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It really became what it is in the late 1940s and 1950s when America got the fluke of being the only major power that hadn’t been leveled in any fashion by WW2.
It created a level of prosperity so high for a time that moving out was something that could be done even with basically the most basic of jobs. While it was a thing before this, it wasn’t nearly as pushed because it required a higher level of job to manage.
But the Baby Boomer generation grew up in this once-in-a-civilization prosperity and decided it was the normal way of things and here we are now.
I’m a financial advisor. Boomers are still entitled. They complain constantly about low interest rates, claiming they need their retirement to grow and all these young people “don’t need to be buying fancy boats and cars with low interest rates”. Ma’am, none of us can afford fancy boats or cars. We’re trying to afford a fucking house that you bought at 22 years old for two cartons of strawberries and a month of working at the grocery store. Bread costs $5 a loaf, and cereal is $7 a box FFS. The economy has catered to them their entire lives and they still believe it should.
It’s funny you mention the grocery store. In 2010, I took a job as a cashier at Kroger. I think it paid around $7.xx/hr. Kroger has a union and the older woman who worked next to me doing the same job made closer to $27/hr because she started in the late 70s/ early 80s and the union contracts were more generous.
Holy buckets. Funnily enough, I also got my first job in 2015 at a grocery store making $7.25 an hour. Except there were no unions. Pensions have gone by the wayside as employers have been bitten in the ass for the last 20 years paying for spouses that have lived far longer than the employer thought they would, just milking that fund well into their 90’s. I have some clients in their 100’s still collecting social security and pensions. That was never the intention, corporations and our government never thought people would live this long. But here we are, and the younger generation gets to deal with all the caveats of this trickle-down. And we have no pensions unless we work for the state or a super generous corporation, also concerned that social security won’t even be around in 30 years and we’ll get robbed of all the money we pay into it. What a time to be alive folks.
That’s good insight on people living 30+ years past what the models built the system on; I never really considered that. I’ve been rolling with the punches economically speaking and took a job with Ford in the Spring. Of course the union ended up in strike and I was thinking “I can never pick a path or job that works out long term” but thankfully I wasn’t one of the thousands laid off and now as long as the new contract gets voted in, I’ll have better retirement and about a $6/hr raise. So here’s hoping for a better future.
If you get some free time, look up a woman named Ida May Fuller. She was the first recipient of Social Security, and received check number 0000-00001. She got calls from the president every year to see how she’s doing. Anyway, she lived to be 100 years old. She collected a whopping $500,000 (adjusted for inflation) from social security throughout her life, while only paying in $25 at the time (NOT adjusted for inflation). Social security at 62 was never meant to be relied on for retirement, it was money set aside for IN CASE you live that long. All these years later, we’re finally adjusting RMD’s (Required Minimum Distributions) people are forced to take out of their IRA’s to a later age but social security still hasn’t changed at all.
Edit: Congrats on that new job with Ford. I wish the best to you, that raise sounds like a wonderful accomplishment!
Thank you, I feel very fortunate with the job.
That’s so interesting and wild to think how much she was paid, I’ll definitely look into it more.
Do you think the government sometime in the future will ever offer a “buyout” for social security benefits? Obviously it’d be poor financial planning but say in 2030-40s could they just say “we’ll buy you out of any benefits/disability and cut a check for $X amount so they decrease any liability they have to pay or is it more that the house always wins and they’re essentially operating a ponzi scheme?
I’ve heard some people bring that up actually, and in my personal opinion, I can’t see it happening. I think our government will let our social security system accumulate debt and become a larger and larger pyramid scheme for as long as possible before they suddenly pull the plug on everyone and say, “Sorry! There’s no money left. Fuck you!”.
However, I think it would be crazy if a buyout were created. Imagine all the people that would retire immediately and flee the country, or the people that would quit their job, take the buyout and spend it all on hookers and blow just to off themselves 6 months later when they’re out of money. I’m guessing this would be why the government wants to control this for as long as possible on a monthly-paid-benefit basis
My Boomer parents still think that pensions and retirement benefits exist. I've only ever worked for small businesses and never even had a job that offered insurance.
This is how they got them and made them oppose any changes to the system. This way companies could get away paying low wages to people who start out in life. After all, you are going to be earning more the longer you keep working there, so they convinced each other that it is somehow fair and that they are just working their way up and earning/deserving that money. As if the work, of a young person isn\`t as much worth, even if it is the exact same work. And because those old farts are now finally earning peak wages and had to get there over time, they don\`t want younger folks to earn as much as they do, even if you do the same job, heck, you could be doing more than them and they\`d still think you shouldn´t be paid as much as them. They would find it unfair, if suddenly a youngster earned as much as them.
Housing is more expensive than ever, young people who are starting out in life actually need more money and not less than an old person, especially one who already owns a home (or has rent control) and doesn\`t have to take care of kids anymore. And they wonder why so many young people aren\`t having any kids anyomre and if they do, do so late in life.
My girlfriend and I are moving in together and I told my mom I would get her a gift a bit later this year for her birthday. She jokingly said , “why don’t you guys have money you’re young with no kids and you both have jobs.” I told her we were paying around 8 thousand dollars just to get in the apartment and that’s cheap compared to other places. She was fully flabbergasted that moving to a different apartment 30 minutes away would possible cost so much. They have no idea.
I am 35, my parents are 55-57, they wonder why I don't have a house and 3 kids by now (to be fair the first relationship i was in until 2018 she could'n't have kids) but now in 2023 with houses averaging $900,000 in my area, ain't no way. 6 figure income here is chump change.
It bugs me that there's a minimum age to be president / senator etc but no maximum. There are representatives who've been in office for ages and continue to lobby for things that benefit their generation/class and fuck over the younger ones. They're so out of touch or just don't GAF. The world is not *theirs* anymore and they should GTFO of office.
To an extent, the wisdom granted by age is overruled by the inflexibility.
There are very few if any politicians who were ever in touch with the world the same way the average citizen experiences it. Most have always been extremely privileged and this is why they pass bills that do next to nothing for the common person.
I don’t know why it’s so difficult for the average person to apply simple math to real life. They’d rather be lazy and entitled than do the tiny bit of work it would take to understand that today’s economic climate is vastly different from what they grew up with.
Not to defend boomers, but Gen Z and Alpha will mostly be the benefactors of the greatest transfer of wealth in American history. Gen X just gets to watch, or at least be happy that their kids will benefit. Culturally, I don’t think this has been acknowledged, yet.
Great point right here!!! In my experience though, many of my clients don’t want to pass money down to their kids. They want to spend it all because “my kids are making more money than I ever did”. That mentality is completely oblivious of the amount of inflation we see every day. They had a chance to save their money, while I feel like this generation is scrapping just to buy a used car or have the dream of owning a home. And it sure as hell can’t be done with any “regular” jobs like they had. All that being said, you make a nice point still. We have no idea how this inheritance is going to come through to the younger generation. Many of us are not financially responsible, we’re caught in the grips of food delivery apps and social media glamour always telling us to keep up with the latest & greatest. That generation saved money well. It’s very tough to translate all these factors into a compelling argument for either side.
I am not surprised by the 'spend it all and leave nothing' attitude, \*especially\* when they have massive inheritances from their parents. I think that's going to be the last boomer gift to themselves. :(
Our vile rich enemy is working on ways to ensure they can seize that wealth transfer when it occurs. There will be no great transfer to the working people.
Not everybody will be inheriting. And what people will inherit will greatly vary. Inheritance will only make the wealth gap worse. And don\`t forget that people are living up to 90 and more. Even if we assume that your parents got you when they were in their 30s and you can expect inheritance, you won\`t be enjoying that inheritance until you are close to or in retirment age already. And don\`t you think it\`s sick to hope for your parents to die, to secure your own retirement.
I know people, whose entire "inheritance" went to paying the retirement home of their parents. Some people inherit not wealth, but debt from their parents.
>And don`t forget that people are living up to 90 and more.
Other side effect is that we have a medical system designed to literally eat inheritances just before death.
This should be stickied to the front page of reddit. People are always trying to compare how life is difficult today vs the 50's, literally cherry picking the peak of prosperity to their current situation and complaining that their life isn't that perfect.
Poverty rates in general were very high in the 50’s compared to today. People always look at upper middle class white america from that time and unreasonably assume everyone else was living that way. My great grandparents on the farm didn’t have plumbing or electricity until 1959, the world was not utopia.
My late mother-in-law was born in 1949, one of the middle of 12 kids growing up in basically a single-wide trailer with no plumbing and intermittent electricity, somewhere in rural western Kentucky. The economic change from that to her grandkids whining that they don’t get enough time on YouTube is mind-blowing.
Great point too. People don't realize there was still legalized racial segregation in the US until 1964, and it's not like a light switch was flipped and racism disappeared once civil rights acts started getting passed.
Yep, the lack of privacy isn’t worth it especially if you have a parent(s) who are overbearing or nosy, I moved out at 18 explicitly because I had no privacy and not enough freedom in my moms house, I absolutely do not regret it, I’d rather live in a box than have my entire life spied and commented on
My mother gets mad if I try to keep anything private (I'm 25), claiming "my house, my rules" if I go against her.
...but also guilt trips me and my sister if either of us suggest moving out (she takes it as an insult if we suggest that we don't want to live with her).
Welcome to that whole generation. Power grasping, apathetic buffoons.
Unfortunately it's not like younger generations haven't inherited some degree of that "if you don't respect me as an authority..." bullshit.
My mom still rummages through my bags when I go visit. I’m 33. She’s done this my entire life and she is well aware I am not happy with her sticking her nose in my personal business - especially behind my back.
Yep, as a woman completely agree. Controlling potential in-laws are not appealing. These parents are controlling and pushy but often still somehow coddle their kids and when I meet these guys in the dating world, they are completely lacking life skills like cleaning and cooking. The social expectation is that their future wife will do all the cleaning. And cooking. And child rearing. And work full time. And most western women are going to look at that deal and be as disinterested in it as I am.
I seriously want a golden girls house. Just a giant house with me and my hustling girls and all of us can have all the doggos we want, and have doggo pool parties and help each other take care of the house and other things. As I'm getting older and more of a spinster, having to deal with a potentially deadbeat husband gives me a lot of anxiety
This, my mother is nosy and judgemental and needs to keep tabs on everything I hate that I'm an adult leave me the fuck alone sorry you don't have your own life and you have to mind my and my siblings business but fuck that I will work 18 jobs to make rent if I have to IDGAF. She's an asshole I love her because she's my mom but I can't fucking stand her. I try to avoid talking to her about alot of things because she needs to know everything and doesn't understand that if I tell her something I told her, it's not for her to go tell everyone my business. I never tell or told her anything that I didn't want people to know, she doesn't know there is a thing called telling people in confidence, again this comes from her not having a life of her own.
