I just read a newspaper article about a growing trend- “boomerang kids”. Apparently more and more people graduate college, find the real world to be lacking in prospects, and go home to live with their parents. Even larger numbers get huge amounts of financial support from their parents.
I feel so vindicated! For a year since I graduated I’ve struggled. I was unemployed for six months. Now I just barely get by. Most of my friends are in the same boat, and a lot of them did return home to their parents. Something strange is happening to this generation. We’re overeducated, underemployed, saddled with student loans, faced with absurd houseing markets and generally can’t find many prospects in the real world. We’re a generation of people who did everything right- who went off to college just like we were told- and are now face a whole lot of nothing.
My big aspiration, after graduating with honors from college, is to move up from "hostess’ to “waitress” at Denny’s- the most lucrative of my three jobs. My friends who majored in things like “brain science” and “computer engineering” at places like Berkeley are lifting boxes in warehouses and waiting tables. The richest of my friends (excluding the ones who get checks from their parents each month) who I graduated with is making $12.00 an hour at an office temp job that got extended for a few months.
Anyway, I’m just glad that the strange social phenomenea and the hardships that my generation is facing has some recognition. It’s strange times out there for us young people. It’s no wonder we’re running back to mommy in droves.
I work at a company where the majority of the employees are between 22 and 29 and I’d say that about 40-50% live with their parents. It annoys me when I hear them complain about money when I’m 26, living 150 miles from any family and shelling out that rent every month, not to mention the rest of the bills with no help from anybody but me.
I lived at home all through college…graduated when I was 22. I moved out the next year when I got married. I think it’s fairly common, even usual for kids into their mid-20’s to be living with their folks. Of course, in my case living with my folks only meant I didn’t have to pay rent or any meals I ate with them. They paid for nothing else. And I didn’t expect them to.
I can’t imagine having to go through the “just graduated/looking for a job” thing in this day and age. I did enough of the “had a great job/got down-sized/looking for a job” in the 90’s.
Well let’s see, when I turned 19, I moved half way across the country (from NJ to AR) by myself. That was almost five years ago, and I’ve never been back since. Of course I’m married now. Didn’t do the college thing, and work at JCPenney. There are times I hate my job, and the fact I’ve been there for damn near three years, but then I look around at all the stuff that is MINE (or ours) and it’s not so bad. BTW, heh, my sister, 30 and my bro, 26 still live at home. 
My mom finally just sold the house to them around christmas time, and bought a condo! :eek:
I’m considering moving back home. Partially for the financial reasons, but also because I don’t want my mom to be alone if my brother moves out. It’s a great house, and it would be a shame for her to want to sell it because it felt too big.
I htink this thread brings up a good point. I have several friends who are in their mid-20s and not only live at home but don’t even have driver’s liscences.
One of whom had a Bachellor’s.
I would never do this. Ever. It must be nice for people who are still young and in college and get along with their families, but …
Urm. I guess it’s just the job market and high expectations of the times.
I’m 26 and haven’t lived at home since high school. I went to college five minutes from home but stayed in the dorms, and now I live 900 miles away.
I just graduated from grad school and I’m waiting to hear back from a job I was offered. I’m living off my savings right now. If the job doesn’t fall through (heaven forbid), then I most likely will need to move back home. I will feel bad but as long as it’s not for an extended period of time, it will not be the worse thing in the world.
I hate the whole “live at home=living with the parents” thing.
If you don’t live at home, what the hell do you call where you live? I call it home, but my folks don’t live there.
It irks me. I don’t know why.
I moved out of my parents place for a bit, but moved back in because of circumstances. My Dad did that himself a bit back (and he’s approaching 50).
Sometimes things conspire that you need to. But if it’s because you aren’t living to the standard you think you should (cable, internet, big TV, nice house, furniture, car etc) right off the bat… I think that’s being silly. You need to work up to have all the things your parents do.
A couple of thoughts
1st - This statistic (although the OP doesn’t provide us with the details or a link)would have more impact if they had reduced the age span of the group. I would be much more interested if they had only included the 25-34 age group. That group would definitely be beyond “standard” college age and should have all the tools necessary to be making their own way.
2nd - This is not new. This was also happening in the early 70’s. It would be nice to see some comparitive numbers for each decade 1960’s to current.
I agree - take the college age kids out of the picture (I was in school 3000 miles away from home - but my parents’ place was my official residence, would they have included that?)
Still, it is a very tough time to be “just out of college” or otherwise “just starting out”
I have a coworker who lives at home. I really wonder why he’s not driving around in a Benz. I guess he could just be saving but that’s a bit extreme.
