Should society not encourage living with your parents as long as possible?

That sounds like a great idea. It is sensible, saves resources. There are fewer homes to heat and cool. Why will it not work? Women!
Yep. I said it. Women!
Imagine 2 men with all answers being equal on the getting-to-know-you questions, except one : “Where do you live?”
The guy who answers “I have a loft apartment downtown.” has a much greater chance of mating than the guy who says “I live with my parents in my childhood bedroom.”
In general the reverse is not true.
The day women start selecting men who live with their parents, men will start moving back home in droves.
Good luck with that.

There used to be an expression in Japan that women used to describe the ideal man. It translated roughly to: “Good Job, No Kids, No Parents.”

There is the impression that all men living at home are losers. That is not true, but it feels that way. The same quirk is true in this area with riding the bus. There is the impression that only people who can’t afford cars, or have lost their licenses, take public transportation.
More men will take the bus when more women say “Oh you ride the bus? Great! You must find that relaxing and a good chance to recharge your mental batteries! Want to go to bed with me?”

This is a tough question. I think that as long as the family gets along well and has the space, it should be acceptable for adult children to stay with the parents because of the practicalities.

On the other hand, in our current economy, most adult children live with their parents because they can’t afford to live elsewhere. In many cases, feeling “stuck” adds to stress which affects the whole household; and many families have some degree of dysfunction to begin with.

People in general, especially young adults trying to make their way in the world, should have opportunities from which they can choose, based on what best suits their goals. Right now there are too few opportunities, and little choice.

My Indian friends have asked me, “How do people manage raising kids here? There’s no help. There’s no support network. You have to hire strangers to care for your kids – even when you want to go out to dinner with your wife. Very odd. In India, there are multiple generations living together. There is always family there to help raise the kids.”

Sounds appealing.

Nice idea and has merits based on your bullet points but doing this would kill every major component of our economy except food, beverage and health and medical. Housing, automobile, TV & appliance manufactures would collapse and so would our GDP and the economy and millions would be out of work.

Living like this would also make it easier for adult children to care for their elderly parents instead of sending them off to a nursing home.

It is a delicate balance from what I have observed. Some cultures pull it off well. Kids live with the parents well into adulthood and the adult children still have all their autonomy and pursue careers, etc. However, I have seen over and over again when children live at home many years past fnishing their education, those adult children don’t escape the hold of their parents well. It has more to do with the parents than anything. They come off to me as being somewhat controlling and needy, and many of the adult children are not happy. They tend to be sucked in by their parents being too dependent on their children for their own happiness. I want to emphasize this is not always the case. This is my experience in America. My husband’s sister lived at home until 25 when she finally married. I think part of what was appealing about getting married was getting out of her parents home finally. His brother left home in his 30’s. With both the parents kind of freaked out. I have a girlfriend who it is so obvious to me her kids would be better off out of the house. I have Italian friends where it wasn’t like that at all, the kids stayed at home a few years past finishing school and there was nothing I could see to psychoanalyze (LOL) it just made sense financially, was convenient, and the parents were not controlling in any way and the children when they finally left it was all fine. The parents weren’t freaking out, the kids weren’t escaping, it was all smiles and good.

Being out of your parents house is a very good thing in my opinion. It makes it easier to form your own sense of self.

I do think extended family is extremely important, especially when raising children. Being with grandparents aunts and uncles is such a wonderful thing. Family ties are very important in my opinion and in America I think more and more people have lost sight of the extended family picture to some extent. I will mention this: In America a lot of grandmas are working. They aren’t around to raise the grandbabies even if they live next door,

I don’t see anything wrong with living with your parents. However, since libruls abolished the institutions of patricide and matricide, parents would do well to have children later in life so they don’t spend as much time in their children’s lives. It gives people a chance to step out on their own, and less time having to worry about caring for elderly parents.

Instead of sharing the planet, parents and children would be using it at different times.

@Cruiser: cool!

@jonsblond I have more than a few friends who “lived with” their parents to help them, even before they needed help really. It all worked out fine usually. But, the parents lived with the children. Not the reverse. The children owned the house. One set of friends her mom and his dad lived with them. It was very nice how everyone got along. They didn’t have any children. He had an adult child from a first marriage.

@LuckyGuy

Fair enough, however, “I live in a self-sustaining commune. You should let me make you dinner from our vegetable garden sometime” would be a fantastic answer.

@JLeslie I’m sure your pool of friends can afford to have a large enough home to have their parents live with them, but there are adult children who fall upon hard times and end up living with their elderly parents. Does it really matter who owns the home? It’s still a smart solution for everyone involved.

From the purely economic point of view, staying with your family (as contrasted with having your own place) profoundly damaging to a thriving economy and promoting economic growth.

If a person is living with parents, that person does not have his/her own household. This affects construction (no need for new apartments or homes), home improvement (no additional need or business for Home Depot, Lowes, and contractors). It means less business for any of the stores that sell household products (trash cans, hangers, silverware, plates, etc.). It means less work for appliance manufacturers and repairmen. It means less work for movers and/or rental truck companies, and the people who work for them.

While there may be social benefits for families to live together as adults, from the economic point of view, it is very damaging,.

When we were living in primarily an agrarian society, this was still the norm. My grandmother is living in the house where she was born. She and my grandfather lived with their parents until they died. And this wasn’t weird at all. They were probably some of the last people in the US living this way, though.

