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View Poll Results: What is the age of the oldest "basement dwellers" you know?
20-25 3 3.57%
26-30 7 8.33%
31-35 10 11.90%
36-40 9 10.71%
41-50 20 23.81%
51+ 35 41.67%
Voters: 84. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 12-14-2018, 04:02 PM
 
245 posts, read 152,168 times
Reputation: 1029

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I have a family member who is 52 and has never been self-supporting. He graduated from high school and had a few minimum wage jobs, most of which he got fired from, and he never went to college. He's a bright guy and has no mental or physical issues. He's just incredibly lazy and has elderly parents who enable him.

Know anyone like that? I always have thought of him as an anomaly, but I assume there are similar "failure to launch" stories for middle aged people.
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Old 12-14-2018, 04:29 PM
 
Location: Rural Wisconsin
19,648 posts, read 9,185,251 times
Reputation: 38048
Yep, my husband's brother is a duplicate of the above, except I would not describe him as "bright", although he is not stupid. He lived with his mother and another brother -- brother paid the bills -- until the mother died and then continued living with and sponging off the brother. When the estate was settled, the supportive brother -- who was the main beneficiary, of course -- was going to kick Lazy Brother out onto the street, but then the oldest sibling convinced all the other siblings to contribute part of their inheritance to buy a small house for Lazy Brother in another state where he liked to go rock hunting (just a hobby). At the time (in 2010), Lazy Brother was about 52 years old, so now none of the other siblings have heard from him since he moved -- and from what I gather, none of them could care less if Lazy Brother is dead or just rotting away.

(And I don't blame them for that attitude, either. He was VERY weird and just "yecch"; he gave me the creeps the few times I met him. Very few social skills, ill-groomed, and would hardly say anything to anyone. Yet, he was "normal" in the sense that he went to and graduated from a regular high school and never got into any kind of legal trouble. He was just a total misfit for today's world.)
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Old 12-14-2018, 05:52 PM
 
Location: Arizona
8,246 posts, read 8,596,826 times
Reputation: 27571
Quite common in previous generations when people left home when they got married. Never got married so they stayed home.

My cousin born in the 1930's was like that. Worked about 5 years in his life. Lived with his mom until he died in his 60's. He liked going to school. 2 grad degrees that I know of.

I know of families where no one got married. Siblings stayed home and lived together until they died. In those cases they worked and had pretty good jobs. They just always lived together.
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Old 12-15-2018, 08:03 AM
 
Location: God's Country
5,182 posts, read 5,226,058 times
Reputation: 8689
Somewhat different story: Dad's sister helped her widowed mother raise five boys during the 1920s and 30s. But after the "boys" were on their own, she thought it was her duty to stay with mama. And the tragedy was that grandma didn't do anything to dissuade her or encourage her to seek her own life. Granny would be out socializing, visiting her lady friends while my aunt stayed home to watch the house.


And by the way, she wasn't lazy, hardly missed a day of full-time work as a comptometer operator for a local meat-packing company for 40+ yrs.


She lived to be close to 100 but never really had a life.
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Old 12-15-2018, 11:34 AM
 
2,449 posts, read 2,588,524 times
Reputation: 5702
This thread strikes a raw nerve!

Sister is living in the family home - both parents have passed. She works minimum wage jobs - part time. Parents had always fully enabled her. Now we have to sell the house and like Katharsis' post above will have to find her another place to live. I've worked hard my entire life and will now have to support my sister. Doesn't seem fair.
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Old 12-15-2018, 12:44 PM
 
731 posts, read 762,103 times
Reputation: 2429
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhureeKeeper View Post
This thread strikes a raw nerve!

Sister is living in the family home - both parents have passed. She works minimum wage jobs - part time. Parents had always fully enabled her. Now we have to sell the house and like Katharsis' post above will have to find her another place to live. I've worked hard my entire life and will now have to support my sister. Doesn't seem fair.
You don't have to find her another place to live or support her. You have a choice. And yes, it is NOT fair that you do so. It's up to you.

When you think about it, your sister should have more money than anyone since she's been living free all these years. If she doesn't, that's her problem.

If you need to get her out of the house, evict her. End of story.
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Old 12-15-2018, 04:39 PM
 
Location: New Jersey
12,322 posts, read 17,089,650 times
Reputation: 19556
Know a guy of 50 like this. Lives with his mother, they frequently fight because he comes home late from bars and hanging out frequently. Every now and then he gets kicked out, stays at a mutual friends house, then goes back. He's never really worked. He made a short amateur film in his 20's during a brief jaunt in school, tells people he's a filmaker. It's just a life of chilling out, letting the days roll by with drinks, video games etc.
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Old 12-15-2018, 05:42 PM
 
Location: St Louis MO area
129 posts, read 81,888 times
Reputation: 991
I had a male cousin, lived in his mom's basement until he committed suicide at age 42. He would still be living in mom's basement if he was alive. From the time he was 8 or 9 he could not control his temper or his mouth. He got kicked out of every school he attended, always in trouble with the police, etc. He dropped out at 16 and could never hold a job more than a month or so. He refused to listen to any kind of authority figure. And he had a string of DWI convictions covering the years of 16 to 42.

So many people gave him sooooo many "second" chances, third chances, etc. because they thought he was a good guy and just needed to grow up. But one by one he screwed over or stole from everyone who tried to help him. Eventually there was no one left in the city (and this is a good-sized city!) that would give him yet another chance.
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Old 12-15-2018, 06:19 PM
 
Location: Wisconsin
19,480 posts, read 25,056,304 times
Reputation: 51113
Quote:
Originally Posted by thinkalot View Post
Quite common in previous generations when people left home when they got married. Never got married so they stayed home.
...

I know of families where no one got married. Siblings stayed home and lived together until they died. In those cases they worked and had pretty good jobs. They just always lived together.
I know three siblings who lived at home their entire lives. They all worked full time in the family business and never married. The parents died many years ago and the siblings are now in their seventies and still live in the bedrooms that they had as children.
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Old 12-15-2018, 06:28 PM
 
Location: Texas
13,480 posts, read 8,333,025 times
Reputation: 25947
Why is this limited to people who still live with their parents? I know a woman who's never worked, she's married, has no kids so she isn't parenting. She takes care of a poodle and that's it. Her husband has supported her for years. She makes little doggie scrapbooks of her poodle.
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