I believe it. I got out of college just in time to face the deadest job market in years. Especially for people in technical fields, like engineers and computer scientists, it came as a rude surprise to finally get out school, degree in hand, only to find that a large chunk of the jobs they studied for have left the country. I have a degree in chemical engineering, but nobody’s hiring ChemE’s. I finally found a job as a materials testing technician at a company across town. I lived with my parents for over a year, but have since moved out. Even now, I need to have a roommate in order to pay the rent.
I moved back in to save on costs for college after leaving the airforce. After 6 years away it was a little weird, but we’re all easy going folks (except for my dad, but he lives on the other side of the continent), so things aren’t too awkward. I’m quite used to living in tiny apartments, so only having one tiny room isn’t much of a hardship, especially at this price.
Hmm, in a previous thread, you said that most of your friends have been homeless, now they’re just moving back in with the 'rents. So which is it?
I am 23 and still live with my mom, and I am currently going to college. However, I don’t want to be a ‘boomerang kid’ and frankly I would rather stay in my situation and build up some semblence of a nest egg/safety net before I move out in order to help improve the chances of being able to stay self-sufficient.
Right now I am currently polishing my resume and looking for full-time jobs so that when I get my degree I will have some leads to go by. I know that there is no guarantee I will find a full-time job anytime soon after graduation, but the sooner I act towards looking, the more I can improve my chances.
I’m still at home right now because I want to give myself every opporunity to improve my chances when I do move out- when I graduate I will have zero of the following-
-Student loans
-Credit card debt
-Car payment
Six months before I even theoretically finish school, I am already scoping out apartments and full-time jobs. Right now I feel really conflicted- I mean on one hand I feel like I am taking the most conservative approach towards survivng on my own by getting rid of debt in advance, getting my car insurance lowered, etc. But I still feel uneasy about living at home because people will pass assumptions on me based on my lack of life experience. I don’t like to really pass judgement on people who take either choice (move out and struggle, stay and save up) because many of them (like me) are just trying to take the choice that is in their best interest.
Even Sven, I used to work around Santa Cruz (well, actually SoCal, but I’d run a lot of errands downtown in hippyville 
) I would be surprised if our paths haven’t unwittingly crossed at one point or another during that summer I spent sweating in a pastics factory.
I find this interesting. At 22, my niece has lived on her own since she was about 19. She didn’t go to college, but she’s kept a full-time job at Walgreen’s for the last 3 years. She’s worked her way up to Sr. Pharm. Tech (although there isn’t much money involved). She has an apartment, a roommate, a POS car (but it’s hers). She has little or no expendable income, but to her it was more important to be on her own than to have more stuff. Her brother was the same way until his car accident last year. After all the surgeries (with more to come) he’s less self-sufficient, but even he dreaded having to live with his mother. He was back working fulltime as soon as he was on crutches. He works retail at CompUSA, so that meant 8+ hours a day standing on crutches.
His mother, my sister, is just the opposite of her children. She’s never paid her own way, preferring to live off my parents. She was sponging off her twin when Robert had his accident. Neither child wanted their mother to come back here because they knew she’d sponge off them, which she does. These poor kids started adult life with bad credit, thanks to my sister opening charge accounts in their name and charging stuff and not paying the bills. Sure, they could’ve pressed charges claiming fraud, but they didn’t. They just distanced themselves as much as possible from her. It’s very sad.
StG
I know a few people in their mid-30’s whose mothers still do their laundry & make their beds for them.
Just cause some overpaid high school guidance counselor advises just about everyone who walks in their office to attend college, doesn’t mean it’s the correct advice.
Local 3 Union Electricians are pulling down $25/hour starting wage. IMHO, that’s alot more than most people coming out of college with a philosophy or (fill in your favorite group) studies degree.
Barring a major calamity - no parent under any circumstances should allow their adult-age children to live under the same roof at below market rents. No exceptions - not even for Italians.
I live at home now because I am not working for the next two months. My last job was discontinued, but I just got hired at a university, but I don’t start until the Fall semester begins in August.
I really want to be working now, and I am looking for anything to do. But my experience is that it usually takes me a month just to get the first interviews. I am not sure if I want to apply at a grocery or restaurant, get hired in a month, work four weeks and then quit or put in two weeks notice soon after I am hired.
My mom isn’t thrilled about this, even though I spend all my time fixing up the yard and house. She is convinced I am a bum, though I really hate living off other people.
College degrees don’t account for much here. I get very disheartened when I see job offers that require a bachelors degree offer $20,000. One ad I saw for a university librarian required a MLS, and offered $28,000 a year. Teaching these days requires about as much additional post-baccalaureate study as a masters as well and pays the same. Someone would be better off not blowing money on college and taking the postal exam, or joining the navy.
I know several people with college degrees, and not in liberal arts, who went into trucking because it paid more - if you can stand the life of a nomad.