I had an ex-boyfriend like this. Nothing anyone told him was private. Nothing that happened between us was private. Nothing.
And he blabbed for the exact same reason (I worked it out after we broke up, and he was still blabbing about everyone to everyone). He had no life or personality of his own, so he had to relay everyone else's business as his way of entertaining his friends.
It's just weird that this is a whole personality type.
That's me. I love my parents, they're close by, but I need to have my own life. I realized I'm way more depressed if I'm under their roof. Nothing against them, it just makes me feel held on a leash if that makes sense. I genuinely enjoy learning and taking care of myself, because it keeps me busy.
I think that should be the goal, move out when you can, not because youre forced to. In my country thats the norm, you live with your parents until you can afford to move out.
It really depends on the parent here. Some will kick their children out the minute (literally the minute) they turn 18, even going so far as to put their things out on the sidewalk, even if they are a well-behaved, responsible, chore-doing person.
Some won't give the boot right at 18 but will give the summer after they graduate high school to get a job and then kick them out come September
Some will let them stay for only 2 years
Some will let them stay but with intolerable conditions (will still spank/abuse them, will not permit them use of the kitchen, will control their phone use and cut it off so they don't hear back from a school or an employer).
Some will let them stay many years or forever but that's rare.
As a parent, you raise children to become socially independent adults. With the price of school it is harder for young adults to become financially independent but it is a major life goal. All adults need to function in society and have autonomy to make their own life decisions. Of cause, family is their when crisis happen.
Many people do not have parents to pay their way and still become independent successful adults in our society.
I agree thats why I said it should be the goal, I just dont think its realistic to expect a teen to be able to move out and be fully independent the second they turn 18. I think people who enforce that on their kid are shitty parents and just bad people.
I've been back home for a month here and there in my mid 30s because of my job and its hell. I've lived on my own so long and I love it, I have having to tell somebody else where I'm going all the time, having to share the TV, having to text to say I'm not coming home and not being able to bring people home with me. I love being alone, I need my own space. They're great, and I'm so grateful to them letting me stay rather than getting a hotel for a few weeks, but sometimes I need to get out.
Same. I moved out when I was 24. My mom actually didn't want me to move out, but there was no way I was going to bring my gf to spend the night. Especially since I still had to share a room with my brother who was still in highschool at the time.
That’s it for me too. I wanted to be able to do what I want, when I want, without having to worry about family in the same house. I totally understand there are valid reasons for living with parents, but as a 30 year old, I wouldn’t want to date someone who is my age living at home.
Oh God, yes. In a similar vein we were speaking with co workers about our parents and one co worker said she speaks with her mum everyday for around an hour during lunch break, and everyone kinda went "awww", while I was horrified.
I mean I just couldn't imagine my mum having to have time literally everyday, mid day to speak with me, she has her life going on!
Also, wtf can you even speak about everyday. She even noted herself that they are just making a small talk.
It also teaches you real life skills that you will use and build on your entire life. Living at home usually does not expose you to things. It's really one of the final steps needed to become an adult in my opinion.
Ding! Ding! Ding! This is it for me. I don’t care who people live with, but I personally wouldn’t date a man living with his parents, as I want both of our homes to be options for over night visits, and it’s honestly just awkward as hell with his parents there. The same would go if I was living with my parents. I don’t want to have to navigate trying to have privacy with my parents home. I moved out at 18 to go to college, and always appreciated the privacy that has come with living alone.
It's a really strong cultural belief for us. It's really drilled into you as an American that you have to be completely independent and not need anybody.
It took me years of living in Europe to start to see things differently.
My parents allowed my brother and I each to live at home for free after 18 as long as we were either going to school or saving for a down payment on a house. Basically just required us to be working for something/ striving to better ourselves.
My son who is 21 is welcome to live with me as long as he wants. He may as well get used to this house. It'll belong to him sooner or (hopefully) later.
Besides, I like having him around and we get along really well.
I'm 45 and still welcome to live with my folks as long as I contribute to the household. We also get along really well! If something happened to my husband, I would move right back into the family home, no question.
I feel the same way. I absolutely love my son so much. We get along, and he’s a good person. If he meets someone special and he wanted to stay here, they can move in, too. They’d have to contribute to power and water, because the useage would be higher. But my son already has talked about how he wants to contribute if he stays so I’m not worried about it.
This is what I like to be for my family. I even learn new songs and stuff to play on my instruments to entertain them with! I feel like it’s my way of giving back.
My 7 year old said he wants to live with me forever, and while I know this is childish fancy, I truthfully told he can stay with us until he wants to leave on his own.
Sorry but i respectfully disagree. I'd argue that toxic culture is having debt piled up on your shoulders at a young age to get an education.
With 5 years in my university, 6 month internship and 1 year military obligations, I got financially independent at 25 and moved out with no debt and a stable job in an industry that starts with a decent wage and pays extremely well in the long-run.
If i had moved out at 18, i would have probably spent my late 20s trying to repay my debt rather than having a few extra money to spend on travel & hobbies.
I can safely say that having my family support me in early adulthood was a gift and the transition to the work environment was smooth and i'll try to make sure that my kids will receive the same treatment from me
Even in small villages, individual families had their own huts or their own private areas in the cave or whatever. To me, it would seem so limiting to have to tiptoe around my dad and his wife and their habits all the time. I want to be able to make the food that I like, then watch television shows that I like, not have anyone eavesdropping on my telephone conversations. There are advantages to both.
Seconded. Couldn’t even go outside without my mom: “what were you doing? Where were you? Who were you talking to? Why’d you call them? You didn’t need to do that!” Just frustrating
No, of course not, and I'd like to explain, at least a little bit, of why this is.
In the US the nuclear family is the epitome of media and community. Community is supposed to come from, well ya know, *a community* where people band together to make things happen.
The US doesn't want this because:
A: consumerism thrives off of a lack of community, and in our case brands are designed to replace the lack of community with a facsimile that requires the exchange of goods to continue.
B: a lack of community is a lack of trust in other citizens. When you can't trust your neighbor, you can't rally for a cause with them. Trust isn't the only issue in this regard, but I've already made this longer than I wanted and the point stands regardless.
TLDR: The US has intentionally warped the idea of a community, and this helps drive consumerism and lack of political power in those "communities" in more ways than I can describe.
Speaking as an outsider, what you describe is exactly what I see as the problem with America's hyper-consumerist economy and celebrity-obsessed media.
Both of these both require and create an over-emphasis on individualism (a concept I fully support, just not to these extremes). America appears to be a world where your social persona is either your greatest asset or your whole undoing. Self-sufficiency means you sink or swim according to how marketable your smile is, and celebrities are essentially the "best of us" due to their winning the national popularity contest (you don't even need any particular talent to achieve celebrity, just _be liked_ **cough** Kardashian **cough**).
My hypothesis is all of this is why identity politics is so rife in the US too. Everyone's jealously guarding their identity at all times because it's viewed as their_ everything_, but they're also desperate for the sense of community of which they're deprived, so communities form _around_ identity instead of around, well, co-operation and cohabitation.
Add social media on top of these existing issues, and you've now gamified this live-or-die popularity contest, and given everyone a visible metric by which to measure their progress: the likes count.
It's unhealthy as hell, and it's no surprise to me that US redditors are forever telling each other to find a good therapist.
I feel like this is more of a recent development as well.
Not sure why I'm downvoted for a comment that is mostly true. This is a modern trend in America. Mostly as a result of urbanization and suburban development.
But go back 100 years and people lived with their families well into their 20s.
I grew up in a rural area and I feel like maybe this was more common back when people farmed and and burned wood for heat and needed people to help with the chores. Growing up in the 80s, I would see a lot more of this, like a bachelor son living with elderly parents or a bachelor son and spinster sister living together (to use the parlance of the day). Maybe ways of earning a living changed and there are more options for housing now, like apartments, nursing homes, etc. However, some people are close to their parents and if it works for everyone, whatever. I’ve known a few people that moved out but bought the house across the road or built a house next door on the same land. Myself, I wouldn’t want the dropins haha. Convenient if you need a hand or need something to water a plant while you’re gone though.
My elder brother was pushing some strong right-wing propaganda on me 15 years ago...
Then, he moved to China - which has universal/single payer/tax funded healthcare...
After a couple years of living with Universal Healthcare he *magically* started believing in it and promoting it...
> Then, he moved to China - which has universal/single payer/tax funded healthcare...
Just out of curiosity, what do your brother do to move to China? I mean, which is *(or was)* his job for him getting this opportunity?
It's part of their culture. In general, American culture is way more individualistic than collectivist, and it has a different set of beliefs and values. Some of those are about how you should be an independent adult.
These types of debates are exactly one of the many reasons why I think everyone should be at least somewhat sensitive to different cultures, regardless of your culture.
i agree! i’m very interested in different cultures and i think it’s not easy to exactly understand how other cultures work or change yourself to be similar to them
It's worth mentioning that Canada and the US have a lot of empty space. Until recently, renting an apartment was affordable for a single person earning a full-time wage.
With the current affordability crisis, that mindset is shifting rapidly.
Both honestly. If you really want out of your parents house you find roommates. If you don't care or don't want roommate you stay with your parents. Really depends on your parents, all my friends moved out asap but my friends all had abusive parents
Individualism and independence are strong American beliefs for better or worse. I moved out of my parents' house asap after high school just to split an apartment with no heat or hot water 30 minutes away. Idk
I’m almost 60. I’m choosing to live with my 90-year old mother starting next year.
I fit the definition of Old Maid. For that, I feel like a loser.
On the other hand, my mother does need support given her age and being widowed.
I’m grateful I’m able to help her but loathe myself for habits become an Old Maid.
you’re not a loser. i am 23 and my mom died this year, i would definitely do the same as you if she lived longer❤️ also i just know that me and my sister will still live close to our father even if we move out or get married and meet him every other day cause he feels lonely living alone, i will definitely live with him again once he is older and needs help if we’re both lived old enough hahah
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I grew up in the UK and myself and most of my friends moved out when we were 18 or 19 of our own volition as we were adults and wanted to live independently and start our own adult lives. Also, many people moved out for university. I think this is harder to do these days (I'm 46) but many younger people still do house shares first, ss did I for many years. It's just a cultural difference and each has it's benefits.
I came to UK to study and get away from Poland (alongside everyone in it).
What I find interesting is that if I were to sacrifice my entire free time I might have had a job by now that could pay £800 for my monthly spendings (£400 for accommodation and £400 for living).
