Is it common for young adults with no jobs to get thrown out of their parents house?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I saw a post by a teacher on another forum who claimed she was shocked that the very quiet and poorly performing but behaved former student of hers was now facing homelessness as he had never worked, gave up on finding jobs but also started selling his parents stuff to but medicine and self medicate.

The parents were oblivious to this until after a few months when they called the police who said that if he didn’t stop, he’d either end up in prison or homeless.

I’ve been thinking of such a story and I’m wondering whether this is commonplace or not? Usually we assume people who would do this are people who are juvenile delinquents that everyone thinks at the back of their head “X…is gonna have a shit life when they grow older”. Even in that scenario, the people I’ve talked to online and in real life say that kids who get thrown out and end up homeless or in prison by that age without having committed a crime are statistical anomalies. Is this true in your anecdotal experience or is it more common than we see?

2

I couldn’t tell if it’s “common”, statistically, but when, long ago, I was working in the social sector, I’ve seen some such cases and there was no obvious reason why the parents would have kicked out the kid. In one case, the kid told us that it was because they didn’t approve of his gf, who came with him. In another that his father just told him to pick up his clothes and leave on the morning of his 18th birthday, without any specific reason. However, we had no way to know if there was much more to it than what they were telling us. Still, they didn’t look like troublemakers, drug users, or gave bad vibes.

3

I’m gonna guess in instances where said child begins to sell off the parents possessions to buy drugs, it’s probably not all that uncommon.

(Wouldn’t you? What if you have other children in the house? How’s that gonna work when they sell your washing machine or car?)

4

Um, just because someone is generally “nice” while they are committing a crime doesn’t mean they are not committing a crime.

5

I think once you start committing crimes against the people providing with lodging, you should not expect to be able to live there any more.

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6

I’m going with this. Through my church I know of six adult children who were basically kicked out of their parents home (one pretty dramatically/spur of the moment) and five of the six involved drugs and thefts from said home. The exception was basically “end of the month you are gone - get your shit together NOW”. Those I think fairly rare but they do happen.

Something else I have come across with the opioid thing being as bad as it is; parents keeping their child at home even at that stage/level of the abuse. The theory being that “maybe I can help them or at least know where they are even if I can’t save them”. I would call it at around 60% continue to support or at lease house their child. Turning your back on a child is never easy and I would say more than half of those out there can’t do it. Is this a good thing? That is more GD than IMHO.

7

There are also kids who just passively do absolutely nothing. They haven’t thrown anything or hit anyone, but their bone laziness increases everybody’s burden. At some point you’ve got to spur the person to action, in any way you can. Enabling someone to waste their life away on daytime TV is not good parenting.

And very often, these folks have been told for years that they need to either go to school full time or get a job. When the parents finally give up and say “You are out in 30 days” the adult child will tell others that it was “spur of the moment.” The thought of a child being homeless is so horrible, parents put it off for years in the hopes that the adult child will get bored and start doing something with their lives. But in some cases, no. They’d just rather do absolutely nothing.

8

The opioid epidemic is not a fun thing. Parents and other family members are straddling a line between helping and enabling. Many people recommend cutting off contact on the theory that they have to reach the bottom before they can start to climb out. I think the logic is that if they keep using they WILL die, if you kick them out, they MIGHT die, so it’s worth the risk. Is that a valid theory? I don’t know, I don’t have a background in rehabilitative techniques, but it’s prevalent.

In my case, my daughter at 18 brought home drugs once. I found them and said that was her first and only warning and at any time in the future if I caught her with them, she would have a 30 day eviction notice and I was and still am quite serious about that. As far as I know, she hasn’t touched it since. We’re ground zero for the epidemic and I let her get away with a lot of things, but that’s my line.

9

Ah, the kids in my life. From what I’ve seen, situations where ~18 y/o people get kicked out has less to do with them working or not, and more to do with their fucked up parents being tired of parenting.

The dealers and ne’er-do-wells in my neighborhood generally don’t seem to have unstable homes. Their parents tolerate them, bail them out, and defend them. Makes me crazy, but it pretty much mirrors our society as I see it: predators are rewarded, the vulnerable are fed to the predators. The cops and DA, therefore, pursue the vulnerable for petty crimes (owning a pack of smokes, maybe a joint, stealing a tube of frosting from the grocery store, broken car exhaust) because they have more limited means to defend themselves.

Case studies of ‘booted’ kids I’m familiar with

C: C is a crack baby (mentally & emotionally) I’ve known for 8 years, a friend of our kids. Father lived out of state, C was living with his mom and whoever else she was having over. He would sometimes end up on our doorstep in the middle of the night looking for a safe place to sleep for a week or three. Mom got sent to prison and lost rights to him, so he went to live with dad and maybe build a relationship with him. That was a bust. The step mom and his two half brothers rejected him and his dad made it abundantly clear he should leave soon or go to a boys home. He was 15. We prevailed upon the old man to give us custodial rights, and we got him a plane ticket back to Colorado and we’ve had him ever since. He was a liar & thief & generally good-natured miscreant when he first got here. We were patient with him, explained what behavior was bad and why, and despite ample provocation we never gave up and tossed him back in the streets. He just turned 18, has given up the drugs, thievery, and misbehavior, gets straight A-s in school, always has a job. He’s still not very bright, but we’ve gotten him out of “survival mode”.

D: D is a guy about the same age as C, also a friend of our kids. He had been living with his grandparents in Idaho. He came back to town when his mom got paroled. His mom is batshit crazy (my assessment) and after a few weeks he couldn’t handle her anymore and he moved to the streets. We tried to give him some stability, parenting, a place to live, etc. but he’d had no real parenting for 17 years and was essentially a sociopath. He had a similarly unstable childhood but he was never able to get out of survival mode. We evicted him. I have a feeling we will be paying for his rent in some way or another for the rest of his life.

