Lots of people move out to go to school, and everybody finds it preferable that way. Plus, people have always gone to sea, or into the clergy, and so on.
My uncle moved back in with my grandparents after college. My grandfather retired soon after. My uncle married and his wife moved in. They had a son.
My uncle then for a job in another city and they all moved with him, staying in the same apartment. They had a daughter.
Then my uncle got a job in a third city and they all moved in together.
My grandfather died. The sin went to college, living at home the whole time. The daughter went to college and she stayed at home until she moved to Canada to get an advanced degree.
My grandmother died. The son got married. His wife moved in and my uncle remodeled the apartment somewhat and gave his son and his wife the master bedroom.
My uncle retired. The daughter moved to Sweden for another advanced degree and eventually married someone there. The son and daughter-in-law moved out when they got jobs in a fourth city.
So my uncle never moved out of his parents’ house.
Usually they live their lives peacefully (at least in the case of those I’ve known) saving and investing money while neighbors, relatives and random people on the internet make assumptions and prognostications about their lifestyle choice.
FTR, the only 2 people I know who never moved out of the home were millionaires before retirement age. Of course I have acquaintances who have a mentally/emotionally deficient siblings, but they were institutionalized upon reaching adulthood, if not before.
I have known three adult children who did this. All three of them filed for (and got) SSDI or SSI after their parents died.
I suspect many of the cases involve some kind of “mental disorder”.
There are a lot of people out there that never get, or *can *get, the social skills to make it on their own. I “know” a few people with what may be some form of Asperger’s that have a pretty fucked up life, but having a stable home life, even with Mom and Dad till they’re 60 might not be a bad thing. Sometimes it even works out for the best for the aging parents. Someone to take care of them.
I fit this category. No need for a boring recitation of my life, but in my case, “self-sufficiency” (if it were even possible) doesn’t mean freedom, it means pressure - constant pressure and fear of disaster. You avoid it if you can.
Although he’s “only” 31, my stalker fits (or will fit) into this category.
In the five years since that post, nothing’s really changed: he has (thank Og!) gradually given up on his goal of becoming a professional musician by hanging around an amateur (me) hoping to get mistaken for one (still stubbornly refusing to ever practice his instrument).
But he still works part-time as a department store cashier, and spends as many hours watching TV as he does at work. A year or two ago, he got a fire lit under him temporarily when I read him the riot act: I told him I felt guilty for encouraging him to waste his time playing music, because he had bigger problems to work on, like being able to support himself. He seemed to take my advice seriously for a while, actually applying for some full-time jobs. But nothing panned out. I’m afraid he may have progressed beyond “needs to push himself harder” into “needed to push himself harder when he was young” territory.
It’s also not clear whether he was organically never capable of progressing beyond where he is now, or is the result of too-lax parenting. His parents are around 60, and are suffering some health problems (both took medical retirements). One day I told him that he needed to help his parents out more around the house. He replied by proudly declaring, “I’m cleaning the bathroom now”.
What’s frustrating about him is that he doesn’t seem to have any real mental disabilities - he seems to be of normal intelligence - but he’s clearly deficient in social skills. Unless his parents have money socked away, or some of his relatives have an extended family arrangement that could use someone to stay home with aging parents and/or young kids, I suspect he’ll be homeless eventually. It’s terrible to say this, but his best hope for future support may be to develop health problems (he’s borderline diabetic) that would qualify him for disability.
Yep. Have relatives who fit this. All grew up in the one house. Father died and Mum still there but she is 90. Second son must be 60 and hasn’t worked for many years and I understand is on a disability pension. The difficulty is there are other children who have left home so when Mum kicks the bucket I have no idea where the house goes and where the person living there goes. Other children could rightfully demand a share.
To my mind it’s sort of like animals kept in captivity so long they can never really be successfully released back into the wild. The skills they need to survive have atrophied from lack of use.
I see the same thing in adults not leaving the parental home. After a number of years, they really haven’t acquired the skills to live independently. And it does seem like the window has closed, to be able to do so.
Such adults often lack an ability to recognize how crippled they’ve become, due to such a living arrangement, until it’s too late. In my experience, they can recognize its taking a toll in the early years, but after enough time, they lose all self awareness. Questions about, ‘What will happen when…’, just anger them, they don’t want to think about it, and they adopt a juvenile, ‘I’ll think about that then!’ attitude. A sure sign they’ve progressed to the ‘can no longer survive independently’ phase, in my opinion.
This is my experience with my ‘failure to launch’ relatives, anyway. I agree that very occasionally it seems to suit everyone, but that’s extremely rare. Yes, they ‘may’ be able to provide aid to aging parents, but few of these overgrown teenagers actually ‘can’ come down to it. I mean they can’t even take care of themselves adequately, if serious caregiving is required a 40yr old teenager wouldn’t be my first choice.
Well, eventually the parents hire Sarah Jessica Parker to pretend to be their girlfriend in order to convince them that it’s time to move on…What do you mean that doesn’t happen? Are you saying that Hollywood has lied to me? Inconceivable!
Seriously - sometimes this works out to mutual benefit when the parents get old enough to need some live-in assistance but that presumes the child is mature enough to act like a responsible adult when needed.
Oh, so you’ve met my brother.
Yeah, we’re in that position. We’re the kids, not the parents - and the parents aren’t physically living with us, rather they’re living in an inexpensive condo we managed to buy for them. It’s something we foresaw, to be honest - a combination of a lifetime of bad decisions and some genuine bad luck.
