Not to hijack, but the thing I don’t understand is WHY these kids want to live at home. When I went to college the idea of moving back in with the parents never crossed my mind. I wanted to be a grown-up. Free. Making my own decisions and spending my money where I wanted to spend it. Is the difference that my parents had rules I had to follow to live at home that made it less desirable? Or what? I could not WAIT to get my own place. Even if it meant doing an unpleasant job (which it did). What has changed?
A few things have changed.
One is the word you mention in your post: FREE. Most parents aren’t charging their kids rent after they move back.
The second is that it’s a lot harder for a college grad to find a job than it used to be. A lot of kids are competing for very few jobs and most parents would rather not throw their kids to the wolves if they don’t have to. It took me almost a year to find a full time job after I finished college.
Following up on that, for those of you saying “He shouldn’t have to like his job!”; it’s not a matter of that. In that year I applied to a bunch of jobs and most wouldn’t even give me a second look because my college degree made me “overqualifed” in the interviewer’s eyes.
I know you said that this was a no go. However, I spent two summers planting trees when I was 22 and 23 (after 2nd and 3rd years of university).
What an experience!
I matured incredibly during those summers, and actually made a pretty good dollar during the second year - it takes a full season to get really good at it.
It was tough, back-breaking, cold and wet work, but the sense of accomplishment and camaraderie is very beneficial to the psyche of a young adult. Any sort of sense of entitlement or underdeveloped work ethic evaporates pretty darn quickly. Peer pressure works toward very positive results (What, you only planted 1,000 trees today? Slacker!)
Two more benefits - I came away from my seasons with some great stories. And I was in pretty decent shape after a summer of daily aerobic exercise. A definite plus during that first couple of weeks of school. Me in the red.
Of course, I was living on my own, supporting myself and putting myself through undergrad. I didn’t have the option of limiting my earnings potential by waiting for a job that I thought I might like. What kind of job does Canadiankid think he might like to do?
Gah - the more I think about it, the more I can’t imagine wanting to spend a whole summer in my parent’s home. At the age of twenty two, I was enthusiastic and active. Getting out of town and being physically active while making money was very appealing to me after spending 8 months cooped up studying and making next to nothing.
Harumph. Kids today.
Just a little update (told you keeping my mouth shut and seeing what happens wasn’t my strong suit)…interestingly enough, his mom came over to drop something off (we get along well). In the course of conversation, I ended up spilling the whole thing about how i felt, how I was trying to get her ex, and my current, hubby to say how he felt and how important it was that a plan was developed.
She is in a different situation - she was moving in with b/f 4 years ago and Canadiankid didn’t want to live there so he came here and she hasn’t seen him much since which is a bit of a sore point with her but that’s between kid and her.
Anyway, she feels exactly like I do - no plan, ambition, etc.
Bottom line, is after an exciting two hour discussion, hubby says he will speak to kid to see what the plan is. And try to decide what limits we should put on this whole education story.
Progress. Ain’t it great! And many thanks to those who made me feel more comfortable with my thoughts than I originally was.
A) The kid has not graduated from college yet.
B) When I married Mrsin I had a degree in engineering, moved across the country to be with him, and couldn’t immediately find a job in my field. I got a job as a seamstress making minimum wage in a freaking factory so we didn’t have to live with his parents. When I applied for the job, I did not tell them I had a degree in engineering. No “overqualified” problemo. Ya do what ya gotta do.
I graduated high school into a work economy in the eighties in Canada where I couldn’t find work as a dishwasher or gas jockey. Don’t tell ME about how hard it is to find jobs now; I’m not buying it. He can find a job; he just doesn’t want the jobs he’s qualified for or the jobs that are willing to hire him. Let’s be clear here; it’s not that college grads can’t find full-time work in Canada; it’s just that it might take a while to find a job in your field.
In general it is easy to find a job in Canada at this time if one is willing to work and willing to relocate. Unemployment overall is slightly decreasing, and youth employment in particular is increasing – as good as it has been in over fifteen years. Employment in New Brunswick and British Columbia is in extremely good shape. Alberta, as we all know, is booming and can not find enough workers. http://www.statcan.ca/english/Subjects/Labour/LFS/lfs-en.htm
Learning how to find jobs is a very important skill. If a person is not willing to learn that skill in good economic times when the family safety net is still there, then that person will not be equipped to hustle for a job in bad times when there is no one to fall back on for help.
