My boss is 48 years old and has never had a driver’s license and is **afraid **to learn how to drive. We do not work in a place with public transportation and she relies on her husband to drive her everywhere. God forbid something ever happen to him. I have no idea what she did for transportation before she got married.
You’re talking about freeloading. I’m not.
Because… something like only 5% of the US has public transportation? Seriously, I don’t think you understand just how much of the US would qualify as “the sticks” to the rest of the world. I think the only place else with anything like the “dots of highly concentrated population” in a sea of “wide open hey there’s nobody out here!” is Australia, where the effect is even more extreme.
There’s no way to fit 300 million people into the urban areas that have public transportation in the US, there’s just not enough of such places.
On that we will have to disagree, then.
Particularly since these days, after 20 years of supporting a family, I’m considering moving back in with family to save money - or did I suddenly STOP being an adult because I lost my job and have been underemployed since then?
Context is important.
Just so long as folks aren’t dissing living autonomously, being responsible for yourself (and family) AND engaging in childish pursuits. 
(Video games after work… playing with model soldiers, etc).
Per the OP, I didn’t have a driver’s licence until I was 30, but had moved out of home at 19, and had been supporting myself since then. (I’d initially learnt to drive when I was 15, but then never got around to getting the licence, and used public transport until at 30 I was heading to the US on a business trip and needed to get somewhere remote; I was going to need to hire a car and the licence became necessary).
On the other hand, living with the folks for a few years to, say, save up for a down payment on a house, or go to college without racking up $80,000 in debt, is actually forward thinking. If you are actually saving the money. What YOU are talking about is spending the money while living with mom and dad, which is not the same thing.
Also, when I did live at home between college semesters I threw money towards the rent, did maintenance on the house, bought my share of the groceries, paid for my own gas and insurance on the family car even though I didn’t own it, and was otherwise a contributing member of the household and not just a freeloader. When my sister elected to work a couple years between high school and college she paid 1/3 of the rent on the residence; likewise owned, maintained, and paid for her car/driving costs; and actually had enough in the bank to pay for two years of college out of her own pocket.
In other words, she WAS paying bills, she wasn’t sponging off anyone, and it worked out well for her. Far better than being dumped into a roach-infested firetrap at 18, never being able to save a dime, and stupidly going with the herd or what other people thought was right rather than what was actually right for her situation.
Well then kindly explain to me what you’re talking about. I was responding to the idea that living at home, even though you don’t have to, is a mature decision. No, it’s not. It’s letting someone else pay rent so that you don’t have to. I call this “freeloading.” Your response was it’s “smart” to live at home for many after finishing school. Even if they’re employed? Yeah, I guess it is “smart” to let someone else pick up the tab, but I call that cheap and immature. If you’re talking about something else, fill me in.
Edit:
[QUOTE=Broomstick]
On the other hand, living with the folks for a few years to, say, save up for a down payment on a house, or go to college without racking up $80,000 in debt, is actually forward thinking. If you are actually saving the money. What YOU are talking about is spending the money while living with mom and dad, which is not the same thing.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, nobody here is faulting college kids for living at home. Also, regarding your other point, if someone is paying rent anyway, why not do it outside of mommy’s house? Shouldn’t grown ups have some independence from their parents?
You’re assuming ANY adult child living at home is “freeloading”. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. For my sister and I, it was more a situation where are roommates happened to be our parents, as we were expected to pay for all our own costs PLUS contribute a share towards rent, food, and utilities. That is, in no way, freeloading, that’s being an adult.
You might as well say my dad is freeloading because, after mom died, he moved in with my sister. Did he suddenly stop being an adult when he did that?
I’ve known two people like that in my life.
One was my eldest sister, who had all sorts of mental health issues. She wound up paying a professional driver to ferry her around, to and from work (she did have a decent job her last 10 years). Perhaps not ideal, but it worked for her.
Another was a manager who never learned to drive. Her husband died, and at age 56 she managed to overcome her issues and got her license.
So, some people get over it, and some don’t but find other work-arounds.
Because their parents charge them less rent than someone else would?
