Young adults living at home

[jyl]

I got interested in the trend of young adults living at home.

Here are some of the things I read.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/08/01/a-rising-share-of-young-adults-live-in-their-parents-home/

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2014/08/why-are-young-adults-living-with-their-parents-and-when-will-they-move-out/

http://m.wsj.com/articles/BL-REB-28744

What do you think is the situation, the implications, and the future?

[legion]

Certainly not all, but many, many of the kids/young adults just a few years younger than me seem incapable of fending for themselves. They were raised by helicopter parents who planned their whole lives, and continue to do so as they enter their first jobs and continue to live at home--sometimes even while married. To be fair, the cost of a college education is now greater than the rent on a craphole, so it's not like they can afford to move out.

[Nickshu]

My Dad always told me, "Son you can do anything you want in life, as long as it's legal, you can support yourself, and you move out when you're 18 and don't come back." At the time as a teen I thought it was sort of mean, but looking back with kids of my own now I see that it was great motivation for me to become self-sufficient and figure out how to make my own way in the world. I only hope I can be successful enough as a parent to my two kids that they can walk the same path.

[dntlft]

The sooner that young adults move out of their parents house to make their way in life, the better...both for the adult child and for society. This will cause them to EARN a real sense of empowerment and self sufficiency, and reduce the load on society, increasingly manifested in the kind of "me, me, me" indignant sense of entitlement we've seen more and more lately. Witness the occupy movement, Ferguson, ect. We should, as parents and as a society, get these kids to stop thinking it's OK to sponge off of their parents and the gov't their whole lives...as many parents and gov't are part of the problem.

[imcarthur]

We just got rid of our last boomerang kid (the Room Monkey). It boils down to the crazy cost of rentals in our market. $1200 - $1500 ++ per month for a rental box in the sky on a major transit line kept him here for the last 4 years (as well as his enabling mother ) He finally bought for $300K - a box in the sky on a major transit route. Very, very hard to do on one salary.

Ian

[Crowbob]

My buddy said for each kid in the family on their 18th birthday his dad gave them $1,000 cash and paid for moving expenses to anywhere in the continental US.

This was not a surprise and nobody in the family had a problem with it.

[LakeCleElum]

They don't move out partly because they have it to SOFT.....No chores, no rules, no rent. Play on your "device all day", come and go as you please. Mom makes you meals and does your laundry. Parents pay for your Smart phone, car insurance and maybe even your car.

I left home at 17 never to return.....Home meant going to church 5 times per week. Strict rules, no movies, limited TV, no dances, In by 9 PM.......Then there was the farm work. I got a reprieve from the farm work and church by working 7 days a week in a gas station at age 15.

Put myself thru college and paid 60% down payment on my 1st house a year after graduation....

How many of the young today would stick around under those circumstances?

[fastfredracing]

Wonder if it is too late for me to go back ?

[recycled sixtie]

Our daughter moved out of the house aged 18 and moved in with the boyfriend. I think we were quite demanding. Curfew of 11 pm. Helped her study. Started working at a bakery aged 15. 2-3 years until she gets her Phd. I think we did it right. We consider ourselves lucky. Many young uns in our neighbourhood are sheltered.
Guy.

[Instrument 41]

Got 4 boys, 23,21,20 and 17. They all got the same speech mid way through the senior year. After graduation you have 3 months of free living. If you have no job and are not enrolled in school, your out of here. If you want to stay you must be doing both. Has worked for the first 3 but the youngest is gonna have a rough time. Wife is apprehensive but knows it will ultimately work. the oldest was a knuckle head and struggled for a few years but finally got his ass in gear and on his way. Number 2 and 3, no problems, both in school and working. Pay their own car insurance, cell phone and rent. I know mom slips them money sometimes , that's OK.

So don't say I'm a bad parent because of the demands I placed on them. Its working for their good.

[patssle]

Put myself thru college and paid 60% down payment on my 1st house a year after graduation....

As it is with healthcare, college tuition, and houses - everything that was once affordable on lower salaries is now unaffordable even to the middle class thanks to turning it all into for-profit or investment enterprises.

Your experience is not longer applicable to the vast majority in our modern economy.

[jyl]

College costs at minimum $25K/year for tuition, living expenses, books.

At $15/hr gross that is like 40 hours/week working. It is an extremely tall order for a kid to work that much and complete college. I'm not saying it is impossible, but I'm saying very few kids will be able to do that. If the kid gets a full or partial ride in college via scholarships, then that is of course different, and I do know a few kids who got that, but they needed to be really exceptional and their parents needed to be low income/asset.