Like most middle aged or older people, I have seen good times and bad times. As important as an academic educaton is, I think the ability to search out and get jobs is more imporant. It is a life skill that should be developed throughout a child’s life, and certainly should be well developed by the time the adult child is nearly through university. If the adult child has not developed this skill, then the issue should be addressed, with the same degree of concern as if the adult child was not academically up to speed.
It’s too late to edit, but I want to apologize for the tone of my last post, Justin. Who knew twenty years later this would still bother me so much?
Yah, weren’t those years the shits – nothing compared to what our grandparents went through in the 30s, but damn, I never want to go through the early 80s again. Finding and keeping a job in those days was worse than running on broken ice floes.
There were so many homes being abandoned in Oakville and Burlington due to unemployed executives walking away from double digit mortgage rates that I paid my way through school at that time by contracting with realty brokers for my business to fix and maintain such homes, and then I hired students to do the work.
When my folks went bust and landed up in Sudbury, only to then become unemployed along with a great many other people involved in the mining industry in that mining town, I went up there and found a job in a funeral home, figuring that no matter how bad it gets, people still die. Talk about having a job you don’t like – but it paid the mortgage, put food on the table for all of us, and paid for my finishing my degree.
At the time, a lot of kids dropped out of university. I have to wonder what became of them. Did they get back on the horse and continue on to develop good careers, or did they wallow about, eventually ending up in cubicle jobs. I don’t know, but on the premise that you have to position yourself to find/make and seize opportunities, I expect that many might have missed opportunities.
I think that what many people, particularly young folks who are not on their own yet, fail to realize is that even in the worst of times, most people have jobs. It is just a matter of finding a way to be one of those people.
I guess this means I’m an Official Old Fart[sup]TM[/sup].
My wife will be hiriing very soon, she’s a proffessor of biology in the silviculture dept of the local university she loves them tree planting students. I work along side them and it is definately cold hard and wet work at times and I love it. Then again I operate the machinery so I don’t get cold or wet but it is fun to watch.
Sounds like he’d fit in around here. Are you sure he’s not a Charter Member?
This thread kind of makes me feel horrible.
I’m finally getting ready to leave home (I’m 20) and to deal with that. Most of my problems with it stem from two things: one, my parents really haven’t prepared me to go out into the world (and with that, I didn’t have the motivation to learn) and two, I have major anxiety and my parents are my security blanket in terms of panic attacks and such.
I’ll be finished school in June. I turned down a great opportunity for an excellent university program because I wasn’t ready to live in the dorms 10 hours away from home when I’d never even had to learn to live with a sibling. My parents are more like roommates to me now, but roommates who do all the work. I have a habit of wanting to regress back to being a child, before I had all my psychological problems, so I’m like a child with them. They don’t make me pay for anything - not tuition, not movie tickets, not food if I go to eat with them, only whatever leisurely things I want like DVDs and such.
The year I graduated high school I went through a horrible bout of anxiety and depression. I decided I had to get a summer job, but I did it too soon. I’m a introvert, and getting a cashier job just exacerbated my problems and I quit after two weeks. I was getting through shifts by taking tranquilizers. Of course, combining that with obsessive-compulsive disorder, my mind made the connection job = anxiety. I went through the same thing with another service job, and I was sure I was never going to be able to work again. Then I got an excellent job that was close to my major, and treated me like a real working drone, not someone in the retail industry. I got to sit at a desk and be alone with little supervision, and I absolutely loved it. So I’m feeling more confident on that front, more steady in that I can do work in the right environment.
I’m finally getting to the point where I think I can make it. I can’t get a job in the same city as my parents because of the job market - I’ll either between an hour and a half and 4 and a half hours away. I’m hoping for the closer location because I have lots of friends and family there. I know I can learn how to do laundry, cook, all the domestic stuff. I know I can budget.
But this thread makes me feel like I’m still a failure in a way because I’m not out of the house yet, my parents still give me spending money (even when I insist on paying my way), I’m not self-sufficient yet. My brother razzes on me, telling I should get my own place like he did - never mind I can do my school here unlike him.
I would be comfortable staying here longer, but I realize I got to get out of here and not be the crazy cat lady loser who lives with her parents at 40, like my cousin. It’s like my mantra. But I’m more mature than I was a few years ago. You always hear about women who weren’t interested in babies but then their biological clock kicks in and they go baby-crazy. I’m not at that point yet, but the switch is coming on that I want to leave here soon. It’s the fear of failure through anxiety that bothers me. I don’t want to experience breaking into tears and having a mental breakdown at the work that puts food on my table, you know?
Okay, I’ve totally hijacked this thread with my own shortcomings, sorry.