More in the spirit of the OP: a friend’s brother lived with their mother until the authorities made it stop. Mom was developing Alzheimer’s, brother was on disability due to mental illness, and they were hoarding. They were also actively resisting any outside visits or help. The house was actually condemned when my friend called the authorities to do a welfare check on them (they lived in another state).
The mother is now in a home. The brother refused help the social workers tried to provide. Last we heard, he’d found a new apartment, but was evicted because his hoarding caused problems. No idea where he is now.
This is my experience. My brother in law is of this caliber. When he got married, they moved into the wife’s mom’s home, to “save up for a house”. Years went by. One kid came. They moved out of her mom’s house and into his mom’s house. The marriage went downhill. Another kid came (yes, they had a second child despite knowing their marriage was seriously on the rocks).
Then they finally moved into an apartment, about five minutes away. Then the marriage really fell apart. And he immediately moved back home to his parents!
Let me be perfectly clear: his parents are not happy about this. They didn’t raise their elder son to never leave home. But he just doesn’t think about it. And his mom is really unhappy about it.
I am so peripheral to the whole thing that I don’t get involved…but there is some resentment when all they had to pay for for years was:
- daycare
- $400 a month to the parents
With a six figure salary.
Yes, perhaps my words were a bit harsh - I did not intend to imply that mental disorders are not relevant here. He was diagnosed (after trying for several years, BTW) with anxiety disorder. Back when we were young adults, I am not sure that was even documented, so he would not have the benefit of being diagnosed and being offered help when he initially needed it. To my young, cold, eyes - he was a lazy moocher who refused to fly the coop. I wish our situation would have ended up like you portray - him living with them into their elder years helping them, but they did not want him around any more, either.
When my mom got sick, I flew across the country to look after her. I drove her to surgery, and the oncologist, and six weeks of radiation treatments. I dealt with the insurance. I cooked for her. I made the arrangements for the cremation and memorial service. I was the executor of her estate. Stayed for ten months.
My brother occasionally made her a cup of ramen.
I lived off my parents until I was 28. Seems like mutually dysfunctional relationship. I was lazy / had multiple mental diagnosis…and my mother had some serious ‘empty nest’ anxiety. I truly thought I’d never be able to work…until I got married to a wonderful, and supportive and patient, person and realized I was not as sick as my parents had ‘made me’ feel. As sick as I thought I was…
Don’t talk to them anymore. And when I do, I feel every bit as useless and ‘wrong’ as I did those 28 years.
Sometimes the ‘failure to launch’ has two (or more) culprits to blame…
The best thing my patents could’ve done was let me be homeless when I ran away at 17. I really believe that. Hitting bottom and all that. They certainly didn’t do me any favors letting me drink myself stupid year after year, and refuse to acknowledge I ever had a drinking problem.
Its, of course, a longer and more complicated story than just that though…i wish them the best. Part of them just wanted to help, I’m sure. And part of me was simply a selfish, lazy young ner’do well. I just cannot be around them without feeling like I’m 10 years old and all thumbs.
My forty year old brother is hoping my 77 year old dad will have the same lifespan as my grandmother and let him live with him another twenty years. After that, I fully expect him to come to my door demanding I put food in his belly and a roof over his head in “payment” for the fact that he occasionally helps out the father who has fed, sheltered and put up with him for four decades.
I wish I could be sympathetic to him but he’s called me a lazy JAP one too many times. His lazy ass, gigantic ego and tiny reptilian brain have not gotten better since we were children.
I read the OP and immediately started wondering which of my group of friends had written it. Not about me 
Our Arrested Development friend is very bright but unable to move beyond that. His Mom was a teacher and his Dad a rather brilliant guy so he identifies as the smart kid that no one understands. When we were all in our late 20’s, early 30’s one of us got him a job in an entry level IT support type job and while the rest of us progressed and moved on to more responsibility he stayed there. He thinks that being smart is enough and he shouldn’t have to actually work.
He stayed in the same entry level job for almost 10 years and then lost it when that group was outsourced. He’s now working part time and going to school as well to get another degree, but he pays a tiny token to his parents and spends the rest of his money on Sheldon type collectibles and a distinctly non Sheldon like new car every 3 years.
His parents are quite elderly now and he’s got siblings to split the estate with so when the time eventually comes he’s going to be in for a rather dramatic lifestyle change.
My brother is this guy, but worse: his wife and child, and his wife’s kid from a former marriage all live with my dad.* Brother has no savings, no credit. He and his wife can only afford one car and a motorcycle which my brother can’t use for work. His truck has been broken for years. But they can eat out every night, despite the completely stocked fridge (paid for by my parents).
My dad and stepmother are still alive, but I assure you the gravy train will STOP COLD when dad passes away. My stepmother won’t keep them around and will probably move to a smaller place. I will not have a freeloader in the house that I work hard to pay for. My mom won’t take him in either because he’s a lazy jerk.
*They actually recently moved out to a one-bedroom apartment. Because that’s perfect for a married couple and two teenage boys. My mom and I are taking bets on how long the apartment lasts; bro has never lived on his own for more than a year.
ETA: my idiot brother does not have any mental or physical disorders beyond self-delusion and being a jackass. Oh, and he claims he’s a free-market Libertarian, because government mooching is bad, but mooching off your family is fine. facepalm
I’m pretty sure that back in the day, kids weren’t allowed to finish/leave school and play the 19th-century equivalent of video games all day. 
There’s a big difference between living with parents and working, taking part in chores and upkeep of the house, and being social unit within the family, and mooching.