Because in some locations you can’t sign a lease until you’re 21, but you yourself are 18, 19, or 20 and thus “finding your own place” has a significant legal obstacle? (I ran into that myself, trying to get my own apartment at 19 years of age. I was ready, but apparently no landlord in town was.)
Because you’re intending to go to school/join the military/do something else in the near future that would necessitate breaking a lease, so you spend a few months living with mom and dad rather than signing a lease and then breaking it?
In my family, mom had terrible heart problems - I had to get my license at 16 just so I could ferry her to doctor’s appointments when she herself wasn’t well enough to drive and dad couldn’t get off work. Having live-at-home help sure helped my parents, and when we all moved out finally my parents often wound up hiring other people to do these things. Given that, you could argue it was my parents taking advantage, not me.
I’ve noticed a lot of people toss in “going to college/grad school” as one of the requisite grownup things a person needs to do. Again, I didn’t include that because, quite simply, I don’t think that going to uni is an absolute imperative. I know I’ll probably catch some flak for that, but seriously, I’m one of those people who thinks that a person can be perfectly self-reliant without a college degree. Hell, the wealthiest people I’ve ever personally known didn’t have any degrees (one of them was actually a high school dropout) backing them up, yet obviously they’ve managed to stay afloat. Sure, in all likelihood it’s EASIER to realize full autonomy if you have a college degree, and it’s certainly something that I’m going to secure within the next few years, but is it an absolute necessity? No, I don’t think so.
That’s why I expressed it as “after high school EITHER you go to college/training OR you have a job/are looking for work”. Another acceptable path is “married/have committed partner, have children, stay at home parent”.
I don’t think most of the folks saying “college” would have much trouble with, say, a 19 year old entrepreneur engaged in a profitable business without a college degree.
Most people don’t say that and the few that do are needlessly snooty and unrealistic about what college can do for some people. The goal is to start working towards something once you get to be 18 and not simply pass the time until you get discovered or convince the world to support you. That could be the military, trade school, starting your own business, or becoming an apprentice in an existing business. At 20 years old, you don’t have to have a good answer to the question of what you want to do for the rest of your life but you should have a plan on how to get a plan at least. Working your way up to manage a retail store is perfectly respectable and surprisingly lucrative in many cases. Stocking shelves just because your parents make you pay rent for your bedroom now is not.
According to wikipedia, “as of 2011, about 250 million Americans live in or around urban areas. That means more than three-quarters of the U.S. population shares just about three percent of the U.S. land area.”
I would assume that most of those people would have at least some access to public transport, although it’s hard to know how good it is. I know there are large areas of the US that really are remote and really do absolutely require a car, but presumably if you choose to live there you also choose to budget for car ownership. I just think that people who own cars get so used to their set up that they think their city is utterly unlivable without a car. In my experience even a relatively small city (say 100,000+) can be doable, and I know you guys have tons of those down in the US.
I do agree with others that choosing to live somewhere remote and then begging people to drive you around is rather childish, I just don’t think most non-car-owners fit that description.
I’m not sure where you’re posting from, but I suspect it’s outside of the US. Yes, you can have viable public transport in a city of 100,000 - but most cities that size in the US don’t have it. There’s nothing magic about 100,000 or 500,000 that suddenly creates decent public transportation, or even any public transportation at all. Some municipalities provide such service for the disabled and elderly, but not to the able-bodied.
Most US suburbs could be described as “urban”, yet do not have public transit. You generally only find it places like New York City or Chicago or in college towns like Ann Arbor, Michigan.
I don’t where you are from Meyer6 but I assume it isn’t the U.S. Broomstick is right, you can’t live in the vast majority of places in the U.S. and not have either a car or someone willing to drive you around. It is much, much easier to list the places where that could be done than those you can’t.
