Is living with your parents past a certain age / income level irresponsible?

In My Humble Opinion
61

Because it is the word mooch that bothers me. Because just as you’ve had your case, I’ve seen mine, and in my culture and society, nobody is mooching. It is considered more responsible to stay until you’re ready to leave by your own (be it rent or own). And like many of us have said, financial situations have prevented many from moving out, even if they want.

Likewise, as I’ve posted before, living with their parents in many cases is similar to roomates, as they all pool their resources to improve their situation. My friends cook for their families, buy food for their families, baby sit their families, clean the house for and with their families.

And they have all their own financial responsabilities. The only thing lacking is that they don’t pay rent/mortgage. But again, the space they’re living in would be dead space otherwise, and they’re bringing something otherwise (food, house help, company) that is not measured in money and is more valuable than cold hard cash.

And it makes sense, what good is living hand to mouth? What good is going into debt or depending on welfare, when you can save some in rent and prepare yourself for a better future? I’d say going out to live by yourself when you’re not capable is as foolish as being a mooch.

BTW, the person I talked about earlier? She’s 53 years old… and I’ve never met a bigger mooch in my life, nor do I want to know them.

62

Children have a responsibility to their parents to become a functioning member of society. Like I said before, if the child is supporting the parents that’s another story altogether, but when the child is physically capable of supporting themselves and just chooses not to - that’s irresponsible and mooching.

There are situations where it’s not irresponsible, but I’ve already outlined those (e.g., when the child cannot physically support themselves because of the market, medical, or other factors, or if the parents require the support of the child).

I think you’re trying to defend something I’m not even attacking.

63

If a financial situation keeps you from moving out then you’re not physically capable of supporting yourself, and not someone I’m talking about. As with Manda Jo, you’re defending something I wasn’t even attacking.

64

I don’t consider “having responsibilities” and “being responsible” as synonymous.

I also don’t consider “living with parents” and “mooching off parents” as synonymous.

65

The economy has changed a lot in the past 20-30 years – it’s getting harder to become financially independent right after school (even with a college degree), and the younger generations are starting to discover that they won’t necessarily be as well-off as their boomer parents.

Staying at home for a few extra years makes economic sense for a lot of people, and I’m willing to bet that the stigma will start to fade as more and more non-“losers” decide to live with their parents for a few extra years.

I moved out when I started college at 18, and in retrospect I wish I hadn’t. All my money went into paying the rent on seedy apartments. Living at home might have allowed me to save for a house. Plus I could’ve avoided some of the loneliness and depression that plagued my 20s. Gaining a bit of extra independence was not worth the price.

66

OK, then. I think you’re not attacking what we’re saying, at least not now, but when you said:

Neither Manda Jo nor I have defended moochers, nor do I get the sense from most people here. So for us it seems like you’re attacking all who stay.

And I would argue that my friends who live with their families are in a way more responsible than I am.

67

Maybe it was just my friends, but 35 years ago, when I was this age, no one I knew lived with their parents after college. I’m sure that having more opportunities and cheaper rents had something to do with it. Still, even today you gotta leave home sometime. And I know the issues, having kids of this age now - who don’t live at home.

68

True. Moochers are reprehensible.

However, I have real issues with kids moving back unless there is a firm departure date - like getting ready to move to a job in another city, where it doesn’t make sense to get an apartment for a month or something. How are you going to learn the ropes of negotiating life on your own without doing it? There is something to be said about living in a place where there is no one to pick up your messes. My daughter became an incredible neatnik after living away from us. I’m happy to say that she never wanted to move home, even though things were tough for a while and she ate a lot of noodles. But it matured her, and I think it is a delight to see how she has become a real adult. Her sister-in-law, on the other hand, never has gone far from home and is about to move back, and she is still juvenile at 25.

I don’t mind helping my kids financially. But when they are away from home the request is a last resort, not a first resort, or even a gift they’d have to refuse.