[Iciclehead]

I made the deal with my kids early in their teens....one car (a very modest one), one degree at the place of your choosing....we've discharged our obligation to you and spending the rest.

Just before they went off to school, we had a sit down and said that they would never again be permanent residents in this house. They could come back temporarily for summers whilst in university or for a few months after school while they found a job/place of their own.

Son stayed at our place 11 months (last 2 waiting for his condo to be turned over to him), daughter made it 6 months.

We also tell them that we are the lender of last resort, but we have harsh conditions if they get into financial trouble....namely we will take full control of their finances, cut up their credit cards and put them on allowances as they will by virtue of their needing us as lender of last resort shown that they are really children and need an adult to manage their money for them.

Neither kid has come close to needing it...son will pay off his mortgage in 7 years, daughter in about 9.

All this crap about kids living at home is just that...crap, usually because parents indulge narcissitic, entitled kids who never really grow up. I blame the parents....

Dennis

[gprsh924]

A lot of it is enablement by parents.

I moved to downtown Chicago immediately after graduation and was not making great money. I partied every weekend and travlled all the time and never had any issues with money. It's all about being motivated and making it happen.

[sc_rufctr]

Ones Ethnic back ground can have a big influence on when it's appropriate for a child to move out.
For instance people from a Southern European back ground often live with their parents until they marry.
And if they don't marry it's not uncommon for them to live with their parents into their thirties and beyond. This is considered perfectly normal and acceptable.

So it's probably best not to judge a family from the outside.

[jyl]

From the first link I posted, I see that by far the biggest rate of living with parents is among 18 to 24 year olds. Kids in college living in dormitories are counted as "living at home". Compared to 2007, significantly more 18 to 24 year olds are in college today. So I am wondering if the apparent increase in living at home rate among 18 to 24 year odds is partially just a reflection of more attending college.

I haven't looked into the rate among 25 to 31 year olds.

I agree that there are cultural differences. In Asian culture, it is also common for the young adult to live at home for some period. Getting kicked out of the nest at 18 is not the norm.

[Crowbob]

I've read that college debt is a looming crisis bigger than the mortgage calamity.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Too damn expensive for young people nowadays.

I'd rather see them socking money away in a 401k than paying rent on some schitehole apartment just so they can "be independent". Or pay down / off their student loans before getting a place of their own. Either way those choices will benefit them way more in the long term IMHO than forcing them to eke out a poverty-level existence for a few years for no good reason than ritualized hazing / rite-of-passage by adults. I really don't care if they live back here for a few years if they're doing one or both of those things and cementing a good financial footing for themselves - I believe the support of family includes getting them on as good of a lifelong financial footing as possible - nothing whatsoever to do with enabling laziness (I'd never stand for that!)

I'd be more than happy to house them for a few years - it means that my purchase of my own home ends up creating more wealth and value overall - not just for me but for my kids. Why not get more mileage out of it and do them some good by it?

Of course if they expect to sit around and do nothing and live for free it's a different situation entirely but I don't foresee that happening.

I see the notion of kicking kids out at 18 years of age "just because" as doing them a disservice if they're expected to pay overpriced rent, health insurance, student loans and what-not while trying to save up for a down payment on a home, much less even think about retirement... How is that ever realistically going to happen? It's hard enough to imagine doing it on my salary and I'm 20 years out of college making good money as a professional! I can't imagine how difficult it is for a young person to get on any kind of footing in today's world with so much stacked against them. Maybe they'd rise above but I think 99.9% of kids - even smart and dedicated ones - would fail and not be able to avoid becoming debt slaves given those kinds of challenges (high living expenses and crummy starting salaries + few if any benefits - the norm now)

[jyl]

I am not sure about that. The student debt outstanding is large ($1TR) but is also very unbalanced. 75% of students owe $28K or less, which strikes me as a fairly manageable amount of debt considering the rate, period, and deferment options. 25% owe more and of those, 4% owe more than $100K. I'd be interested in knowing how many of those are MD, MBA, JD students and how many are the "barista with a French Lit degree."

The average student debt balance is $24K.

I'm not disagreeing that excessive student loan debt is a bad thing, by the way.

Just looked it up - Stafford loan rate is 3.86% for undergraduates. So interest on $25K would be $1K/yr. But private student loans are different.

[bell]

I have been working and on my own per say since i was 13.......
i just want to smack the crap out of this entitlement generation........