There is no way even 25% of Americans live close enough to public transportation to depend on it for daily life and I am being unbelievably generous in that guess. I live in the Boston area which is one of the “good” areas for public transportation. Guess how much public transportation there is within 5 miles in any direction from me. If you guessed zero, you are correct. There aren’t even any taxis. You have to have a car or move unless you have friends and family that will take you places when you aren’t housebound. Even in larger metropolitan areas where you could conceivably walk the distance to many stores, it is either completely impractical or illegal to walk much of anywhere because the areas are bisected by large highways and sidewalks are nonexistent. This triggers all kinds of other consequences.
The U.S. is simply too large to rely on any standard public transportation options for daily life and it isn’t set up for it at all. You and your spouse may work many miles apart while your kids go to daycare in a different suburb than you live in. Your doctors and grocery stores are in a different area too. Abandon your perceived ideas about how cities work because it isn’t that way here outside of Manhattan and a few other places.
I can think of half a dozen reasons:
[ul]
[li]They have the room and it is going to waste.[/li][li]They are one set of roommates you know won’t steal from you.[/li][li]They need the help with the bills (VERY common right now) and don’t want a strange boarder.[/li][li]Only one parent is living and wants the company.[/li][li]Parents are elderly and need help with maintenance and other tasks.[/li][li]Parents travel a lot and appreciate a built-in house sitter.[/li][/ul]
People can share a residence with their parents and remain independent, though this really depends on the parent and the child. On the other hand, I’ve known any number of adult who lived independently but seemed weirdly dependent on their parents: several phone calls a day, dinner together several times a week, weirdly intermingled finances.
I haven’t lived with my parents since I was 20 or so, but I wouldn’t be too quick to judge someone who was. For one thing, I know lots and lots of people these days who are on firmer financial footing than their parents, and when that’s the case, it seems like living together can’t possibly be seen as a sign of dependence.
Yes, there are some reasons why adults may live with their parents other than being a dependent loser, but because it’s cheaper isn’t one of them, and frankly, because their parents are a known quantity is a terrible reason as well. It smacks of “Other people outside of the home I grew up in might be scary!” Welcome to life. Get from underneath your mummy’s bosom already.
I live in Canada, which is both larger and much less densely populated than the US. The city I live in is about 300,000. Now, maybe Canada has better transit than the US, but I’ve never heard that before and the transit in cities I’ve visited in the US have seemed similar to ours.
I’m not out to prove that everyone in the US could get by without a car. Far from it. I don’t care at all if people want to own a car - if you can afford it, go to town. I just object to the idea that someone who chooses not to own a car must be child-like and a big moochy loser. It’s come up in other threads and the standard reasoning is ‘it’s impossible to live anywhere in America without a car, therefore people who don’t own cars are entirely dependent on the goodwill of others and must spend all their time begging for rides’. I just don’t think that follows since many people can arrange their lives such that they don’t need to own a car or beg for rides - mostly by choosing to live near work or near a bus route*. Can everybody do that? No, of course not. But I’ve heard ‘you can’t live in X without a car’, when I’ve happily lived in X for years without a car, enough times to think that some car owners just don’t realize the other options.
*You point out that there is no transit within 5 miles of your house - well presumably you knew that when you bought the house and you would not have chosen to live there if you didn’t already own a car.
It seems that we are all getting sidetracked with the idea that car ownership may or may not make you and adult. I think we can all agree that living somewhere with effective public transit and exorbinant carownership costs makes the choice to not have a car the responsible choice. Really, the nitpicking about car ownership is reading the exact letter of the OP and not following the spirit.
To address the OP, I think part of the issue here is that many twenty-somethings want to live in the same standard of living that they are used to in their parents homes. IMHO there is a huge subset of young adults who will sacrifice their independence for the luxury of staying at home, with no rules or expectations. This also coincides with a recession so the lack of drive to take care of themselves is handwaved by parents who either support a lifestyle of the perpetual student or worse continue to say that even if their kid went to college, a degree is not what it used to be and is just too expensive to make sense. So, the “kids” get a bit of parental pity and a lifestyle that they otherwise could not afford. And so the cycle continues. Without some sort of external motivator many people find it difficult to push themselves toward goals. Living below the standard you desire is a powerful motivator. I wish more parents would allow that to happen rather than the constant protection and excuse making that is fairly common.