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We hear stories like this all the time and I'm not going to blame the parents. Especially when a common theme I have seen is 2 kids are doing fine but one never grew up.
It isn't just blaming the parents for how he is but for allowing it in their home for so long. Sometimes some kids need a little longer to get with the program but thirty years old with no prospects or efforts is too long. They should have been serious years earlier, that he needed to have a job to live there and to prepare for an independent life. By thirty it gets harder, he's getting set in his ways. I don't expect the slacker, stubborn unemployed 30something boys and girls to ever choose to leave mum's basement unless they win a lottery or marry someone who will provide for them.
It isn't just blaming the parents for how he is but for allowing it in their home for so long. Sometimes some kids need a little longer to get with the program but thirty years old with no prospects or efforts is too long. They should have been serious years earlier, that he needed to have a job to live there and to prepare for an independent life. By thirty it gets harder, he's getting set in his ways. I don't expect the slacker, stubborn unemployed 30something boys and girls to ever choose to leave mum's basement unless they win a lottery or marry someone who will provide for them.
We don’t know if he’s been there the whole time or just moved back two years ago after failing on his own. We really have been given little to go on.
I found this story very entertaining and indicative of the times. Here are my reactions. Some would take longer to flesh out than I have, but they are good points to begin a discussion.
1. Sign of the Times
The 30 year old son is reflective of a broader Millennial trend. Millennials (birth years 1981-1986 as defined by Pew) have lived with a parent or parents during adulthood at a rate far higher than any American generation that preceded them. According to 2015 data, 25% of those 25-29 years old lived with a parent. This is so problematic. Also, this trend impacts men more than women.
2. Cultural Failure
The United States' educational system is broken, as is the United States' economy. Since the trend is impacting young men more than young women, it points to how our educational system is failing young men. In schools, we don't let boys be boys. Also, we don't emphasize the trade school route enough for men. Too many people of both genders are getting useless liberal arts degrees. STEM degrees should be primary reason attend university for a bachelor's. The market is also flooded with those with Bachelor's in Business (a seemingly useful degree) and MBA's, which is diminishing the value of both.
A lot of employment is happening in expensive urban areas. Private sector apartment ownership companies and government urban planners have flooded the apartment market with too many "luxury" apartments with rents and not enough basic apartments. Almost all the apartments that have been built since 2000 have been so-called "luxury" apartments. It's getting more difficult to find a basic apartment that has a reasonable price tag, which impedes living on one's own. Also, home prices are quite unaffordable on early career salaries.
3. Living at home does not impact a woman's sex life, but it more than likely impact's a man's.
When an adult woman lives at home with parent(s), most potential male dates will not care. However, this is a relevant consideration for women when assessing their attraction to men. If a man has good seduction skills, he can tell a woman he's unemployed and living at home and if he's good looking enough, he can probably get some casual sex out of it, but the degree of difficulty on this is higher than if the man was renting an apartment or owned a home.
His parents lack of parenting skills produced the results they now don’t want to deal with. They are enablers of the worst kind. They all deserve one another and may they live happily ever after.
People who aren't raised properly can have a lot of issues in adulthood. One who was raised "normally" cannot place the same expectations on those who were not, because they don't know "normal" and don't know any better. Unfortunately I know some people who were not raised right, not raised in good families and homes to be self-sufficient, confident, independent people and they are different than me, simply because they don't know any better. They were never taught, they never had good, leading examples in life, not right at home at least. It's frustrating to see and understand if you didn't also grow up like them but one cannot snap one's fingers into these people's faces and make them see, make them get up and be productive. It isn't easy.
Maybe this isn't the case for this particular person, maybe his parents are great and he is just lazy, but it isn't as simple as you make it seem.
I’ve seen kids with fantastic parents become nasty adults, and kids with terrible parents become the nicest people on the planet. Sometimes adults mix with the wrong crowd, get involved with unhealthy activities, develop mental health issues etc. I said nothing about this case being simple but blaming the parents is an easy cop out that fits right into your assessment that it isn’t that simple. The fact that they have tried and tried to get him out of the house and get a job tells me one thing, he is a lazy twerp.
His parents lack of parenting skills produced the results they now don’t want to deal with. They are enablers of the worst kind. They all deserve one another and may they live happily ever after.
Who had perfect parents? Everybody is dysfunctional. Some of us had far worse and very neglectful parents. Yet at freakin' THIRTY we'd have died of shame well before forcing out parents to go to court to push us off their couch, ripping the Doritos bag out of our lazy hands.
It's called taking responsibility for yourself.
Didn't have the perfect parents? Oh noes! Join the damned club. There comes a time when "but Mommy wasn't perfect!" doesn't fly anymore.
According to some other articles this has been going on for eight years, so before that he may have been contributing or living somewhere else. But they let it go on for eight years, which is not great. He said it was part of their living arrangement that he does not have to contribute to the household. The hearing is scheduled for today.
It could be that they have to go through a longer, formal process to get him out.
I turned 30 in 2016. I lived on my own from when I was about 22, living with an ex then on my own. I came back home for about a year after a break-up, then moved to Iowa and also lived in Indiana from 2014-2016. I spent five years in the Midwest, with no family and most of the time single. You learn a lot about "adulting" when you're hours from family and friends. Even simple things like moving furniture where you just need a second set of hands can get a lot more difficult.
I was going to lose my job in Indiana and didn't want to continue living there anyway between the job loss and a break-up. I got a job paying $56,000 in my hometown (which is a good salary for small town Tennessee) and moved back home for a little over a year while I straightened out my finances.
It wasn't awful. I paid a third of the mortgage and utilities. That was under $400/month. At the time, both of my parents were earning less than I was, so this gave them some breathing room financially. My mother has some health challenges, and I did most of the laundry (which is in the basement and she has a hard time with stairs), virtually all of the cleaning, took care of the five cats, rolling the trash down the steep driveway to the road, weekly push mowing, etc. My mom's mom also lived about a mile away and I did her mowing and cleaning. Oh, and I was doing all this while working a full time, salaried exempt IT job.
I had far more stuff on my plate living at home than I do with the simple life I have on my own. I'm grateful the family was there to help me out (even if it wasn't direct financial support) when I hit a rough patch. That's what family is for. If he's not working or helping out though, there's a problem.
If he's not working or helping out though, there's a problem.
I believe if he was working or even helping out around the house, this wouldn't be an issue.
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