Hang in there, kushiel. As long as you have the drive to make it, you will – you just have a steeper path to climb. It sounds like you are honestly making best efforts, and that is all anyone could do.
BTW, an aversion to dorms is a good thing. 
There is a lot to be said for a quiet bachelor flat. If classes on campus with other students is a bit much for you at this time, have a look at the University of Athabasca.
kushiel, this thread is in no way about your type of situation. You’re only 20!! and you seem very mature and self aware. 
You’ve already determined what kind of job your not good at and what kind of job suits you.
Don’t let comments made by the likes of me (and possibly others) who suffer from a raging case of COFS (Cranky Old Fart Syndrome) make you feel horrible. 
Some people believe in dorm living - I’ve got one friend who has already done two years in the dorms and is ready to get out, but our other friend will be a freshman at the same university this fall and they want to live together, and he wants to experience dorm life, so she’s stuck there for another year. I was shocked to learn undergrads aren’t eligible for the single rooms. Most places I’ve seen let you apply in third or fourth year of undergrad.
I avoided it by taking a diploma program in my home city rather than a degree elsewhere.
No, this thread is not about you. You are doing what you can to overcome health problems and learning to live on your own.
Stepkid has no health problems; just serious lack of motivation and initiative.
Canadiangirl, my experience is that most parents have that kind of worries.
Some are perfectly fine with their kid staying home until he marries (quite traditional in Spain, Italy, Hispanic countries) but are worried that he doesn’t bring any girls home and are actually quite relieved to hear “Miguel, he won’t: Miguelito is gayer than a pink feather boa and has had a bf for years”. “Oh, really? Oh good, I was worried he’d be alone”.
Your husband would probably me more worried if your son didn’t have a gf who is perfectly happy to take care of him. You wouldn’t want a man you’d have to “take care of,” but she does. Your MiL did too. SOs are like jobs, a matter of fitting the right pieces together and what’s right for one is not for another.
kushiel, most dorms in Spain have individual rooms and include meal service. They’re not on campus; they usually don’t even belong to a particular university. Most college students live either with their parents all through college (it’s a significant saving; being from a non-college town has the strange advantage of being able to choose more colleges since living out of the house is usually the biggest expense, more than “college” itself), or the first year in a dorm and then in shared apartments, or all through college in a dorm. Living by yourself is unusual but I know a few people who were able to find teeny-weeny little places and grabbed them with both hands.
Whatever works for you is the best solution By definition.
Kids are SUPPOSED to leave home when they graduate high school. The options are generally:
-Go off to college
-Get a job and live how high school graduates live
-Join the military
it might be a semi-permenant arrangement, like living in the dorms or a campus appartment for 9 months, but at least they’re out of the house. They learn that when something breaks, you need to figure out how to get it fixed or do without.
At that age, they learn how to take care of themselves. You might still help them financially (like paying college tuition), but they learn how to manage their own lives. They need to learn to live with and around other people who are not there to take care of them. Your mom will pick up after you. A roomate will tell you to clean your fucking shit up.
They also get to experience a world slightly different from the sheltered life they’ve had for the past 18 years. They make new friends and new experiences.
The alternative is they pal around with the same losers they knew in high school who also never went anywhere. They turn into spoiled douchebags who can’t balance a checkbook and will think everyone they will ever live with - future roomates, SOs, spouses - exist just to take care of their needs. They never achieve any degree of financial success because they don’t have “the fear” - that knowledge that if they can’t make the rent, their life will subsequently fall apart. Instead, they will dabble in stupid pipe-dreams and hobbies and call it their “career”.
And finally, as they get older, they will become more and more isolated as everyone they know grows up and moves away. The “real world” will be so foreign and scary to them that they will cling ever harder to their comfort zone - your house.
Another thread that might be of interest to you:
At what age are you considered a loser if you still live at home?
I got a head start. My MOM told me to clean my fucking shit up. “Clean your fucking shit up,” she’d say. Ahhh, good memories.
Gosh, my parents stopped picking up after me when I was about seven. Don’t all parents do that, or most, at least? I remember in Grade 8, a kid in my class mentioned his Mom cleaned his room. We looked at him as if he’d grown tentacles out of his head. My parents expected me to clean my room and my ass was grass if it wasn’t done, and done correctly.
I still moved out, mind you. My folks made the transition easy, I guess 
Yup - kick that baby bird right out of the nest there. They won’t learn to fly if you don’t. They’ll just have these pathetic, stumpy, good-for-nothing wings for the rest of their lives, and nobody wants that.