This is also why I’m in favor of kids living in dorms whenever possible - dorm life is a nice halfway point between living at home and really living on your own. I understand that not everyone can do it.

Perhaps the reason so many parents are willing to have their kids come back is that they have it worse than we did, and we feel bad about it and want to make it better. It is tough. I knew I was really an adult when my father let me pay for dinner - even when I was making more than he was. It felt good.

69

When I attended my 10yr high school reunion, I had just moved back home with my mum and was unemployed.

Or, from another angle, I had just turned down a job in my field and moved 1000 miles to take care of my mother with stage IV cancer.

Don’t judge people based on their address, but by their actions/intent and only then if you feel quite certain you know the whole story.

70

as a father of one grown (married) son and one still at home son I just have to wade in here. I see some young people here saying that it is fine however I feel it is very different from a fathers point of view. My job is to parent my kids so that they become a responsible productive member of society. Kids cannot grow up if they live at home. Sorry if you dont want to believe that but its true. The family dynamic is such that normally one of the parents is in charge. It would be very hard for the “kids” to have a problem or a hard decesion to make and NOT get input from the family member in charge. You then do what they say, bitching and whining though it might be.
When you get out on your own you will make that choice all by yourself and after mistakes learn to do it right. Its a bit of a shock to find that the magic fridge needs to be filled every week and that since you now need to pay the bills you might not able to afford that nice bmw you want, thats when you grow up.

Playing footsy with it and saying its not so bad just doesnt cut it. If you have no other choice then stay at home but otherwise get out like all the rest of us did. Staying at home to save money for a car or house really means that your parents are subsidizing your lifestyle. How much do you think that rent, food, housekeeper, cable, internet, insurance, car or bus, etc would cost. My son was shocked to find out it was $2400 a month, at home he chipped in 200 every now and then and at the time thought is was quite a bit. I cant even feed a young fellow for 200 a month never mind the rest. He is a very responsible young man and yet it didnt click until he moved out and the rent came due and he had to come over for 2 weeks to get fed because he ran out of money.

I am not down on young people, I am saying that everyone (including me) didnt really grow up until they were out on their own. BTY i was out on my 18th birthday, same with the wife, my son at 21. and yes thsy could stay at home if they were going to school or hit 24, whichever came first. I cant imagine a young woman marrying a guy that was still at home, who do you think is going to be the next mommy!

71

That part, I won’t contest, as it is something that my friends periodically mention, that they would like sometimes to not live with their parents because they want more privacy and space.

As to the food and other issues… Again, while some may mooch, in the friends that live with their parents, they’ll buy the groceries for the whole family with their paycheck… Or if they want their own food apart from mom and dad they’ll buy it. They pay for their cars and their upkeep, their cell phone, their insurances, their medical bills. Internet and cable TV in many places is such that one line covers it all, and even then they sometimes are the ones subsidizing the internet for the whole house, not just them (but they’re the ones who use it the most). They do the errands their parents ask them to do. They buy their own stuff. The parents offer them the same roof and room where they grew up before they turned 18.

And many of them stay in the house precisely because they know how much it costs to live outside, and cannot afford anything in the market where they live by what they gain from their entry-level job. Heck, internet? Many of them not have them in their houses because they cannot afford it and the parents don’t have it already and use it.

72

It’s not necessarily irresponsible. If the choice is between racking up $50,000 in credit card debt just to stay in an apartment, and camping out in the basement for a while at Mom and Dad’s until you get on your feet, I say that living with the folks is the more responsible choice. Self-sufficiency is a virtue, but at a certain point it can be foolishly detrimental if help is available and you refuse to take it because of pride.

That said, living at home as an adult isn’t the greatest the way to show responsibility. It’s like collecting welfare. Nothing inherently wrong with it, sometimes it’s necessary, and it doesn’t make you a bad person if you use it. But someone who prefers to stay under their parent’s roof rather than taking care of themselves is making a negative statement whether they mean to or not.

