I don’t want to address the OP in detail because it’s obvious nonsense.
However…
There’s a root of an economic issue here that’s worth exploring. The emphasis in American - western, I suppose - society on the nuclear family and social and geographic mobility is very recent. Previously - and, I predict, in the future - households would be multigenerational. Having three or more generations in a larger home would allow for the greater creation and saving of family wealth. There are significant efficiencies to such a living arrangement. Housing, food, chores, daycare, healthcare and so forth all become cheaper when there are more people sharing tasks and expenses. Historically, this sharing has traditionally been along genetic lines.
But post WWII we began to see increased geographic and economic mobility. Fewer people lived in proximity with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and so forth. Therefore there was less opportunity to share wealth and such and therefore promote economic security for the family at-large.
Now, while that’s been the case for 2-3 full generations, ongoing financial pressures - I believe - will encourage a return to multigenerational households to promote a higher and more secure standard of living in the United States. Instead of so many independent households, we’ll start moving toward fewer households - as defined by people sharing an address - and toward more people in each household for mutual gain.
And I don’t think that’s bad, frankly. Our focus on isolation and independence - for a species which is notably interdependent - is the cause of many of our economic misfortunes over the last several decades.
I don’t know that economic advantages of multi-family households are sufficiently compelling arguments against independence. You can’t put a price on mental and emotional health of independent living. You can maintain interdependence, especially in this day and age, without living under the same roof. Put another way, the reason it costs more to live independently is because it’s worth it.
Also, I don’t have cited evidence, but* it seems to me* that societies tend to be more progressive from a social and political point of view when there is more personal independence vs. maintenance of traditional, multi-generational households.
The 30-year-old in this court case did live away from his parents for a brief time, during which he fathered a child (he apparently moved back home eight years ago, after losing his job). This NPR story on the case mentions that he is in the midst of a custody fight with the mother of his son, and he alleges that part of the reason why his parents were trying to evict him was that they were angry that he didn’t let them see his son (their grandson).
It might seem that way as a a bit of a post hoc justification for your initial premise that “independent” living is preferable to intergenerational arrangements. I’m not sure that premise necessarily holds up. What do you see as the essential benefits of independent living? Heck, how are you even defining “independent?”
(We can salvage a rational discussion out of this cluster, dammit!)
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How does this work practically? Mom and Pop cannot legally evict Junior. Mom and Pop both have jobs and meet each evening at a restaurant for dinner. They have lunch delivered to work. The refrigerator at home is pretty much empty.
So, what does Junior eat? Are Mom and Pop legally required to stock the fridge? To cook for him? To wipe Junior’s arse? Mom and Pop go on a cruise. Are they required to bring Junior along?
Even in this day and age, you can’t share household chores, a plot of land or supervise each others’ children over the internet. As long as freedoms and responsibilities are assumed as you age, there’s nothing inherently better about moving into your own apartment at 18 - at least as far as producing a productive member of society.
It’s not like that at all. If I kidnap you and chain you to a chair, I’m denying you your freedom. By telling you that the only way you can leave is to cut off your foot, I’m threatening you with the loss of a limb.
You don’t want to be held captive or maimed. You want to be free and whole. But I’m not allowing you that choice.
Being alive isn’t like that. If you want to be alive, fine, you’re alive. If you don’t want to be alive, you can be dead. Nobody is denying you any choice you might wish for.
By “independent” I mean living on your own or with room-mates or s.o. outside your parents home and being financially self supporting.
To me personally, I don’t value any advantages that are bestowed as part of living in a multi-generational household, above those of independent living. Lest someone think that this is coming from a place of bad family dynamics, it is not. I love my family, immediate and extended. They have been and will always be there for me and I for them. But living in the same town, let alone under the same roof, is just an unimaginable situation for me. Always has been. Ever since I left for college I knew I would not be back living at home. I never allowed myself that option.
No, it’s not like that. Here is the fundamental disconnect: you think life is an imposed burden while many think life is a gift. Most people think they owe their parents for giving them life and getting them started in the world, you think they are at fault for forcing you to live. What you’re saying isn’t illogical necessarily- plenty of people here would agree with you if the subject was adopting a pet rather than having a child- but you are completely at odds with most people’s emotional sense of the parent/child relationship.
I want to be clear that “18” is not where I draw the line. But 18 is when many kids go off to college, find their first non-summer job, etc. At 18 is when the seed of independence should be sprouting and finding it’s own way in the sun.
I appreciate the advantage of having built in child oversight, but it’s not a necessary, nor essential part of raising a family. I raised my two kids living 8-12 hours away from the rest of my family, while my sibling had every advantage (still does) of having two sets of grandparents look after his kids on a regular basis, including picking up and dropping off from school and activities, as well as weekends off from time to time. It would have been nice to have that option but I chose more independence for myself. His views, in many respects, are more traditional and provincial to mine. Now, is that correlation or causation? I’m not sure.
Oh, and I realize I didn’t address the “productive member of society” part. I agree. This is not about being a productive member of society. Living at home and joining the “& Sons” part of the family business does not make you any less productive as a member of society. I’m arguing that it may not make an individual the best version of him/her self in the long run. But that is an opinion entirely comprised of my personal experiences and observations. I further maintain that independence promotes more progressive thinking as opposed to more traditional customs and habits in a more interdependent family dynamic. YMMV, and all that.
So what if the adult child has a child? Does he still live with his parents who are “required” to take care of him? Wouldn’t the house end up full of parents, grandparents, great grand parents, etc, all being taken care of by whoever was oldest? Or was this already addressed?
Great, another unmarried marriage counselor. :rolleyes:
What are you, 13? I remember when my 3 kids were teenagers, how they would rant about what awesome parents they were going to be and be their childrens friend not their parent and do this and not do that and this and that and yadda, yadda, yadda. Now they are all in their mid-30’s and are parents and/or step parents. I love watching their past words eat them alive inside. Bwahahahaha!
The best argument against the OP is the fact that literally the entire planet disagrees with it.
I don’t think you can “YMMV” that away. Sure, if a kid leaves home for university or the big city it’ll likely end up making him more progressive. But what if he leaves home to join the army, start his own farm or work the oil fields?
What the kids didn’t agree to is existing. If you don’t want to exist, killing yourself is a perfect solution. You won’t exist anymore. Just what you always wanted! If you don’t want to be chained up but do have a particular attachment to your limbs, then the hacksaw is obviously a pretty bad solution to the chaining situation.
It’s like if you kidnap someone and, when they don’t like it you say “Oh, geez, sorry. Well, there’s the door. It’s unlocked.” but then they sit on the couch and look around and say “huh. Free rent for life? Nah, I’m good.”
Have some compassion for the allegorical kidnappers here. They just wanted to continue the species and take some cute pictures and make a meaningful connection, and the only way they knew how was to bump uglies and kidnap a soul from the shadow realms, imprisoning it in a flesh prison. At some point (let’s say 18 years or so from their last transgression), we as a society should accept that they’ve realized the error of their ways and are no longer a danger to any potentially nonconsenual acts of creation/kidnapping and stop punishing them.
Also: what happens when the kidnappers die? I feel like someone raised that point a while ago and maybe we should talk about it?