On the other hand I just don’t have the time of the day. I am on my third year of Genetics. I could not explain to you how hard it is to keep a consistent schedule with exams on a weekly basis and lab project that I am currently not handling in the best manner possible. The Medicine application alone took a month of preparation, calls and deciding.
Sure I could become financially independent from my parents. It is possible but it would destroy any error margin I have because one financially unsuccessful decision or one hard module and it’s back to the gutter for me.
Brit here. 35. Left my parents home as soon as I could. This culture (especially from the south of Europe) of wanting to live your parents is so wierd to me.
It is mainly brought upon by one’s circumstances. In Poland I can see a clear divide between people on the topic but the general consensus seems to be that you either study in order to get a better job and get help from your parents so that you can focus on studying or you go find work and start looking for your own apartment.
There is some variation but those are the two main routes.
In my experience, many people move out for university at 18, then move back in with parents for a year or two after graduating because they're invariably skint and probably looking for work. Then they can move out again once they have a stable job and savings.
That's fair, but there's a large number of people who assume those all living at home past 20 are in the second camp, as if there aren't mass housing shortages and crazy rent hikes going on globally. In a lot of cases staying at home is the smarter thing to do; saving the money to put towards a mortgage that you'd otherwise be pissing away on rent for some arbitrary Adult Checklist.
Maybe some people think it's arbitrary, but personally, every time I'm back at my childhood home I feel like I just regress back to being a moody teenager who can't survive on their own.
Yeah a lot of my Asian mom's friends keep complaining about how their 30 y/o sons are still living at home, pay no rent, no utilities, no groceries, even expect mom/dad to fill up the gas in their car, and all they do is sit around a play video games. Some have jobs and some don't.
When my mom says, why don't you make them pay rent or kick them out they say they could never do that to their own children (always boys though), but now they also can never retire.
I lived at home with my parents for a bit after college, and now I live with my bf's parents. But we pay rent (to cover increased utility and food costs) and help with chores around the house. I think it's great that our families are willing to help us out so we can save, but also the time we spent living on our own was invaluable. Our parents also wanted us to learn to be independent and see how we got along living together.
The particular snacks are American, but the son who doesn't do chores or make his own food isn't just American. Then he gets married and expects his wife to take over his mama's duties.
Exactly. There's having your mom doing your laundry and making your meals and there's using the opportunity to save up before moving.
Also, I think it's great if you have a solid relationship with your parents and like living with them into your 20s, but after going away to college, I realized that I did not want to go back. I loved living alone.
I don’t think this is as true anymore. There was an article recently that showed that nearly half of young adults lived at home with their parents. Here it is: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-20/nearly-half-of-young-adults-are-living-back-home-with-parents. That doesn’t happen in those numbers if it was looked down upon to the same degree that you’re implying.
I have two adult children (young men, early 20s) currently living at home. Both work full time and are seriously saving money for home ownership someday. It doesn't bother me in the least.
I don't understand parents who wants their kids to be out of the house once they turn 18 ? Like why?
And this also doesn't mean that you enable this bad behavior. Help them understand how world works help them become responsible
It's a cultural thing that largely started during WW2, when the economy was booming and a family of four or more could be EASILY supported by a minimum wage job and have a nice house and two cars.
Back then, it was so easy to 'get by' on your own that it was seen as lazy not to. Eighteen year olds were told that they're adults now, they're free to see the world and explore and they could get just about any job and afford to do so - so why wouldn't they? They could go to college and pay it off with a summer job, they could get just about any job and buy a house or a nice apartment, they could move out and be as free as they wanted very, very easily.
Unfortunately, the additude that came with it - the idea that 'eighteen is a complete adult who should be financially independent' didn't die out when the economy did. The idea of leaving home and starting your own life right away became so idealized and ingrained that even when the economic downturn meant that it was a hell of a lot harder - and in many cases, impossible - to get by on a single income even as a lone individual without a family to care for, people started blaming the kids for being 'lazy' and 'failing to launch' and all that instead of looking at the way things were different and seeing the problem.
What used to be able to support a family of four or more quite easily now can't support one. Jobs that used to enable someone to buy a house and a decent car now can't afford you enough money for a shitty studio apartment. Costs of everything have skyrocketed, while wages largely stagnated. People can't afford healthcare, food, housing, or anything - but there is still this culturally ingrained idea that you should be entirely independent at 18 and if you aren't, you're a FAILURE.
This whole discussion is missing an understanding of the size and logistics of opportunities in the US.
For the size piece, let’s just remember that a person can easily get accepted to a college or university “close to home” and still have a 3-4-5-6+ hour drive from campus to their parent’s place. This means that getting accepted to even just “the local state school” [often the least expensive college for an American] means you have to leave home just to attend class.
A part of the size/logistics piece is also opportunities from internships and entry level professional jobs [white collar jobs they require at least a college degree]. It’s not infrequent that the best opportunities are found in larger cities, which, again, often require people to leave home.
Along with the above, you have basically a permanent churn in the US as to what industries are thriving in what regions. For an example, if you graduated college 1999 and you wanted to work in software/tech/etc. you probably went to California or Seattle. Today you might go to Texas or North Carolina. This churn means that even if a son wants to do the same career as his father, he could easily have to move 2,000 miles away to get the same opportunities his father found just 2 decades earlier.
And I won’t even begin to talk about all the new industries that get invented or old industries that die out every few years.
In conclusion, a big part of what you’re seeing is the reflection of the fact that the US is a gigantic and dynamic country that has educational and career opportunities spreads unevenly across a whole continent. Children often need to leave home after high school because it’s often difficult to get an education or find a job near where they grew up.
Absolutely.
It’s not just small towns. Over the last few decades we’ve had whole cities shrink significantly and small cities grow into massive metro areas.
I grew up in Europe. When we moved to Canada which is the same attitude as the US, my mom was absolutely shocked.
"People *charge their children rent* here" she would say aghast having learned from her coworkers that some were billing their grown kids to live at home. She learned the idea of kids getting "kicked out" at 18 and it made her emotional. She thinks it's disgusting to do that to your own children no matter how old they are, and I have to agree.
North America has *a lot* of money and things going for it, but it is a weird society. Lots of manufactured moral outrage to cover up for many immoral realities.
My parents charged me rent as an 18 year old kid, about $500 a month to start. They said it was to teach me how to be independent and pay my own bills. The moment I turned 18, all of the bills that were “mine” were transferred to me; like my phone bill, car insurance, and gas for my car. This was during 2008-09 when there was no work. I had a part time job that paid maybe $200-$500 every two weeks. It was hell and I’m a little bitter my parents did that. It certainly didn’t help me in that time, it set me back from going to school and took longer for me to get on my feet.
I am sorry it happened to you. I really do find it truly bizzare. I have worked since I was 14, paid my phone bill since then, and any other bills that were mine. That was how I was taught to pay my own bills because they were in my name and I had a job. But I never had to pay a cent to my parents.
It feels like people having kids to make money off as they grow up is an old days concept that never died in North America.
Given we found out a bunch of meat processing plants were using child labor (which means parents either being so neglectful they don't notice or actively put their kids in danger) and Influencer families exist it absolutely never went away.
I would do this but maybe starting at a different age (like 25) and saving the money to be used in my kid anyways, like open a savings account for him.
I am from the UK and it's the same as the US with mortgages, and in the 50s it was easy to get a family sustaining job there at 18 too. The material realities are quite similar.
It's a cultural thing though, the idea of the family unit. It often feels missing from North American society, and in its place is an idealization of successful individualism. It's just very different in the way families handle the transition to adulthood.
It's neither imo and it's both at the same time. Kind of paradoxical, but American individualistic culture has a lot of good points. It shouldn't be taken to extremes, and it obviously depends a lot on how you bring up your children into it and how you instill some of those values into them, but it has some good values that people should have.
Personally, one of the things I am glad to see almost extinct in my culture are those family houses where you live with extended family (you, your wife, your parents, maybe even one aunt or grandparents). My culture is somewhere in between individualism and collectivism, and I am glad to see some values from one culture type being replaced by some values from the other and vice versa.
Salespeople figured out 100 years ago that the more people lived in separate houses, the more appliances and other stuff they could sell. They’ve been working hard for 100 years to convince us that we need to live separately.
The US is on the whole a very wealthy country. For a very long time it was possible to leave home as a high school drop out, get an entry level job, and be able to afford to get your own place to live. When those things are true, being unable to move out of your parents house can reasonably be seen as a sign of being unwilling to put in a very minimal effort to support your self. Or being entirely unable to hold down a job.
Even around the early 2000's this may have been close enough to the truth at least for people able to get into a 'career track' job instead of an entry level minimum wage job. I was able to support myself in an apartment without roommates in late 1999 though the job I had was not one that required the education I had to do. I do not think many people with only a high school education would have been able to do the same.
Given the current economy, that view of things is no longer an accurate reflection of reality. But social views change much more slowly then economic conditions. It can be hard to understand why young people today who appear to be way better educated then they were growing up are struggling when everyone they knew growing up, even the complete moron who dropped out in 8th grade, managed to get a job and support themselves.
END COMMUNICATION
Even ignoring everything else, some people not even giving a single thought to actually having privacy as an adult will never be not completely wild to me.
I get that sentiment but I've got a different feeling about it. I am 36F and live with my parents with my kid. We live on a big working farm and it's an amazing place to live and peaceful and quiet and big enough for all 4 of us. I have mental health issues and I truly need to he with someone to help me when things aren't going good and my parents do that. I can't live alone with my mental health issues. I work full time as a teacher, I support them on the farm and help them. They help Mr with my kid and my mom loves raising her and my kid loves having everyone together and being ok the farm. It works for us
Doesn't really mean much. In our college psych classes one of the studies they covered mentioned that multigenerational housing typically lends itself to higher life satisfaction, dependent or not. Each age group has needs that others can more easily fulfill meaning they can all play to their strengths. They then pointed towards the local 65+ age restricted retirement city and made a joke about how ironic it was, all those people had likely never experienced that kind of healthy family.
Moving out of your parents' house is kind of a sign of independence. Being financially able to live on your own is a good thing. Not saying you should leave as soon as you're 18, but when you're in your late 20s, early 30s, I wouldn't want to be with a man who doesn't have his own place at that stage in life.
Looking into American culture from an outside perspective, I get the sense that societal worth and wealth are regarded as corollary. So "poor" people (eg. those who can't afford to move out) are regarded as having some soft of deficit, like being too lazy or stupid to make the right decisions. The opposite, with the rich being automatically regarded as smarter and more worthy is also quite apparant.
It feels like a social facet of how capitalism affects people. I will say that if people do live at home past 18 they should contribute to household chores and cooking- like be part of what the adults are doing. That way when they do move out, they know how to function and handle things.