73

Cultures vary. Here a person still “living with his mom” at much past 20 would be ridiculed and shunned. Parents have done the huge job of raising you up. They sure aren’t obliged to spend another ten years or more doing more of the same.* I think many of the parents doing this would truly want it to end, no matter how much they seem to (and claim to) enjoy having adults at home.

*Wife’s brother, 28, still lives in the same room he did at age 12. Momma does the laundry, dinner etc.

74

/devil’s advocate/

One could make the argument that it is irresponsible not to live with your parents as long as possible. It strikes me that the expectation that you and your parents maintain two seperate 3-4 bedroom houses (that each sit empty most of the day) is rather wasteful.

75

I am a long time lurker at the SMDB and am breaking a self-imposed restriction on posting to jump into this discussion.

I am a 39 year old male, and aside from a few years while in college, I have always lived with my parents. Clearly, I’ve had ample time to think over these issues.

My parents are active, healthy, and require no support from me. Still, I pay rent, help out around the house, and provide companionship. (In the interest of fairness, I can afford to pay more, could be more active with my help, and spend more time with them.) My parents have given me no reason to believe they are unhappy with the relationship; the few times I have expressed (mild) interest in moving out, they have discouraged me.

Sharing a home with other people makes sound financial sense. I have been able to pursue my hobbies, save plenty for retirement, and be generally unconcerned about money. As stated before, my parents don’t need me to support them, but I have been able to help them by providing resources for bigger projects around the house. ($15k to remodel the kitchen, $11k to resurface the pool, etc.) It’s great to be in this situation with people I both love and like. I find it a shame that there is so much stigma attached to it because they are my parents.

I never set out to still live with my parents at 40. There is a bit of a tradition of adult children living with parents in my extended family. My father’s sister lived with her parents until the day they died, while my uncle still lives my grandfather. Neither my aunt nor uncle mooched of their parents; they are remarkably industrious and two of the most decent people I know. My father lived at home until he married at 27; many of my aunts and uncles lived at home until they married as well. And to add to the pattern, my brother lived at home until he married at 30.

I did consider moving out in my mid 20s. My father is an alcoholic. Fortunately, he has been completely sober for over ten years. Back then though, it was real bad. I wanted to move out and get away, but leaving seemed like the irresponsible thing to do. No one can convince me it was the wrong decision.

I consider myself fundamentally happy. Most people who know me agree with this assessment. Ultimately, I find comfort in this regardless of any scorn, ridicule, or judgments I face.

76

As most of you know, I’m 30 and still living at home. A lot of it had to do with an incredible series of bad luck in the employment department. I finally found a good job about two years ago (wow, has it been that long already?), and I was planning on moving out…unfortunately, about two months later, I ended up in the hospital, and was diagnosed with epilepsy.

Now, most of my paycheck is going towards medical expenses. And before anyone says anything, I do INDEED help out around the house, I can cook, do laundry, dishes, iron, clean, etc. (I don’t usually do my own only, as we usually end up doing everything in one big load).
So in my case, mostly it’s financial, and but also medical. I’m not allowed to drive, either. So right now, my finances are a fucking joke, and my health is pretty shitty. I’d love to have my own nice little place, but right now, that’s not a possibility.

Soooo…:frowning:

And I’ve never been a big party girl, or a “trust fund baby” or what have you. My idea of “splurging” nowadays is ordering a book from Amazon.

77

You have my sympathy. When I finally moved out on my own, I felt like I was able to evaluate the situation a little more fairly. Of course I had my own attitude about it previously (I can remember a thread I made that backfired regarding living at home and dateability) but now I can see both sides of the issue.

