OK, it’s such a common meme now that it’s been brought up on this board more times than I can count: some loser is living in his parents’ basement.
But there’s one huge flaw in this cliche. If someone was still living with his parents, wouldn’t he be living in his bedroom in their house? I mean, when you’re a kid and you live with your parents, you generally have a bedroom. Some people, even when they go off to college, live at home, and so they stay in the same room they’ve always stayed in. And then, if after college, they still don’t want to move out, for whatever reason - they’re socially stunted, they have no ambition, they’re afraid of being on their own - why would they leave that room, and move down to the basement?
I would think that the comfort and security of someone’s childhood bedroom would be much more appealing than living down in the basement. Where the hell did this “basement dweller” thing come from? Is it to try to make the person in question seem like more of a loser for living underground, like some kind of troll or elf or something? I mean, I realize that some people live in other people’s basements, like, as an apartment; someone might rent out their basement and someone might live down there. But discussions where the “basement-dweller” is brought up seem to imply that the person in question is living in his parents’ basement.
Why would someone still living with his parents live in their basement and not a bedroom? Could someone try to explain?
I suppose so they feel more independent and in their own ‘space’? I did it as a late teen - I just wanted to be apart from the rest of the family, not beside my parents’ bedroom. I also had my own entrance, which was nice.
You can have people over without mom or dad interrupting. When you are on the same floor it’s easy for the parental unit’s activities to interfere with yours. When you’re one staircase away they can stay out of your way.
I think the idea is… they moved out, the parents made their room into a den or something, then they failed at everything and moved back in. “Sorry, your room is the sewing room now.” “That’s cool…the basement’s fine.” “damn”
When I was about 15, my parents moved from one city to another, and bought a three bedroom, three bathroom house with a full basement. Going from a house with one bathroom, this was great, especially since my sister and I were really starting to get into elaborate hygiene and grooming routines. I still had to share a bedroom with my younger sister, though.
Eventually, I prevailed upon my parents to allow me to move into a room in the finished part of the basement. The basement didn’t have a separate entrance, and I had to go to the main floor to use a bathroom, but I could play my music loudly down there, and have my own bedroom. My sister and I had very different personalities, and frequently fought. She was happy to have her own bedroom, so was I, and the family became much calmer. I was able to have a lot more independence by having a room in the basement, and was able to pretend that I was living on my own.
A basement with a separate entrance, and possibly even cooking facilities, allows an offspring, whether adult or minor, the ability to live a somewhat independent life without having to deal with paying bills and other adult responsibilities. It’s not just a one-way deal, either…just as the offspring doesn’t have to interact with the rest of the family very much, the rest of the family doesn’t have to interact with the basement dweller as much. It’s often the best solution for a person who isn’t able to live independently, for financial or other reasons, but who also isn’t well-suited to living closely with a group of people. I will say frankly that I was not the easiest teen in the world to get along with. And, of course, at that age I couldn’t very well get emancipated and live on my own.
Eventually I moved back to my home town and lived with my grandparents for a couple of years. I got along much better with them, and they with me, and not just because we were grandparents and granddaughter, but because of the personalities involved.
It is like Greg moving into the attic. Some parents let their kids move their bedroom into the basement. It is a way of giving the kid more space and more freedom and sometimes encouraging them to stay at home. Others have mentioned some advantages of the basement – you can be louder, have friends over late, it might have a bathroom, might have its own entrance, etc.
The point of the meme is that the young adult has their own space, all decked out just the way they want it. Except instead of being in their own apartment, it is in their parent’s basement. It implies that the young adult cannot either (a) afford his own place or (b) does not posses the maturity to live alone. It can also imply that the young adult cannot distinguish between living on their own with mooching off of Mom & Dad.
There’s less sunlight down here, man. Do you know how… bright… it is up there? The air… it smells dangerous. Wild. Unkempt. And the other people… they talk… they talk… it’s not right, man. They’re judging me, man, I’m telling you. It’s not right…
The basement… it’s dark, warm, and moist. Like Mommy…
This is pretty much it. When I first started working, one of the apartments I looked at was such a converted basement. And I’ve seen one “In-Law Apartment” that was a very nicely converted basement.
My daughter and son in law are living in our basement - we built an apartment for them. He’s going to college and she’s just starting out in her teaching career, and they have some debt to settle, so this gives them a good place to live for cheap (essentially, they pay their share of utilities and groceries.) Plus we get to spend more time with our daughter after her being away at college for 4 years. There’s also the mutual advantage of being able to watch each other’s critters or getting rides when cars are in for service. And my SIL mows the ditch, so that’s good, too.
At my parents’ house, there’s no way any of us could have lived in their basement. That was the party room - bar, piano, tables and chairs, fireplace - my folks entertained a lot. And they also made it clear that once we were out of school, we’d be employed and outta there…
My wife’s younger brother lives in the basement. His old bedroom is now the ‘computer room’. Too bad his new bedroom is his dad’s old den. That guy really needs to find a job, who wants to live in their parents basement when they are 26?
Some basements are pretty frickin huge. I think when we lived in Ohio we had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a family area and the laundry room down there. But we don’t have basements in Florida, you can’t dig that deep or you’ll hit water. I think the Florida version is to live in the converted garage or sunroom.
I don’t know you live but around here (and a lot of other places), basements are fully finished sections of the house. A lot of the bedrooms are in the basement. They’re not just like laundry rooms or root cellars, but actual living space levels of the home, with living room areas, bathrooms and bedrooms. For adult children they functionally serve as apartments (minus the kitchen).
Around here they are normal, but there are parts of the country where they are unknown.
I’ve known “basement dwellers” - for the sanity of parents and adult child, the basement is the space where the adult child can be far enough removed from his parents so they can be presented with the illusion that they are empty nesters…
As a kid I thought it was about given space to the child. As a parent, I’m pretty sure the basement is the choice of the parents because it gives space to the parents.
And I have to say that the basements I’ve seen adults live in have had a high degree of variation - from “functional apartment with a separate entrance” (who’d ever leave Mom’s - especially if she lets you raid her fridge and does your laundry…), to cellars that it technically isn’t legal to sleep in (no egress windows) that are dank and damp.
We have a basement we have not yet finished. And I’ve pretty much talked my husband into not putting a bedroom down there because I really do not want it to be an attractive spot for anyone to return to the nest. (It has a roughed in 3/4 bath and we’ll have a wet bar down there when we do finish it - add a microwave and a toaster oven and it will be enough of a kitchen.) I’ll take my kids back in if they need to - but I want it to be uncomfortable enough that you only live with mom and dad if there is a need.