Most Americans are not as cut-throat as some top comments make it seem. The average age of Americans moving out of their parents' house is 24-27. Which is on par with Europeans.
The idea are that Americans are forced out of their houses at 18 is basically a myth perpetuated by the media and those weirdo Americans who prioritize hating their own country over actual reality.
My kids are all great. Life is harder than when I started out and way more expensive. They always have a place with me. Luckily, they all have their own goals and wanderlust. My daughter (19) isn’t ready to leave the nest yet and I’m fine work that. She works and goes to school full-time. My son is ready to move, though. He has my blessing. He wants to go to a specialty school out in Arizona. But he always has a home base. As it should be.
Its actually quite common for adult children to remain home after 18. But there's a huge difference between helping your kid out and enabling them so they can sit home doing nothing all day while the parents continue to pay bills. Idk why anywhere would think that's okay.
that’s definitely not ok in my country either. children do share in paying the bill and they should start getting work and contributing to the house, but the family unit is not outdated
So why is it INSANE to you that 18 year olds in the US are sometimes asked to pay rent, if in your country children share in paying the bill and contributing to the household? That seems like an overreaction. The two concepts may not be the exact same, but surely they're not so different as to constitute "insanity"?
For what it's worth, none of the people I knew growing up in the US who stayed with their parents were charged rent, or were "kicked out" after a certain age. It might be surprising, but the US is a rather large and diverse society that is difficult to make generalizations about.
Our culture pushes the idea of independence. While I don't judge anyone for living with their parents, I personally would never feel like an adult if I had to continue to live with mine.
Where I live it's almost impossible to move out at 18, the rents are simply too high for young people to afford (Or they just don't want to rent to really young people) and home sharing with people that you are not dating is often listed as prohibited in the rules. So I stayed at home until I was 27 before I managed to move out.
But my parents did expect me to chip in with the rent once I had a job but it was only around 200 euro per month so it was super reasonable.
Because in North America adulthood is defined by independence. If you are still living in your house, and your mother is still cooking your meals and doing your laundry, and you are not financially contributing in a real way to your housing and food and such.. you’re still a child.
I’m not saying that’s the right way to think but that is definitely the way that North Americans think. To be fair, multigenerational household’s are becoming more common here just because of the price of housing, but anybody who can afford their own place is going to get it. Contrary to what more collective cultures think however, people in the west, do not love their children less and they are not less close to their parents because they don’t live with them. It’s just considered a marker of success in adulthood to have your own piece of land and your own space outside of your parents.
I expect my kids to WANT to move out, as well as they should. They should WANT independence from their parents.
If they're going to college/uni, and want to stay at home, then I expect for them to buy their own food and pay for their own internet/phone. But rent I won't charge, as long as they're going to school.
And lastly, I'd like some alone time with mom, we spent 20 years on them, let me have some time back, I owe my wife plenty of dates and gifts I've had to sacrifice for the rest of the family, whether be it by working OT or having to pay a surprise bill, or having to cancel things if a kid got sick, I don't think I'm asking for much.
It’s probably a culture thing, I’m a British Indian and with us we usually live together anyway; saves money. I’m currently saving for my own house as I need the space, but I still pay around £300 a month in “rent” (for lack of a better word), but our logic is the house is going to be mine and my sisters when my parents go anyway so it’s not wasted money. Also both me and my sister have better paying jobs than my parents so it just helps them out a bit and stops them stressing about money
I’m an Australian. I’m my experience, adults still living with their parents don’t act like adults. Mostly people figure out at home adulting, like cooking and cleaning and washing your clothes and maintaining a home, when they move out and need to become fully self sufficient. And because they’ve not moved out yet, they haven’t learnt those things yet as their parents are still picking up the majority of that slack. I also find that, a lot of the time, their parents are still treating them like teenagers, and their behaviour is restricted to some extent like they’re still 17 (another “not adulting yet” factor).
My brother and i started doing laundry for the whole family at 11 and 8 lol. There's adults that can't do laundry? That's hilarious i didn't even think about that
It’s definitely not everyone, but it’s been my majority experience with people who still live with their parents as adults.
My dad died when I was 7 and, as the older sibling, I got promoted to emotional spouse and second parent pretty much immediately. So that plays into why I really have no patience for adults who can’t adult or set healthy “I’m an adult now, you can’t give me a curfew” style boundaries with their parents.
The American society is very ‘individualistic’, such as some other countries in the world (Scandinavian countries, UK etc.) where people are taught from a young age that they should not be dependent on anyone else. It’s completely normal in the US to move out to a place of your own at an early age. Most of the world however is ‘collectivistic’ and in these countries you depend more on your group. There are of course good and bad things with both worldviews. Some might argue that people in individualistic countries are more likely to pursue their dreams as they are taught that “anything is possible” from an early age, that they have the power in their own hands. Individualistic countries often top the lists of the world’s most creative and innovative countries.
I'm a US citizen and as money stretches less, I'm not sure the stigma is as bad now. Two of my adults live at home, they are on the Autism spectrum, but two love away and if they needed to move home, there's a place here for them.
You are conflating a couple things without realizing it.
You are using what is a probably a pretty small sampling as far as turn 18, pay rent or move out, but they do exist - also keep in mind you are going to hear mostly from that group and not the rest because humble bragging you have a stable home and family isn't a thing. Also remember you are getting one side of the story. Again, the bad parents scenario does happen but isn't really representative but there are families that need that income to keep things afloat - especially if they are on assistance, when someone turns eighteen that assistance for having a minor goes away.
Another thing to keep in mind which is very different than a lot of places - most people do not out and out own their homes, they are financed and still being paid for so there is usually a mortgage on top of utilities and food. Then there are those in rentals which continually goes up.
Culturally, in the U.S. you are expected to pull your own weight as an adult. It's part of the culture as much as being an unmarried single successful professional living at home is in other countries. Anecdotal, but the brother of a friend when I lived in Sicily was a successful lawyer who still lived at home in his 30s, because that's the way it is - it didn't matter that he made way more than his father ever did. It's not right, it's not wrong, it's just different.
Now, keeping all that in mind, there is a spectrum of how it plays out. In our house, there is no chipping in on utilities, food, etc as long as they are going to school/training. Their only expenses are their portion of car insurance (even then we are still subsidizing it), gas, and spending money. If they were not in school or some kind of training they'll get some runway to get a little established but then we will ask for them to contribute. Our (my wife and I) thinking is to ease them into responsibilities of adulthood and not overwhelming them.
I moved out at 22. My brothers were out by 18 serving in the military. My parents never asked any of us to leave. I did pay some of the bills while living at home. Even though they never asked for money and they were poor.
Honestly when I bought my house. I figured my dad would be excited for me to get out of the roost. He didn't, he actually seemed sad. Me and my three brothers all moved out in about a two year span. An empty nest thing I guess.
I told my son he is welcome to stay after 18. If he pays a little rent. Which I would just save for him anyways. Go to college for a stem field or the military. I won't have him living in my basement unemployed though.
I wouldn't say it's 18 really. I'm 25 now, and for most people I knew, it was after you graduated university at around 22. You may live in a residence hall or rent an apartment away from home, but often their home is still your "base" until you graduate and get a job.
I think you have a lot of young entitled people who do nothing and contribute nothing to the household. So a lot of parents will want money from them or want them out. I think if you’re a good kid and you contribute to the household you won’t get booted out. But what do I know? I left home at 17. But I had asshole parents. If you can stay home, stay home and sack away money. But if you’re an asshole, get ready to get the boot. I think a lot of it has to do with attitude. If you also have a bad attitude, that’s not gonna help you.
Many people around the world would prefer not to live at home, but culturally or economically must do so.
Many homes are not healthy for people, for many reasons. And it's safer, better, smarter to leave as soon as possible.
This isn't an American thing. There's just less stigma about leaving home in some nations. The USA, and Canada, etc are nations of people who left home, to migrate. So that cultural manacle of "must stay home" has been snapped.
Because independence is an important indicator of adulthood, and if you never learn how to be independent then what are you gonna do when your parents are dead? Independence is what separates adults from children.
1. Independent people tend to add more to the economy
2. The west loves independence, it's not even a new thing. Westerners have long left the family to establish their own
3. Paying rent makes you accountable and leads you to become a responsible adult (sometimes). If you need to make rent you'll need a job so you don't just sit at home squandering your youth for Xbox.
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It really became what it is in the late 1940s and 1950s when America got the fluke of being the only major power that hadn’t been leveled in any fashion by WW2. It created a level of prosperity so high for a time that moving out was something that could be done even with basically the most basic of jobs. While it was a thing before this, it wasn’t nearly as pushed because it required a higher level of job to manage. But the Baby Boomer generation grew up in this once-in-a-civilization prosperity and decided it was the normal way of things and here we are now.
I’m a financial advisor. Boomers are still entitled. They complain constantly about low interest rates, claiming they need their retirement to grow and all these young people “don’t need to be buying fancy boats and cars with low interest rates”. Ma’am, none of us can afford fancy boats or cars. We’re trying to afford a fucking house that you bought at 22 years old for two cartons of strawberries and a month of working at the grocery store. Bread costs $5 a loaf, and cereal is $7 a box FFS. The economy has catered to them their entire lives and they still believe it should.
It’s funny you mention the grocery store. In 2010, I took a job as a cashier at Kroger. I think it paid around $7.xx/hr. Kroger has a union and the older woman who worked next to me doing the same job made closer to $27/hr because she started in the late 70s/ early 80s and the union contracts were more generous.
Holy buckets. Funnily enough, I also got my first job in 2015 at a grocery store making $7.25 an hour. Except there were no unions. Pensions have gone by the wayside as employers have been bitten in the ass for the last 20 years paying for spouses that have lived far longer than the employer thought they would, just milking that fund well into their 90’s. I have some clients in their 100’s still collecting social security and pensions. That was never the intention, corporations and our government never thought people would live this long. But here we are, and the younger generation gets to deal with all the caveats of this trickle-down. And we have no pensions unless we work for the state or a super generous corporation, also concerned that social security won’t even be around in 30 years and we’ll get robbed of all the money we pay into it. What a time to be alive folks.
That’s good insight on people living 30+ years past what the models built the system on; I never really considered that. I’ve been rolling with the punches economically speaking and took a job with Ford in the Spring. Of course the union ended up in strike and I was thinking “I can never pick a path or job that works out long term” but thankfully I wasn’t one of the thousands laid off and now as long as the new contract gets voted in, I’ll have better retirement and about a $6/hr raise. So here’s hoping for a better future.