People live with their parents for different reasons. Some want to be able to support themselves. Some live with their parents, but resent it because of the stigma and look forward to being in a position toward being independent. I think you need to evaluate it based on the situation. Here’s a few other examples in my life that I’ve observed:

Ex-GF’s brother- Had a decent job with the IRS, and paid well for where he lived. Owned a nice truck and had a lot of neat stuff. At the time, I was making a fraction what he was making, and I thought he was nuts for still living with his parents (given how cheap rent was in his area). However, Ex pointed out to me many times that he lived with them because he was his parents ‘favorite’ and living at home could help him have a sweet gaming rig (he was a pretty hardcore PC gamer)

"Madeline"- Madeline (not her real name) was a friend of a friend who moved out at 18. However she was very immature for her age and never really supported herself. She lived with a friend’s family for a while, got kicked out, dated my best friend, lived with HIS family when he was still living with them, and tagged along to his last 2 apartments. She is a good example of someone who ‘lives on their own’ but doesn’t really-she never in her life paid her share of rent/expenses and basically mooches off my friend. She’s lived with my best friend for five years (a rant in of itself) but I would argue that she’s never been independent in her entire life. I’ve repeatedly told my friend to kick her out.

Ex GF V2.0 and V3.0- Both ‘lived on their own’ in that they had their own apartment, but their parents paid for everything. Again, I consider this pseudo-independence; while it doesn’t have the stigma of living with mom and dad to me its really no different. Ex V2.0 at least understood my point (we’re friends now, and actually get along pretty well) and is trying to learn within her means- she took a job during summer breaks and saved most of the money so that when she’s on her own she’s got a bit of a nest egg built up.

Stepdad’s sons- My “stepdad” (simplest way to describe him) has two sons, and both stayed at home a year into their careers after college. This gave them a chance to get a toehold on their jobs/careers and build up a savings. They didn’t have to pay rent/food, and they hoarded every penny they earned. when the older one did this for a year, he had enough scratch to buy a decent car, furniture, and get a decent apartment. The younger one is doing the same. Both are debt-free and have self-made security nets in place.

78

It varies a lot with the specific situation, including culture.

Some examples:

  1. An American friend who had been living on his own by American standards since he was 17. At 32, he did his shopping by visiting his mother once a week, at which time he also dropped off the laundry and picked up clean clothes. By Spanish standards, this guy would be seen as “still living at Mom’s even if he lives in a different house.”

  2. People who have a farm, will inherit the farm, have lived in the farm their whole life except for the time they were away at college (which by Spanish standards is considered “living at home”, by US standards isn’t). They are sharing the house with their parents, maybe even the grandparents, but I can’t see how can it be considered irresponsible. It’s in the nature of the house.

  3. People who are living with their parents while taking care of the parents. The opposite of irresponsible.

  4. People who are living with their parents, not contributing financially, not doing housework. Irresponsible for anybody with two figures in his age.

79

As a mom who grew up with the whole “get out of the house at 18” mindset, I would be supportive of my daughters living at home while attending college and a few years afterwards. I’ve lived hand-to-mouth enough to not want to push them into that same situation.

So, I can understand people not rushing out of their parents home and trying to be better prepared financially. But I must say I don’t have a lot of respect for someone who is finished college, doesn’t have anyone to support and is capable of working one or two jobs to support themselves, still living at home with their parents for an unspecified amount of time. At some point parents deserve the freedom from being responsible for financially supporting their children.

80

Thanks, Incubus. A lot of it IS the stigma. It pisses me off to explain, no, it’s NOT by choice, it’s a serious of bad luck, I’m NOT just mooching, I do contribute, yada yada yada.

As for doing my own laundry-does it count if I don’t do my “own” as in by itself? Because it’s really a waste of water and electricity to do mine alone. My sister is usually the one doing laundry, though I do my own ironing. I’m usually the one washing dishes and cooking for myself.

THEN, to make matters worse, after a year of being free of convulsions, they’re back. My doctor wanted to try and switch my meds, because I was still have little “focal seizures.” So I was on two types of meds for a month or so-and completely seizure free. But as I was weened off the old ones, I started having constant seizures, and so he put me back on both. BUT, then last week I had another convulsion. Grrrrr…so it’s not like I’d be able to live by myself, “by myself”, anyways.
(I do, however, confess to mooching out of my mother’s stash of M&Ms. And I’m completely unrepentant about THAT. ;))