Same here.
i gotcha all beat: didn’t leave home until age 38.
my mother was severely affected by rheumatoid arthritis, and as kids, my sister and i could see the handwriting on the wall. we knew it would be a crap shoot as to who left home first.
as it turned out, she did, getting married in the mid-80s. i remained mom’s caregiver until her death in 1995. i promptly sold the house and moved, purchasing my first-ever home a short time later.
that first year was without doubt the most uh, demanding, period of my life, having to learn to live on my own, manage my money, stay on a budget and remember to pay the friggin’ bills. :smack:
Halfway - going off to college at 17. All the way - going to grad school, and having them send my sf books. Soon after that they started on the road to retirement and sold the house, so the house left me.
Went to university in another province when I was 19. My parents paid my rent, but all other expenses came out of my earnings from my job. I moved in with my boyfriend (now husband) at 20 and by 22-23 was completely financially independent from my parents (though I’m pretty completely dependent on my husband, at least until I finish school…again!)
Went to college at 18, came home for the first summer but stayed on campus working and taking summer classes afterwards. That’s it. Haven’t been back for more than a week at a time since.
I lived in the dorms my first year of college, but it sucked so I moved back home and commuted for the next 3 years.
After I graduated I was working on starting up a business. I made, like, no money. My folks let me live with them for free.
By the time I was 26 the business was doing much better. I finally paid off all my debts and bought a house. And that’s where I am now.
Nobody made a big deal about it because at 26 it was time to go.
When I graduated from college, I stayed in Schenectady to look for work. Only went back for vacations.
Went to college at 18 – in-state, but 2 1/2 hours away from home. Came home for the first two summers, then stayed at school over the summers after that (I got my bachelor’s degree in 4 years, then stayed at the same school for another 2 years after that to get my master’s). Through that time, I still technically “lived” with my parents (that was still my permanent address), and my room was still largely intact at my parents’ house, but I wasn’t there more than 1 or 2 nights a month.
I got a job directly out of grad school in Chicago (3 1/2 hours away from home). I drove up to my parents’ house after finishing my last classes, packed most of my stuff which was still at their house into a U-Haul, and took it to Chicago. At that point, I had officially “left home”, I suppose, though it effectively had happened years earlier.
This. Went to college about a thousand miles from home, did come back to visit during school vacations but already thought of myself as having left home. After college, moved to Denver ostensibly on my way to L.A.
Weirdly. I was always planning on going off to college, so everyone was on board with that.
Around Christmas of my senior year in high school, this idea came up that it would be fun for a few of my girlfriends and I to rent a cheap apartment together for the summer before we all went off to college – so creating one last party summer. I mentioned this to my parents (without so much emphasis on the party part), and their response was “well … if you think you can afford that without impacting your college savings … okay.”
So I spent the next few months picking up extra hours at my part time job and putting money aside for the apartment rental. BUT I NEVER MENTIONED IT AGAIN TO MY PARENTS. I honestly thought we had a conversation and we were all on the same page. Cut to the week of high school graduation, and I started packing up and my parents were so confused. Then there were tears and recriminations. My mother was especially upset, apparently she had been envisioning not so much Party Summer but rather Family Togetherness Summer.
I always make that mistake, sorry.
I was a junior in high school.
11th grade. 17 years old.
Story Title - Take two stubborn people and stir lightly.
When I was 16 the daughter of a friend of my dad’s dropped out of high school. We started talking about it and I said “Hey aren’t you glad your daughter is smart enough to stay in school” and he said “You’re just staying in school because I’m paying the bills”
I moved in with my cousin in her apartment over the bar she was waitressing in the next day. I worked from 11pm to 7am at a gas station, went to school from 8am to 3pm and came home just as the bar workers were waking up. We had dinner together and I managed to get a couple hours of sleep before the noise started picking up in the bar. My grades dropped from honour roll to barely passing and if I hadn’t been able to lock the pumps and nap until someone drove over the bell at the station I’d have never survived it. Luckily I only had to do this from Sept to January when I had enough credits to graduate. Since I was now self supporting I refused to ask my parents for help for university so I joined the airforce and went off to basic training in June - 4 months before I turned 18.