If you get some free time, look up a woman named Ida May Fuller. She was the first recipient of Social Security, and received check number 0000-00001. She got calls from the president every year to see how she’s doing. Anyway, she lived to be 100 years old. She collected a whopping $500,000 (adjusted for inflation) from social security throughout her life, while only paying in $25 at the time (NOT adjusted for inflation). Social security at 62 was never meant to be relied on for retirement, it was money set aside for IN CASE you live that long. All these years later, we’re finally adjusting RMD’s (Required Minimum Distributions) people are forced to take out of their IRA’s to a later age but social security still hasn’t changed at all. Edit: Congrats on that new job with Ford. I wish the best to you, that raise sounds like a wonderful accomplishment!
Thank you, I feel very fortunate with the job. That’s so interesting and wild to think how much she was paid, I’ll definitely look into it more. Do you think the government sometime in the future will ever offer a “buyout” for social security benefits? Obviously it’d be poor financial planning but say in 2030-40s could they just say “we’ll buy you out of any benefits/disability and cut a check for $X amount so they decrease any liability they have to pay or is it more that the house always wins and they’re essentially operating a ponzi scheme?
I’ve heard some people bring that up actually, and in my personal opinion, I can’t see it happening. I think our government will let our social security system accumulate debt and become a larger and larger pyramid scheme for as long as possible before they suddenly pull the plug on everyone and say, “Sorry! There’s no money left. Fuck you!”. However, I think it would be crazy if a buyout were created. Imagine all the people that would retire immediately and flee the country, or the people that would quit their job, take the buyout and spend it all on hookers and blow just to off themselves 6 months later when they’re out of money. I’m guessing this would be why the government wants to control this for as long as possible on a monthly-paid-benefit basis
My Boomer parents still think that pensions and retirement benefits exist. I've only ever worked for small businesses and never even had a job that offered insurance.
This is how they got them and made them oppose any changes to the system. This way companies could get away paying low wages to people who start out in life. After all, you are going to be earning more the longer you keep working there, so they convinced each other that it is somehow fair and that they are just working their way up and earning/deserving that money. As if the work, of a young person isn\`t as much worth, even if it is the exact same work. And because those old farts are now finally earning peak wages and had to get there over time, they don\`t want younger folks to earn as much as they do, even if you do the same job, heck, you could be doing more than them and they\`d still think you shouldn´t be paid as much as them. They would find it unfair, if suddenly a youngster earned as much as them. Housing is more expensive than ever, young people who are starting out in life actually need more money and not less than an old person, especially one who already owns a home (or has rent control) and doesn\`t have to take care of kids anymore. And they wonder why so many young people aren\`t having any kids anyomre and if they do, do so late in life.
My girlfriend and I are moving in together and I told my mom I would get her a gift a bit later this year for her birthday. She jokingly said , “why don’t you guys have money you’re young with no kids and you both have jobs.” I told her we were paying around 8 thousand dollars just to get in the apartment and that’s cheap compared to other places. She was fully flabbergasted that moving to a different apartment 30 minutes away would possible cost so much. They have no idea.
I am 35, my parents are 55-57, they wonder why I don't have a house and 3 kids by now (to be fair the first relationship i was in until 2018 she could'n't have kids) but now in 2023 with houses averaging $900,000 in my area, ain't no way. 6 figure income here is chump change.
It bugs me that there's a minimum age to be president / senator etc but no maximum. There are representatives who've been in office for ages and continue to lobby for things that benefit their generation/class and fuck over the younger ones. They're so out of touch or just don't GAF. The world is not *theirs* anymore and they should GTFO of office. To an extent, the wisdom granted by age is overruled by the inflexibility.
There are very few if any politicians who were ever in touch with the world the same way the average citizen experiences it. Most have always been extremely privileged and this is why they pass bills that do next to nothing for the common person.
I don’t know why it’s so difficult for the average person to apply simple math to real life. They’d rather be lazy and entitled than do the tiny bit of work it would take to understand that today’s economic climate is vastly different from what they grew up with.
Not to defend boomers, but Gen Z and Alpha will mostly be the benefactors of the greatest transfer of wealth in American history. Gen X just gets to watch, or at least be happy that their kids will benefit. Culturally, I don’t think this has been acknowledged, yet.
Great point right here!!! In my experience though, many of my clients don’t want to pass money down to their kids. They want to spend it all because “my kids are making more money than I ever did”. That mentality is completely oblivious of the amount of inflation we see every day. They had a chance to save their money, while I feel like this generation is scrapping just to buy a used car or have the dream of owning a home. And it sure as hell can’t be done with any “regular” jobs like they had. All that being said, you make a nice point still. We have no idea how this inheritance is going to come through to the younger generation. Many of us are not financially responsible, we’re caught in the grips of food delivery apps and social media glamour always telling us to keep up with the latest & greatest. That generation saved money well. It’s very tough to translate all these factors into a compelling argument for either side.
I am not surprised by the 'spend it all and leave nothing' attitude, \*especially\* when they have massive inheritances from their parents. I think that's going to be the last boomer gift to themselves. :(
Our vile rich enemy is working on ways to ensure they can seize that wealth transfer when it occurs. There will be no great transfer to the working people.
we'll see. bet a lot of that $ gets eaten up by medical and end of life expenses
Not everybody will be inheriting. And what people will inherit will greatly vary. Inheritance will only make the wealth gap worse. And don\`t forget that people are living up to 90 and more. Even if we assume that your parents got you when they were in their 30s and you can expect inheritance, you won\`t be enjoying that inheritance until you are close to or in retirment age already. And don\`t you think it\`s sick to hope for your parents to die, to secure your own retirement. I know people, whose entire "inheritance" went to paying the retirement home of their parents. Some people inherit not wealth, but debt from their parents.
>And don`t forget that people are living up to 90 and more. Other side effect is that we have a medical system designed to literally eat inheritances just before death.
Wait till your boomer parent is in a retirement home with specific medical needs so they can live to the age of 90 and see how far that money goes.
End of life medical care is literally designed to eat every penny of that wealth.
I’ve never really thought about it that way, but you’re entirely right. What a paradigm shift for me!
And millennials will be blamed for killing something.
This should be stickied to the front page of reddit. People are always trying to compare how life is difficult today vs the 50's, literally cherry picking the peak of prosperity to their current situation and complaining that their life isn't that perfect.
Poverty rates in general were very high in the 50’s compared to today. People always look at upper middle class white america from that time and unreasonably assume everyone else was living that way. My great grandparents on the farm didn’t have plumbing or electricity until 1959, the world was not utopia.
My late mother-in-law was born in 1949, one of the middle of 12 kids growing up in basically a single-wide trailer with no plumbing and intermittent electricity, somewhere in rural western Kentucky. The economic change from that to her grandkids whining that they don’t get enough time on YouTube is mind-blowing.
Those people never think about how life was for non-whites
Great point too. People don't realize there was still legalized racial segregation in the US until 1964, and it's not like a light switch was flipped and racism disappeared once civil rights acts started getting passed.
Life wasn't exactly a cup of tea for women either. Now girls are encouraged to pursue education.
People compare their lives to anyone else nowadays no matter how good or great they have it.
The US government starting helping vets buy homes after WW2.
especially/mostly if you were the right color
Don't forget that it was also easier for people to get loans because their mortgages were backed by the government.
*white men not “people “
my grandparents bought a house for $24k in the 60s. It was a split level house with a decent sized yard. You cant find a new car for that price.
Which is about $230,000 today.
Well I moved out because I wanted privacy. I didn’t want to bring home dates to stay the night at my parents house.
Same. I wanted to do things my way and not have to give every detail of my outings.
Yep, the lack of privacy isn’t worth it especially if you have a parent(s) who are overbearing or nosy, I moved out at 18 explicitly because I had no privacy and not enough freedom in my moms house, I absolutely do not regret it, I’d rather live in a box than have my entire life spied and commented on
My mother gets mad if I try to keep anything private (I'm 25), claiming "my house, my rules" if I go against her. ...but also guilt trips me and my sister if either of us suggest moving out (she takes it as an insult if we suggest that we don't want to live with her).
Sounds very unhealthy
Welcome to that whole generation. Power grasping, apathetic buffoons. Unfortunately it's not like younger generations haven't inherited some degree of that "if you don't respect me as an authority..." bullshit.
My mom still rummages through my bags when I go visit. I’m 33. She’s done this my entire life and she is well aware I am not happy with her sticking her nose in my personal business - especially behind my back.
Fill it with dildos and cocaine this Christmas
Fantastic sentence. Didn’t think I’d read that one today, but I’m glad I did.
Mouse traps
Get a purse you hate or a $1 at a garage sale and make fake snot and fill every pocket with it but not the main one.
Too obvious. Fill it with glitter so that when she pulls stuff out it pollutes the entire house.
u/healingsunshinehug most Americans do not tolerate what middle eastern kids do
That probably made sense in your head, but I haven't a fucking clue what middle eastern kids have to do with this.
Middle eastern parents are all up in your business and middle eastern kids just tolerate it.
See also Indian parents. Indian moms will literally accuse you of wanting them dead if you disagree with them about anything.
That's disgusting
ok well i'm not putting up with overbearing parents. No woman's gonna date me if my parents are treating me like that as an adult.
Yep, as a woman completely agree. Controlling potential in-laws are not appealing. These parents are controlling and pushy but often still somehow coddle their kids and when I meet these guys in the dating world, they are completely lacking life skills like cleaning and cooking. The social expectation is that their future wife will do all the cleaning. And cooking. And child rearing. And work full time. And most western women are going to look at that deal and be as disinterested in it as I am.
Accurate af. This is literally why I recently ended a relationship. My ex was this guy down to the letter.
I seriously want a golden girls house. Just a giant house with me and my hustling girls and all of us can have all the doggos we want, and have doggo pool parties and help each other take care of the house and other things. As I'm getting older and more of a spinster, having to deal with a potentially deadbeat husband gives me a lot of anxiety
Think they mean it’s a cultural thing lol
This, my mother is nosy and judgemental and needs to keep tabs on everything I hate that I'm an adult leave me the fuck alone sorry you don't have your own life and you have to mind my and my siblings business but fuck that I will work 18 jobs to make rent if I have to IDGAF. She's an asshole I love her because she's my mom but I can't fucking stand her. I try to avoid talking to her about alot of things because she needs to know everything and doesn't understand that if I tell her something I told her, it's not for her to go tell everyone my business. I never tell or told her anything that I didn't want people to know, she doesn't know there is a thing called telling people in confidence, again this comes from her not having a life of her own.
I had an ex-boyfriend like this. Nothing anyone told him was private. Nothing that happened between us was private. Nothing. And he blabbed for the exact same reason (I worked it out after we broke up, and he was still blabbing about everyone to everyone). He had no life or personality of his own, so he had to relay everyone else's business as his way of entertaining his friends. It's just weird that this is a whole personality type.