A: my youngest daughter, lives with mom. She just turned 18, went straight from rehab to doing whatever drugs she can get her hands on. She’s had random strangerfriends over, one of whom ransacked my oldest daughter’s room, took her cash and car keys, and her new car. She’s generally disrespectful of everyone around her, works a fair amount but spends her money on drugs. Like kopek pointed out, mom is loathe to kick her out because she is hoping the kid can get her act together. Big sister is 22 and still lives with mom while attending college, but little sis is inspiring her to try and do it all on her own.

O: Also 18. I’ve known him since he was 9. When he was younger he’d seen his father murdered, and watched his mom OD. The woman he called “mom” was assigned to him by the state. She didn’t like him but she liked the free foster parent money. She messed him up pretty good (like Harry Potter, except without the familial dedication and supportive brother figure) until his 18 birthday. Happy birthday, I don’t get money for you anymore, get out. He and his girlfriend live with my ex now.

D: transgender, guy (I think that’s where all that landed) best friend of A. Fundamental Christian parents couldn’t handle her piercings, lost their shit when she dyed her hair (black from brown), and tossed her out at 15 when she came out as gay (later settled on trans…I really don’t understand how it all works, and he/she goes back and forth on this). She went to live with my ex and A. Hard working kid, finished up high school with honors, told A to clean up or lose her as a friend. A chose the drugs, D has moved out.

T: another 17 y/o, mom is gone, dad has run out of money again and is thinking he’ll just give himself to the cops (parole violations) and maybe rebuild his life from scratch when he gets out. T is trying to pay rent for himself, dad, and two sisters, but it’s costing him academically. He knows he have a spare room if/when he needs it.

10

I met an 18 year old girl who was temporarily homeless. She and her 8 younger siblings were taken from their mother and all placed in foster homes. When she turned 18 (senior year in high-school) her foster parents, with whom she’d lived since she was 12, told her to leave. They were no longer getting $$ from the state, so boom.

Friends of mine who are empty-nesters met her, heard her situation, and offered her a job. She cleans the house every Sunday in exchange for room and board. She recently graduated high school and seems to be doing well.

11

My daughter went through elementary and high school with a girl who was pretty much ignored by her parents and told to move out when she turned 18. She spent the rest of her senior year couch surfing with various friends, and got a big cheer when she graduated with the rest of her class.

She went on to college. I’d like to say there was a happy ending, but she had some scrapes with the law while at college, and the last anyone had heard from her, she moved to Colorado.

12

In my house at age 18it was positively rife! My sister a year older and me at 18 were both kicked out without jobs or housing. Blecch. My stepmother was satisfied, though.

13

I’ve known friends of my kids who were told to move out either after HS graduation or upon turning 18, whichever came 2nd. No support, no college tuition, nothing. Many times the parents were divorced and neither wanted the kid in their home.

And these were not problem children. In fact, good students and all that.

I don’t understand some people.

14

IDK. I wanted my kids to hang around. It didn’t happen. I am still a newbie empty nester, I have somewhat adjusted. The lil’wrekker decided to stay at her college for the summer. She’s taking a class and working. I was disappointed when she told us her plans, I understand her reasoning in my head, but my heart laments it.

15

My mother just didn’t know what to do with my younger brother. He’s got symptoms similar at times to bipolar, but could just be complex PTSD, from growing up in our abusive home. He hasn’t been able to hold jobs and would live for months on Mom’s couch, drinking coke and eating frozen burritos. After she finally kicked him out, he became homeless. Sometimes there aren’t good solutions or even anything better than really shitty choices.

16

When I worked in a high school, there was a girl in the resource room I worked in. She was a really hard-working student, even if she wasn’t college bound, and she was making Bs and Cs. She was on track to graduate. I remember she wrote a short story that was really, really good. Good enough that I offered to help her polish it up and submit it to some of the literary magazines that were specifically for young people’s work, but we never got around to it.

When she turned 18, which was in the middle of her second semester, he father made her pack up and move out. About a year later, I saw her working at Walmart. I talked to her, and asked if she had her GED. She didn’t, and I encouraged her to get it, for the promotion ability, but it seemed she wasn’t interested in extra responsibility, even if it meant more money. I know she could have gotten it, though, because she was going to graduate. She wasn’t failing anything when she dropped out of high school. It’s true she was in resource, but she made really good use of it. I can’t say why she was in resource (confidentiality), but I can say that she had normal intelligence. She wasn’t a genius, but she probably had an IQ of 105-110, and was well-organized, and a harder worker than some brighter kids I knew. She really deserved better than to be on the lowest rung at Walmart.

Her father is pond scum in my mind. I know people with foster kids who figured out ways to keep them in the house after they turned 18 so they could finish high school, and this guy couldn’t keep his own daughter for 3 more months. She wasn’t in any trouble, wasn’t pregnant, didn’t use drugs. I just didn’t get it.

ETA: I suppose it says something about her that instead of ending up homeless, she did whatever she had to do to stay above water long enough to get a job at Walmart, and then find some place to live, and kept going forward.

17

Some people are just built to endure hardship. She sounds like one who will, over time, end up happy and successful in spite of being hobbled right out of the gate. And her dad will take all the credit for teaching her how to be self-reliant.

18

… and dad will end his humble-bragging with “see, I told you college wasn’t necessary and a waste of time and money”.

19

In the '50s up into the '80s, it was very common for people to think, “Ok, you’ve graduated from high school, so you’re an adult. No more coddling for you.” Bill Cosby had a joke about that sort of thing in one of his routines.

It’s looking more and more like that period was an aberration from the historical and worldwide norm, where extended family is generally considered a good thing, and it’s common for multiple generations to live together under one roof.