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After college I lived home for several years. My sister was out of the house, living with a boyfriend (now husband). I paid a nominal amount of rent, often would pick up take out/take my parents out for meals.
I respected their home and they gave me my "adult privacy" in that they never questioned my comings and goings. But I was also a relatively open young adult. I had no problem letting them know where I was going, with who and when not to expect me to come home.
I kept up with the chores I was assigned as a kid- dishes, cleaning the bathroom, sweeping, garbage, etc.
By 24, I was well employed and easily could have lived on my own (without a roommate). I was fine living home and my parents didn't push for me to leave. The arrangement worked. I decided shortly before my 26th birthday that I would move out during that year.My dad jokingly bought me a set luggage for my birthday.
Now, in my early 40s, I actually spend 1-2 nights a week at their house as I have a 250 mile round trip work commute. We have the same kind of arrangement as before, minus nominal rent. I never asked the stay, they were concerned that I would be fatigued with so much driving and long work hours. (They were right, it's exhausting.) So the days that I'm really tired, I shoot a text that I'm coming for the night. I always ask if they need anything on my way home.
My family was solidly blue collar, lower-middle class. My parents were apartment dwellers, in fact, it was a 650 sq. ft. one bedroom. My sister and I slept in there and my parents the living room that was semi-divided for their privacy. Now, they're in a house and far more financially secure.
Does it have to do with working-class parents genuinely having less ability to afford keeping kids around too long, or is it just a fervent desire on their part to make sure their kids have the resources to be self-sufficient, or is it just an issue of differing values?
Another report from Pew published in 2016 stated that living with parents edged out all other living arrangement for 18- to 34-year-olds for the first time since 1880 (For First Time in Modern Era, Living With Parents Edges Out Other Living Arrangements for 18- to 34-Year-Olds).
It's not unheard of at higher income levels, but I don't think it's more prevalent, and where it happens I think it's somewhat the result of hot-house parenting. A lot of resources are involved in setting kids up for success. Allowing them to live at home for a few years out of college is a way to ensure that they're putting their energy into endeavors that will have the greatest pay-off as they launch their careers.
That's weird because I find it to be the opposite. It's usually more common to see multi-generational households in lower income demographics because of the high cost of living and daycare in most urban areas.
This has been my observation too, more or less. It can also be an immigrant thing, depending on the culture, and first-generation immigrant families tend to be in a process of working their way up to the higher brackets. They don't start out there, unless they're techies, a fairly recent phenom, historically speaking.
I don't know if it's true that more young adults fail to launch out of higher socioeconomic strata. But if it IS true, the cause seems obvious. Because there's no way they could afford a really nice house like that on their own and they really like living in a great neighborhood and a great house.
With parents who are in lower economic homes, the adult kids can replace that experience on a young adult salary themselves.
I think that happens in some cases.
And, it always surprises me when a newly wed couple expects to immediately buy a house similar to the house that their parents first purchased after being married ten or fifteen or more years, after living in a couple of crappy apartments and a starter house, or two. Heck, when is the last time that you even heard the term "starter house"?
And, it always surprises me when a newly wed couple expects to immediately buy a house similar to the house that their parents first purchased after being married ten or fifteen or more years, after living in a couple of crappy apartments and a starter house, or two. Heck, when is the last time that you even heard the term "starter house"?
Maybe they can afford that house or maybe their parents help them with the money for the down payment.
Hahaha. The reason that lower socioeconomic kids move out is because the residents of lower socioeconomic households don't PAY for themselves! Have a kid before you're 16, and the day you turn 16 you get your own housing voucher or own subsidized housing unit. Get your own food stamps. Get your own cash benefits. Get your own Medicaid for you and your household. When the cash benefits run out, state supplied social workers will guide you to get on disability, so you get about $770/month cash, in addition to the free housing, free food, free medical care, and yes, even free phone (and there are free utility subsidies, too, should you need them). You're set for the next 20 years, prolongable until about 16 years after the end of your fertility, so as long as you keep having children, should be able to live independently on the dole with control of your own destiny from about age 16 through about age 56. Then of course you can also have your daughters doing the same, and get paid by DCF and Care for Kids to raise your own grandchildren. That should keep you with pretty good income until you enter a nursing home.
Middle class and above? You finish college, and if you haven't planned it right with a very marketable degree, you move back home because you're saddled with enormous debt for your college tuition, and cannot afford to live independent of your parents. Meanwhile, your parents pay high taxes to support the ever-burgeoning population on the dole, and as soon as you find work, so will you.
THAT is why middle class and above "boomerang" home after college, but low class move out as soon as they can - because they can, because they're not doing it on their own - the taxpayers are doing it for them.
And, it always surprises me when a newly wed couple expects to immediately buy a house similar to the house that their parents first purchased after being married ten or fifteen or more years, after living in a couple of crappy apartments and a starter house, or two. Heck, when is the last time that you even heard the term "starter house"?
Quote:
Originally Posted by PriscillaVanilla
Maybe they can afford that house or maybe their parents help them with the money for the down payment.
I should have emphasized the phrase " a newly-wed couple expects to buy a house similar to the house that their parents first purchased after being married ten to fifteen years". Yes, of course, maybe the newly wed couple have fabulous incomes or their parents provide the down payment (this is very, very, very rare among my friends, co-workers and relatives) but the key part is that young adults/newlyweds expect to immediately buy that type of "final, dream house" instead of working their way up through apartments and smaller houses.
Maybe it does not surprise you, but it surprises me.
I know of a well off guy and a poor guy- BOTH lived at home until they got married. So yea I dont think you can make that assumption.
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