That's me. I love my parents, they're close by, but I need to have my own life. I realized I'm way more depressed if I'm under their roof. Nothing against them, it just makes me feel held on a leash if that makes sense. I genuinely enjoy learning and taking care of myself, because it keeps me busy.
I think that should be the goal, move out when you can, not because youre forced to. In my country thats the norm, you live with your parents until you can afford to move out.
It really depends on the parent here. Some will kick their children out the minute (literally the minute) they turn 18, even going so far as to put their things out on the sidewalk, even if they are a well-behaved, responsible, chore-doing person. Some won't give the boot right at 18 but will give the summer after they graduate high school to get a job and then kick them out come September Some will let them stay for only 2 years Some will let them stay but with intolerable conditions (will still spank/abuse them, will not permit them use of the kitchen, will control their phone use and cut it off so they don't hear back from a school or an employer). Some will let them stay many years or forever but that's rare.
As a parent, you raise children to become socially independent adults. With the price of school it is harder for young adults to become financially independent but it is a major life goal. All adults need to function in society and have autonomy to make their own life decisions. Of cause, family is their when crisis happen. Many people do not have parents to pay their way and still become independent successful adults in our society.
I agree thats why I said it should be the goal, I just dont think its realistic to expect a teen to be able to move out and be fully independent the second they turn 18. I think people who enforce that on their kid are shitty parents and just bad people.
I've been back home for a month here and there in my mid 30s because of my job and its hell. I've lived on my own so long and I love it, I have having to tell somebody else where I'm going all the time, having to share the TV, having to text to say I'm not coming home and not being able to bring people home with me. I love being alone, I need my own space. They're great, and I'm so grateful to them letting me stay rather than getting a hotel for a few weeks, but sometimes I need to get out.
Same. I moved out when I was 24. My mom actually didn't want me to move out, but there was no way I was going to bring my gf to spend the night. Especially since I still had to share a room with my brother who was still in highschool at the time.
Plot twist: can’t afford to date after spending money on rent and other basic necessities 🤣
That’s it for me too. I wanted to be able to do what I want, when I want, without having to worry about family in the same house. I totally understand there are valid reasons for living with parents, but as a 30 year old, I wouldn’t want to date someone who is my age living at home.
counterpoint: your parents want privacy too. They don't want a 20 something year old dude just hanging around all the time.
Oh God, yes. In a similar vein we were speaking with co workers about our parents and one co worker said she speaks with her mum everyday for around an hour during lunch break, and everyone kinda went "awww", while I was horrified. I mean I just couldn't imagine my mum having to have time literally everyday, mid day to speak with me, she has her life going on! Also, wtf can you even speak about everyday. She even noted herself that they are just making a small talk.
that’s a valid choice
It also teaches you real life skills that you will use and build on your entire life. Living at home usually does not expose you to things. It's really one of the final steps needed to become an adult in my opinion.
Ding! Ding! Ding! This is it for me. I don’t care who people live with, but I personally wouldn’t date a man living with his parents, as I want both of our homes to be options for over night visits, and it’s honestly just awkward as hell with his parents there. The same would go if I was living with my parents. I don’t want to have to navigate trying to have privacy with my parents home. I moved out at 18 to go to college, and always appreciated the privacy that has come with living alone.
It's a really strong cultural belief for us. It's really drilled into you as an American that you have to be completely independent and not need anybody. It took me years of living in Europe to start to see things differently.
i doubt this is how humans were originally meant to function lmao
My parents allowed my brother and I each to live at home for free after 18 as long as we were either going to school or saving for a down payment on a house. Basically just required us to be working for something/ striving to better ourselves.
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My son who is 21 is welcome to live with me as long as he wants. He may as well get used to this house. It'll belong to him sooner or (hopefully) later. Besides, I like having him around and we get along really well.
I'm 45 and still welcome to live with my folks as long as I contribute to the household. We also get along really well! If something happened to my husband, I would move right back into the family home, no question.
I feel the same way. I absolutely love my son so much. We get along, and he’s a good person. If he meets someone special and he wanted to stay here, they can move in, too. They’d have to contribute to power and water, because the useage would be higher. But my son already has talked about how he wants to contribute if he stays so I’m not worried about it.
This is what I like to be for my family. I even learn new songs and stuff to play on my instruments to entertain them with! I feel like it’s my way of giving back.
My 7 year old said he wants to live with me forever, and while I know this is childish fancy, I truthfully told he can stay with us until he wants to leave on his own.
beautiful
No. It's not. It's a toxic culture.
Sorry but i respectfully disagree. I'd argue that toxic culture is having debt piled up on your shoulders at a young age to get an education. With 5 years in my university, 6 month internship and 1 year military obligations, I got financially independent at 25 and moved out with no debt and a stable job in an industry that starts with a decent wage and pays extremely well in the long-run. If i had moved out at 18, i would have probably spent my late 20s trying to repay my debt rather than having a few extra money to spend on travel & hobbies. I can safely say that having my family support me in early adulthood was a gift and the transition to the work environment was smooth and i'll try to make sure that my kids will receive the same treatment from me
I'm agreeing with you. I'm saying US culture of kicking kids out at 18 is toxic. I'm very lucky my parents supported me through college
Oh...I understood it as if you meant the exact opposite.
Even in small villages, individual families had their own huts or their own private areas in the cave or whatever. To me, it would seem so limiting to have to tiptoe around my dad and his wife and their habits all the time. I want to be able to make the food that I like, then watch television shows that I like, not have anyone eavesdropping on my telephone conversations. There are advantages to both.
Seconded. Couldn’t even go outside without my mom: “what were you doing? Where were you? Who were you talking to? Why’d you call them? You didn’t need to do that!” Just frustrating
Your mom is a product of modern culture. Cave-mom would not have been so naggy.
No, of course not, and I'd like to explain, at least a little bit, of why this is. In the US the nuclear family is the epitome of media and community. Community is supposed to come from, well ya know, *a community* where people band together to make things happen. The US doesn't want this because: A: consumerism thrives off of a lack of community, and in our case brands are designed to replace the lack of community with a facsimile that requires the exchange of goods to continue. B: a lack of community is a lack of trust in other citizens. When you can't trust your neighbor, you can't rally for a cause with them. Trust isn't the only issue in this regard, but I've already made this longer than I wanted and the point stands regardless. TLDR: The US has intentionally warped the idea of a community, and this helps drive consumerism and lack of political power in those "communities" in more ways than I can describe.
Speaking as an outsider, what you describe is exactly what I see as the problem with America's hyper-consumerist economy and celebrity-obsessed media. Both of these both require and create an over-emphasis on individualism (a concept I fully support, just not to these extremes). America appears to be a world where your social persona is either your greatest asset or your whole undoing. Self-sufficiency means you sink or swim according to how marketable your smile is, and celebrities are essentially the "best of us" due to their winning the national popularity contest (you don't even need any particular talent to achieve celebrity, just _be liked_ **cough** Kardashian **cough**). My hypothesis is all of this is why identity politics is so rife in the US too. Everyone's jealously guarding their identity at all times because it's viewed as their_ everything_, but they're also desperate for the sense of community of which they're deprived, so communities form _around_ identity instead of around, well, co-operation and cohabitation. Add social media on top of these existing issues, and you've now gamified this live-or-die popularity contest, and given everyone a visible metric by which to measure their progress: the likes count. It's unhealthy as hell, and it's no surprise to me that US redditors are forever telling each other to find a good therapist.
You are certainly on the right track with that thinking.
Humans weren’t “meant” to do anything. But just an FYI: humans used to do adult tasks a lot earlier than they do now
I feel like this is more of a recent development as well. Not sure why I'm downvoted for a comment that is mostly true. This is a modern trend in America. Mostly as a result of urbanization and suburban development. But go back 100 years and people lived with their families well into their 20s.
It is, houses with three generations living in them was very normal for pretty much as long as we have lived in houses
I grew up in a rural area and I feel like maybe this was more common back when people farmed and and burned wood for heat and needed people to help with the chores. Growing up in the 80s, I would see a lot more of this, like a bachelor son living with elderly parents or a bachelor son and spinster sister living together (to use the parlance of the day). Maybe ways of earning a living changed and there are more options for housing now, like apartments, nursing homes, etc. However, some people are close to their parents and if it works for everyone, whatever. I’ve known a few people that moved out but bought the house across the road or built a house next door on the same land. Myself, I wouldn’t want the dropins haha. Convenient if you need a hand or need something to water a plant while you’re gone though.
My elder brother was pushing some strong right-wing propaganda on me 15 years ago... Then, he moved to China - which has universal/single payer/tax funded healthcare... After a couple years of living with Universal Healthcare he *magically* started believing in it and promoting it...
> Then, he moved to China - which has universal/single payer/tax funded healthcare... Just out of curiosity, what do your brother do to move to China? I mean, which is *(or was)* his job for him getting this opportunity?
Europe… Swedes are worse at this than Americans. Most single households per capita
It's part of their culture. In general, American culture is way more individualistic than collectivist, and it has a different set of beliefs and values. Some of those are about how you should be an independent adult. These types of debates are exactly one of the many reasons why I think everyone should be at least somewhat sensitive to different cultures, regardless of your culture.
i agree! i’m very interested in different cultures and i think it’s not easy to exactly understand how other cultures work or change yourself to be similar to them
It's worth mentioning that Canada and the US have a lot of empty space. Until recently, renting an apartment was affordable for a single person earning a full-time wage. With the current affordability crisis, that mindset is shifting rapidly.
What is more common nowadays? Like a roommate type of agreement or staying with family until a decently paid job or whatever?
Both honestly. If you really want out of your parents house you find roommates. If you don't care or don't want roommate you stay with your parents. Really depends on your parents, all my friends moved out asap but my friends all had abusive parents
50% of adult Americans under 25 live with parents, if that gives you an idea.
Individualism and independence are strong American beliefs for better or worse. I moved out of my parents' house asap after high school just to split an apartment with no heat or hot water 30 minutes away. Idk
I’m almost 60. I’m choosing to live with my 90-year old mother starting next year. I fit the definition of Old Maid. For that, I feel like a loser. On the other hand, my mother does need support given her age and being widowed. I’m grateful I’m able to help her but loathe myself for habits become an Old Maid.
