he knows that student debt isn't a life encumbrance titchy, and he's away to the US this summer to teach summer camp. He's not scared of life, but the options are so wide the choices are a bit overwhelming.

OP posts:
GoFiguire · 10/04/2019 23:11

If you cut the apron strings then don’t expect them to grow back when you’re old and you need his help.

Original poster
XingMing · 10/04/2019 23:16

No plans in that direction gofiguire. This is about supporting a child to find his wings and where to fly, in a good way.

OP posts:
matildawormwoood · 10/04/2019 23:22

If he is going away to the US for the summer, that may begin the process of becoming more independent and moving on. I did camp america one summer, returned the following summer, then worked abroad in other capacities after this. I met my partner working abroad when I was 21/22 and we came back and moved in together in a different city to what we are both from. It will very likely happen naturally :)

ColeHawlins · 10/04/2019 23:22

You're contradicting yourself.

Also; it's not the 1970s any more.

titchy · 10/04/2019 23:24

Summer camp sounds great! Can he use that as a spring board for further travel for a couple of months? Then home and mundane work for a few more months to fund further travel?

Original poster
XingMing · 10/04/2019 23:30

Well done ColeHawlins... clearly it's not the 70s now; it was when I left home. And you have missed the point and question of the post, to make a cheap response. Sleep well.

OP posts:
piggybank · 10/04/2019 23:53

I think you sound lovely OP. It would be lovely if he had a direction and american summer camp sounds like a good start but I just came on to say that plenty of kids move out and start finding themselves without a plan. If he has savings and is envious of his uni friends and sick of the country... why not job hunt in the university town where his best mates are and get a place of his own? Maybe he's over thinking it. Just go and do it and let life lead him into a career. Many of us just fall into careers we love by chance. If it doesn't seem to go anywhere then you have already told him that your door is open. I did go to uni but didn't go into a related field. My parents left there door open for me and I didn't end up going back but we are very close and I'm very grateful as I'm sure he will be just knowing you are there for him.

piggybank · 10/04/2019 23:55

their . Caught that one but I'm sure there are more spellers. Lol.

ColeHawlins · 10/04/2019 23:57

Well, no, it IS the point.

First you wanted pointers on how to tell an adult (late teens) child that "it's time to move out so parents can step back".

Then you said that it was HE who was keen to move out and you just wanted to help.

Not the same thing.

Plus you did ask "we did leave at 18, never to return home full time (the 70s), how does it happen in 2019?" to which the only answer (inheritances or trust funds excepted) is that it doesn't, and the reason that it doesn't is that this isn't the seventies any more and the economics are now entirely different.

You can snark at me all you like, but there seems to be something fundamental that you're not grasping here.

ColeHawlins · 10/04/2019 23:59

If he's arranged to be a camp counsellor, I'm not sure why you're worried. Other things will follow.

Unless you are keen to be rid of him quickly and permanently?

JaneS68 · 11/04/2019 00:02

Hi, im struggling with empty nest syndrome...hes not technically left home but tonight is his 2nd time (1st time a few days ago) that he has said he isnt coming home but staying with his gf (new relationship)...we have been through tough times the last few years and i feel like ive lost a friend...crazy i know..im quite sad really..am i being silly????

Antha720 · 11/04/2019 09:10

HiJaneS68...So know where your coming from,my son has just turned 18,and has been at college got the last 2 years,off to University in September ,he to has a girlfriend for the last year and spends most weekends away at hers.She is lovely,but I do miss him terrible,I know he's growing up but it's really hard letting go,

Original poster
XingMing · 11/04/2019 10:49

@Cole, sorry about the snark; there's an ambivalence in me which is (I guess) normal in old parents and late at night! There are health issues, so we tire faster and are more anxious than formerly, and DS's perceived passivity and inertia irritate DH, so there's friction too.

OTOH, we are both besotted with our only chick and are dreading the empty nest when it happens. Summer camp is a step into tomorrow for us all, but his version has an expanding horizon, ours rather less so. So yes, lots of trepidation here.

OP posts:
FundayFriday · 11/04/2019 11:48

What are his interests? He sounds like more of a vocation type person.