Dad and I kept talking the entire way through this, but I was too stubborn to say this was too hard and he was too stubborn to say he was wrong. He did regularly invite me to move back home but apparently that wasn’t enough for me then.
Mom and I hadn’t been speaking since I was 14 and she let her boyfriend throw me out into the street but that’s another story 
No drama for me, went to college about 3 hours from my tiny home town. After graduation, stayed one summer with my folks (working as a waitress, saving money like crazy), then found a roommate and an apartment and moved back to my college town. All my friends were there and I really enjoyed living in a larger town.
I think, as per the OP, that YMMV hugely. I’ve heard people say “if you’re not out by 18, you’re a weak willied failure”. Uh, okay, but unless you live in squalor or join the armed services, it’s fairly impossibly to be completely on your own at 18. Most people who say they went to college and were “on their own” are lying to themselves - they either depend on their family for money and/or housing or they are taking out huge loans. So your family or the government is footing your bill 99% of the time.
So, with that in mind, I “moved out” at 17 when I graduated and went to college. Home on winter breaks always and home for the first and second summer. I am financially independent to a degree - my parents do pay for my car insurance and health insurance (nothing “extra” for my health insurance, but I am on their plan). When I go back for grad school I will be financially dependent upon them as well, though will not live with them.
My mom wishes I would stay for a week over Christmas. She likes us all being under one roof, but she values financial independence greatly and often criticized me (irrationally) for only having a half tuition scholarship instead of full with room and board (hardly any exist like that for anyone middle class and above).
I feel physically moving out is a good step in the right direction, with the option to move back in at any point in the first few years. I did take a semester leave of absence to live at home and help my grandmother rehab her broken leg; it was hell on earth living under my parents’ roof again.
Something of a gently prodding and nudging is good.
sitting down and saying “you’re out at 18” or “you’re out in 3 months” only serves to sever any good will that remains. Friends with parents like this don’t visit, don’t call and don’t wish to associate with their parents. And they sure as hell aren’t gonna choose you a good nursing home.
I was a commuting freshman in college, discovering that I hated college and was ready to leave home. So on a whim, I enlisted in the Navy. While I used my folks address as my permanent legal address until I bought my first place at 26, I never lived with them again.
I never had a hope of going to college, so after high school I drifted aimlessly, working low-paying McJobs here and there and doing nothing with my life. At 21 I got pregnant, married the father and we got an apartment. The marriage was disastrous and brief, but I managed to squeak by the next few years until I got a better paying job.
My parents were super supportive and constantly reassuring me and telling me how proud they were of me during that time. It was a few years later before I realized they were just ecstatic I wasn’t coming back home and bringing an infant to boot. 
I went off to college but lived with my parents during breaks and when school wasn’t in session. I lived with my parents after college until I was 23. My father and I don’t get along, and the December before I moved, we got into a fight (over my dead hamster, of all things). He told me to get out of his house. My mom would never have allowed him to kick me out, but that was a clear sign that it was time to leave. Don’t really know or care how my father felt about it, but my mom and brother were pretty happy for me.
You might want to look into my parents’ method, Dung Beetle. I was enrolled in my first semester of university (18 years old), and they decided to move to another city. I stayed behind in the house, renting one floor of it from them, with renters on all the other floors, and that was basically it.
I note that a job is a common denominator in all these success stories, as well…
I’m dying of curiosity about this.
Over the last few years, three of our four kids have moved out, then back in, then back out, then back in - a regular fruit basket turnover (one is coming back in a week, come to think of it). Only one has constantly lived here with us since we got married. We didn’t have any ugly scenes, though.