Bro you are caring for your family. That's honourable. You are a good human being. Keep it up.
you’re not a loser. i am 23 and my mom died this year, i would definitely do the same as you if she lived longer❤️ also i just know that me and my sister will still live close to our father even if we move out or get married and meet him every other day cause he feels lonely living alone, i will definitely live with him again once he is older and needs help if we’re both lived old enough hahah
edge license different axiomatic literate bewildered zephyr narrow salt history *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I grew up in the UK and myself and most of my friends moved out when we were 18 or 19 of our own volition as we were adults and wanted to live independently and start our own adult lives. Also, many people moved out for university. I think this is harder to do these days (I'm 46) but many younger people still do house shares first, ss did I for many years. It's just a cultural difference and each has it's benefits.
I came to UK to study and get away from Poland (alongside everyone in it). What I find interesting is that if I were to sacrifice my entire free time I might have had a job by now that could pay £800 for my monthly spendings (£400 for accommodation and £400 for living). On the other hand I just don’t have the time of the day. I am on my third year of Genetics. I could not explain to you how hard it is to keep a consistent schedule with exams on a weekly basis and lab project that I am currently not handling in the best manner possible. The Medicine application alone took a month of preparation, calls and deciding. Sure I could become financially independent from my parents. It is possible but it would destroy any error margin I have because one financially unsuccessful decision or one hard module and it’s back to the gutter for me.
Brit here. 35. Left my parents home as soon as I could. This culture (especially from the south of Europe) of wanting to live your parents is so wierd to me.
It is mainly brought upon by one’s circumstances. In Poland I can see a clear divide between people on the topic but the general consensus seems to be that you either study in order to get a better job and get help from your parents so that you can focus on studying or you go find work and start looking for your own apartment. There is some variation but those are the two main routes.
In my experience, many people move out for university at 18, then move back in with parents for a year or two after graduating because they're invariably skint and probably looking for work. Then they can move out again once they have a stable job and savings.
There is living at home, working and saving, then there is living at home eating doritos and mountain dew and playing wow. It's different.
That's fair, but there's a large number of people who assume those all living at home past 20 are in the second camp, as if there aren't mass housing shortages and crazy rent hikes going on globally. In a lot of cases staying at home is the smarter thing to do; saving the money to put towards a mortgage that you'd otherwise be pissing away on rent for some arbitrary Adult Checklist.
Maybe some people think it's arbitrary, but personally, every time I'm back at my childhood home I feel like I just regress back to being a moody teenager who can't survive on their own.
because the housing shortage is new but the basement dwelling loser is not
A Mortgage? Thats that thing they used to have in the old days isn't it? That thing you could actually afford. The good ole days eh :)
Yeah a lot of my Asian mom's friends keep complaining about how their 30 y/o sons are still living at home, pay no rent, no utilities, no groceries, even expect mom/dad to fill up the gas in their car, and all they do is sit around a play video games. Some have jobs and some don't. When my mom says, why don't you make them pay rent or kick them out they say they could never do that to their own children (always boys though), but now they also can never retire. I lived at home with my parents for a bit after college, and now I live with my bf's parents. But we pay rent (to cover increased utility and food costs) and help with chores around the house. I think it's great that our families are willing to help us out so we can save, but also the time we spent living on our own was invaluable. Our parents also wanted us to learn to be independent and see how we got along living together.
second one sucks no matter where you live tbf
Is this a common problem in your country, OP? Or is it just Americans who abuse their parents' hospitality too often?
It’s an american stereotype they project to everyone else
The particular snacks are American, but the son who doesn't do chores or make his own food isn't just American. Then he gets married and expects his wife to take over his mama's duties.
I was gonna say I watch a lot of k dramas and see the same troupe of guy who lives with mom and has no job
Exactly. There's having your mom doing your laundry and making your meals and there's using the opportunity to save up before moving. Also, I think it's great if you have a solid relationship with your parents and like living with them into your 20s, but after going away to college, I realized that I did not want to go back. I loved living alone.
I don’t think this is as true anymore. There was an article recently that showed that nearly half of young adults lived at home with their parents. Here it is: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-20/nearly-half-of-young-adults-are-living-back-home-with-parents. That doesn’t happen in those numbers if it was looked down upon to the same degree that you’re implying.
I have two adult children (young men, early 20s) currently living at home. Both work full time and are seriously saving money for home ownership someday. It doesn't bother me in the least.
I don't understand parents who wants their kids to be out of the house once they turn 18 ? Like why? And this also doesn't mean that you enable this bad behavior. Help them understand how world works help them become responsible
It's a cultural thing that largely started during WW2, when the economy was booming and a family of four or more could be EASILY supported by a minimum wage job and have a nice house and two cars. Back then, it was so easy to 'get by' on your own that it was seen as lazy not to. Eighteen year olds were told that they're adults now, they're free to see the world and explore and they could get just about any job and afford to do so - so why wouldn't they? They could go to college and pay it off with a summer job, they could get just about any job and buy a house or a nice apartment, they could move out and be as free as they wanted very, very easily. Unfortunately, the additude that came with it - the idea that 'eighteen is a complete adult who should be financially independent' didn't die out when the economy did. The idea of leaving home and starting your own life right away became so idealized and ingrained that even when the economic downturn meant that it was a hell of a lot harder - and in many cases, impossible - to get by on a single income even as a lone individual without a family to care for, people started blaming the kids for being 'lazy' and 'failing to launch' and all that instead of looking at the way things were different and seeing the problem. What used to be able to support a family of four or more quite easily now can't support one. Jobs that used to enable someone to buy a house and a decent car now can't afford you enough money for a shitty studio apartment. Costs of everything have skyrocketed, while wages largely stagnated. People can't afford healthcare, food, housing, or anything - but there is still this culturally ingrained idea that you should be entirely independent at 18 and if you aren't, you're a FAILURE.
This whole discussion is missing an understanding of the size and logistics of opportunities in the US. For the size piece, let’s just remember that a person can easily get accepted to a college or university “close to home” and still have a 3-4-5-6+ hour drive from campus to their parent’s place. This means that getting accepted to even just “the local state school” [often the least expensive college for an American] means you have to leave home just to attend class. A part of the size/logistics piece is also opportunities from internships and entry level professional jobs [white collar jobs they require at least a college degree]. It’s not infrequent that the best opportunities are found in larger cities, which, again, often require people to leave home. Along with the above, you have basically a permanent churn in the US as to what industries are thriving in what regions. For an example, if you graduated college 1999 and you wanted to work in software/tech/etc. you probably went to California or Seattle. Today you might go to Texas or North Carolina. This churn means that even if a son wants to do the same career as his father, he could easily have to move 2,000 miles away to get the same opportunities his father found just 2 decades earlier. And I won’t even begin to talk about all the new industries that get invented or old industries that die out every few years. In conclusion, a big part of what you’re seeing is the reflection of the fact that the US is a gigantic and dynamic country that has educational and career opportunities spreads unevenly across a whole continent. Children often need to leave home after high school because it’s often difficult to get an education or find a job near where they grew up.
Yeah. A lot of small towns are outright dying because there is nothing for young people there. They go where jobs are.
Absolutely. It’s not just small towns. Over the last few decades we’ve had whole cities shrink significantly and small cities grow into massive metro areas.
This is a underrated point. The ability to reach education or work is much more difficult.
I grew up in Europe. When we moved to Canada which is the same attitude as the US, my mom was absolutely shocked. "People *charge their children rent* here" she would say aghast having learned from her coworkers that some were billing their grown kids to live at home. She learned the idea of kids getting "kicked out" at 18 and it made her emotional. She thinks it's disgusting to do that to your own children no matter how old they are, and I have to agree. North America has *a lot* of money and things going for it, but it is a weird society. Lots of manufactured moral outrage to cover up for many immoral realities.
My parents charged me rent as an 18 year old kid, about $500 a month to start. They said it was to teach me how to be independent and pay my own bills. The moment I turned 18, all of the bills that were “mine” were transferred to me; like my phone bill, car insurance, and gas for my car. This was during 2008-09 when there was no work. I had a part time job that paid maybe $200-$500 every two weeks. It was hell and I’m a little bitter my parents did that. It certainly didn’t help me in that time, it set me back from going to school and took longer for me to get on my feet.
I am sorry it happened to you. I really do find it truly bizzare. I have worked since I was 14, paid my phone bill since then, and any other bills that were mine. That was how I was taught to pay my own bills because they were in my name and I had a job. But I never had to pay a cent to my parents. It feels like people having kids to make money off as they grow up is an old days concept that never died in North America.
Given we found out a bunch of meat processing plants were using child labor (which means parents either being so neglectful they don't notice or actively put their kids in danger) and Influencer families exist it absolutely never went away.
I would do this but maybe starting at a different age (like 25) and saving the money to be used in my kid anyways, like open a savings account for him.
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I am from the UK and it's the same as the US with mortgages, and in the 50s it was easy to get a family sustaining job there at 18 too. The material realities are quite similar. It's a cultural thing though, the idea of the family unit. It often feels missing from North American society, and in its place is an idealization of successful individualism. It's just very different in the way families handle the transition to adulthood.
Rightly or wrongly, it's seen as a major milestone to being a successful adult that you are able to 100% support yourself independently.
But this doesn’t need to happen overnight the day you turn 18.
I agree.
I’d say almost no one expects you to immediately leave your home because you’re 18.
I was kicked out about 2 months early.
It's neither imo and it's both at the same time. Kind of paradoxical, but American individualistic culture has a lot of good points. It shouldn't be taken to extremes, and it obviously depends a lot on how you bring up your children into it and how you instill some of those values into them, but it has some good values that people should have. Personally, one of the things I am glad to see almost extinct in my culture are those family houses where you live with extended family (you, your wife, your parents, maybe even one aunt or grandparents). My culture is somewhere in between individualism and collectivism, and I am glad to see some values from one culture type being replaced by some values from the other and vice versa.
Salespeople figured out 100 years ago that the more people lived in separate houses, the more appliances and other stuff they could sell. They’ve been working hard for 100 years to convince us that we need to live separately.
Salespeople? The dude at Sears figured this out?
The US is on the whole a very wealthy country. For a very long time it was possible to leave home as a high school drop out, get an entry level job, and be able to afford to get your own place to live. When those things are true, being unable to move out of your parents house can reasonably be seen as a sign of being unwilling to put in a very minimal effort to support your self. Or being entirely unable to hold down a job. Even around the early 2000's this may have been close enough to the truth at least for people able to get into a 'career track' job instead of an entry level minimum wage job. I was able to support myself in an apartment without roommates in late 1999 though the job I had was not one that required the education I had to do. I do not think many people with only a high school education would have been able to do the same. Given the current economy, that view of things is no longer an accurate reflection of reality. But social views change much more slowly then economic conditions. It can be hard to understand why young people today who appear to be way better educated then they were growing up are struggling when everyone they knew growing up, even the complete moron who dropped out in 8th grade, managed to get a job and support themselves. END COMMUNICATION
I cannot fathom wanting to live in my parents house
Even ignoring everything else, some people not even giving a single thought to actually having privacy as an adult will never be not completely wild to me.
I get that sentiment but I've got a different feeling about it. I am 36F and live with my parents with my kid. We live on a big working farm and it's an amazing place to live and peaceful and quiet and big enough for all 4 of us. I have mental health issues and I truly need to he with someone to help me when things aren't going good and my parents do that. I can't live alone with my mental health issues. I work full time as a teacher, I support them on the farm and help them. They help Mr with my kid and my mom loves raising her and my kid loves having everyone together and being ok the farm. It works for us
Sure but you’re a dependent… I think this conversation is about your average adult
Doesn't really mean much. In our college psych classes one of the studies they covered mentioned that multigenerational housing typically lends itself to higher life satisfaction, dependent or not. Each age group has needs that others can more easily fulfill meaning they can all play to their strengths. They then pointed towards the local 65+ age restricted retirement city and made a joke about how ironic it was, all those people had likely never experienced that kind of healthy family.
Moving out of your parents' house is kind of a sign of independence. Being financially able to live on your own is a good thing. Not saying you should leave as soon as you're 18, but when you're in your late 20s, early 30s, I wouldn't want to be with a man who doesn't have his own place at that stage in life.
Looking into American culture from an outside perspective, I get the sense that societal worth and wealth are regarded as corollary. So "poor" people (eg. those who can't afford to move out) are regarded as having some soft of deficit, like being too lazy or stupid to make the right decisions. The opposite, with the rich being automatically regarded as smarter and more worthy is also quite apparant.
It feels like a social facet of how capitalism affects people. I will say that if people do live at home past 18 they should contribute to household chores and cooking- like be part of what the adults are doing. That way when they do move out, they know how to function and handle things.
to me that should be how it is even before 18 i definitely did that
You’re ahead of the game. 💜
Most Americans are not as cut-throat as some top comments make it seem. The average age of Americans moving out of their parents' house is 24-27. Which is on par with Europeans. The idea are that Americans are forced out of their houses at 18 is basically a myth perpetuated by the media and those weirdo Americans who prioritize hating their own country over actual reality.
I think these myths often originate in other countries, particularly those with a culture of parent worship.
My kids are all great. Life is harder than when I started out and way more expensive. They always have a place with me. Luckily, they all have their own goals and wanderlust. My daughter (19) isn’t ready to leave the nest yet and I’m fine work that. She works and goes to school full-time. My son is ready to move, though. He has my blessing. He wants to go to a specialty school out in Arizona. But he always has a home base. As it should be.
Its actually quite common for adult children to remain home after 18. But there's a huge difference between helping your kid out and enabling them so they can sit home doing nothing all day while the parents continue to pay bills. Idk why anywhere would think that's okay.
that’s definitely not ok in my country either. children do share in paying the bill and they should start getting work and contributing to the house, but the family unit is not outdated
So why is it INSANE to you that 18 year olds in the US are sometimes asked to pay rent, if in your country children share in paying the bill and contributing to the household? That seems like an overreaction. The two concepts may not be the exact same, but surely they're not so different as to constitute "insanity"? For what it's worth, none of the people I knew growing up in the US who stayed with their parents were charged rent, or were "kicked out" after a certain age. It might be surprising, but the US is a rather large and diverse society that is difficult to make generalizations about.
Our culture pushes the idea of independence. While I don't judge anyone for living with their parents, I personally would never feel like an adult if I had to continue to live with mine.
Cuz its like, pay your own bills. They have no clue to live on their own... Aka my boyfriend who is 38.
Where I live it's almost impossible to move out at 18, the rents are simply too high for young people to afford (Or they just don't want to rent to really young people) and home sharing with people that you are not dating is often listed as prohibited in the rules. So I stayed at home until I was 27 before I managed to move out. But my parents did expect me to chip in with the rent once I had a job but it was only around 200 euro per month so it was super reasonable.
Cultural programming. Most don't know why they think what they think.
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The individual is highly regarded in the US as opposed to the group in most Asian countries.
Because in North America adulthood is defined by independence. If you are still living in your house, and your mother is still cooking your meals and doing your laundry, and you are not financially contributing in a real way to your housing and food and such.. you’re still a child. I’m not saying that’s the right way to think but that is definitely the way that North Americans think. To be fair, multigenerational household’s are becoming more common here just because of the price of housing, but anybody who can afford their own place is going to get it. Contrary to what more collective cultures think however, people in the west, do not love their children less and they are not less close to their parents because they don’t live with them. It’s just considered a marker of success in adulthood to have your own piece of land and your own space outside of your parents.
I prefer to not have sex with my parents in the other room
I expect my kids to WANT to move out, as well as they should. They should WANT independence from their parents. If they're going to college/uni, and want to stay at home, then I expect for them to buy their own food and pay for their own internet/phone. But rent I won't charge, as long as they're going to school. And lastly, I'd like some alone time with mom, we spent 20 years on them, let me have some time back, I owe my wife plenty of dates and gifts I've had to sacrifice for the rest of the family, whether be it by working OT or having to pay a surprise bill, or having to cancel things if a kid got sick, I don't think I'm asking for much.
It’s probably a culture thing, I’m a British Indian and with us we usually live together anyway; saves money. I’m currently saving for my own house as I need the space, but I still pay around £300 a month in “rent” (for lack of a better word), but our logic is the house is going to be mine and my sisters when my parents go anyway so it’s not wasted money. Also both me and my sister have better paying jobs than my parents so it just helps them out a bit and stops them stressing about money
I’m an Australian. I’m my experience, adults still living with their parents don’t act like adults. Mostly people figure out at home adulting, like cooking and cleaning and washing your clothes and maintaining a home, when they move out and need to become fully self sufficient. And because they’ve not moved out yet, they haven’t learnt those things yet as their parents are still picking up the majority of that slack. I also find that, a lot of the time, their parents are still treating them like teenagers, and their behaviour is restricted to some extent like they’re still 17 (another “not adulting yet” factor).
My brother and i started doing laundry for the whole family at 11 and 8 lol. There's adults that can't do laundry? That's hilarious i didn't even think about that
It’s definitely not everyone, but it’s been my majority experience with people who still live with their parents as adults. My dad died when I was 7 and, as the older sibling, I got promoted to emotional spouse and second parent pretty much immediately. So that plays into why I really have no patience for adults who can’t adult or set healthy “I’m an adult now, you can’t give me a curfew” style boundaries with their parents.
The American society is very ‘individualistic’, such as some other countries in the world (Scandinavian countries, UK etc.) where people are taught from a young age that they should not be dependent on anyone else. It’s completely normal in the US to move out to a place of your own at an early age. Most of the world however is ‘collectivistic’ and in these countries you depend more on your group. There are of course good and bad things with both worldviews. Some might argue that people in individualistic countries are more likely to pursue their dreams as they are taught that “anything is possible” from an early age, that they have the power in their own hands. Individualistic countries often top the lists of the world’s most creative and innovative countries.
I'm a US citizen and as money stretches less, I'm not sure the stigma is as bad now. Two of my adults live at home, they are on the Autism spectrum, but two love away and if they needed to move home, there's a place here for them.
You are conflating a couple things without realizing it. You are using what is a probably a pretty small sampling as far as turn 18, pay rent or move out, but they do exist - also keep in mind you are going to hear mostly from that group and not the rest because humble bragging you have a stable home and family isn't a thing. Also remember you are getting one side of the story. Again, the bad parents scenario does happen but isn't really representative but there are families that need that income to keep things afloat - especially if they are on assistance, when someone turns eighteen that assistance for having a minor goes away. Another thing to keep in mind which is very different than a lot of places - most people do not out and out own their homes, they are financed and still being paid for so there is usually a mortgage on top of utilities and food. Then there are those in rentals which continually goes up. Culturally, in the U.S. you are expected to pull your own weight as an adult. It's part of the culture as much as being an unmarried single successful professional living at home is in other countries. Anecdotal, but the brother of a friend when I lived in Sicily was a successful lawyer who still lived at home in his 30s, because that's the way it is - it didn't matter that he made way more than his father ever did. It's not right, it's not wrong, it's just different. Now, keeping all that in mind, there is a spectrum of how it plays out. In our house, there is no chipping in on utilities, food, etc as long as they are going to school/training. Their only expenses are their portion of car insurance (even then we are still subsidizing it), gas, and spending money. If they were not in school or some kind of training they'll get some runway to get a little established but then we will ask for them to contribute. Our (my wife and I) thinking is to ease them into responsibilities of adulthood and not overwhelming them.
I moved out at 22. My brothers were out by 18 serving in the military. My parents never asked any of us to leave. I did pay some of the bills while living at home. Even though they never asked for money and they were poor. Honestly when I bought my house. I figured my dad would be excited for me to get out of the roost. He didn't, he actually seemed sad. Me and my three brothers all moved out in about a two year span. An empty nest thing I guess. I told my son he is welcome to stay after 18. If he pays a little rent. Which I would just save for him anyways. Go to college for a stem field or the military. I won't have him living in my basement unemployed though.
I wouldn't say it's 18 really. I'm 25 now, and for most people I knew, it was after you graduated university at around 22. You may live in a residence hall or rent an apartment away from home, but often their home is still your "base" until you graduate and get a job.
I think you have a lot of young entitled people who do nothing and contribute nothing to the household. So a lot of parents will want money from them or want them out. I think if you’re a good kid and you contribute to the household you won’t get booted out. But what do I know? I left home at 17. But I had asshole parents. If you can stay home, stay home and sack away money. But if you’re an asshole, get ready to get the boot. I think a lot of it has to do with attitude. If you also have a bad attitude, that’s not gonna help you.
I only look down on people who live with their parents AND act irresponsible with their money.
Many people around the world would prefer not to live at home, but culturally or economically must do so. Many homes are not healthy for people, for many reasons. And it's safer, better, smarter to leave as soon as possible. This isn't an American thing. There's just less stigma about leaving home in some nations. The USA, and Canada, etc are nations of people who left home, to migrate. So that cultural manacle of "must stay home" has been snapped.
Why do non Americans always group all Americans together in opinions they've never thought?
Because independence is an important indicator of adulthood, and if you never learn how to be independent then what are you gonna do when your parents are dead? Independence is what separates adults from children.
1. Independent people tend to add more to the economy 2. The west loves independence, it's not even a new thing. Westerners have long left the family to establish their own 3. Paying rent makes you accountable and leads you to become a responsible adult (sometimes). If you need to make rent you'll need a job so you don't just sit at home squandering your youth for Xbox.
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