@jonsblond I think it matters when it happens. If the children have lived on their own for years and move into their parents home later on to help them, or just have the family together, I think it doesn’t matter. If the children never have left their parents home; I think usually, in America, it isn’t a good situation usually.

There is no rule for who has more money or who owns the house. Sometimes the parents have more than the children and sometimes vice a versa. It is not just about the money. Maybe the parents live in an apartment and the kids live in a house or vice versa. Space, convenience, location, careers, it all factors in.

It’s hard enough finding a spouse you’re compatible with, now you need to find in-laws as well. I’m not sure I could handle that.

It’s the most logical thing to do, but it really comes down to pride and individuality. Essentially what @LuckyGuy said.

I’ve lived alone for 7–8 years. I just cannot imagine going back to mom unless I was literally homeless.

I’ll be packing my stuff up and moving to another state with no prospects except for the money I’ve saved over time. If it doesn’t work out, that’s ok because I’ll finally have done something I wanted to do.

@Jaxk: or men can make seminal deposits and go back home to their parents, allowing the mother’s parents to help raise children.

I’m all about it and think it’s a great idea. When it works, it’s a beautiful thing, as evidenced by several Vietnamese friends.

@bolwerk – Problem is, I couldn’t handle it from either the child or parents perspective.

While building our house, we temporarily lived with my in-laws for 3 months. It didn’t matter that we were 30+ years old, they still treated us like children. I don’t think they could help falling into parent mode. My father-in-law has superman hearing. Imagine 3 months of super quiet sex. Never again! This could only work if we jointly owned a piece of land with individual homes. We definitely need our space and privacy.

@LuckyGuy I agree with you on the housing side of the question, but any man who owns a car in this city has to be lazy, an idiot about money, or a narcissist. Or possibly just a suburbanite. None of these are attractive options.

Whether a man with a car is attractive is going to depend to some degree on the locale.

@glacial I posit that you are in the minority. The car, like a fancy apartment (or high heels on a woman) can act as a Zahavi Handicap and be an indicator of good reproductive viability.
Women can fix this! :-)

Financial necessity is engendering the situation in many cases. While there re many advantages to it, I think we in the west have evolved too individualistically as a society to really make it work on a large scale.

@janbb Sadly we’d rather pretend our old folks aren’t in nursing homes being lonely and sometimes mistreated by kids with brow piercings working for $10 an hour.

Personally I think it could work provided the living arrangements follow what I consider the ideal dating/relationship arrangement.
20 acres, separate cottages and a picnic table smack in the middle. lol
Family communes yes, families all living under the same roof 24/7, hell no!

@LuckyGuy Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. ;)

There’s no way in hell I’d go back to living with my parents unless I absolutely had no other choice. Of course in my case there’s seldom a day goes by that doesn’t involve some kind of drama generated by my mother.

@Darth_Algar I’m the coolest mom in the world, ask my daughter. lol
I hear you, I hate drama! I am currently sandwiched between two ancient old ladies that spy on me constantly and know everything that goes on in this neighborhood. I could shoot these women easily, and that says a lot for me and my naturally easy going personality style. haha

@Coloma I like your idea of a commune. I would put an activity center in the middle.

@Juels Yeah, weekly potlucks and a full bar to deal with those that drive you nuts. lol

My pipe dream is to build maybe five or six cottages in a big circle, with a communal courtyard in the middle – possibly covered, maybe not – with a fire pit and a barbeque area, and a PA system for jam nights, and a few smaller buildings a little bit away for storage or art studios or a library, and a big garden, and maybe a few animals…

Communal living would be awesome.

@Seek_Kolinahr But with whom would you live?

^^ Put in a library and I’m there!

@Juels I’ll take charge of that!

Sounds good. I love scifi and trashy romance. Some thriller and mystery would be nice too.

We should just start a fluther commune. We already have a librarian. I’ll volunteer to be the entertainment and raise poultry for eggs and grow the community garden.

@Seek_Kolinahr I’d take one of those cottages if it’s available. I’ll make sure everyone’s heating system stays working.

I have lived what you described. For over a year we had 10 people and 4 generations in our home at the same time. It was chaotic, but I loved it!

We had a basket of keys by the front door to change out the cars in the driveway, and we had a kitchen schedule, a shower schedule and a laundry schedule. There was a project or a mess in every corner and quite a lot of drama, but we all loved each other, and were committed to making it work.

I was amazed at everyone’s resilience, altruism, patience and resourcefulness. It is one of my best memories. Thank you @ragingloli for asking this question.

@LuckyGuy So you will be head wood cutter, log splitter, fire starter guy. Just get too anal about how many sticks of kindling each is allotted. :-)

@snowberry That sounds nice. At my grandparents, we kind of did the same in short bursts, then again when gpa got older and sick. It sure does make caring for your children & elders easier.

@Coloma No one would have to worry about freezing. However the t-stats would be set at 65. If you’re cold, you wear a sweater, collect more wood, or bake something. Seems fair to me.

@LuckyGuy Agreed, lets bake some cookies. :-)

@LuckyGuy @Coloma @janbb @Juels… sounds good so far. I’ll add in a few big Viking dudes I know to do the heavy lifting, and one more farmer, a few musicians for the entertainment, and I think we’d be in good shape.

Might need ten cottages… let’s make it a round dozen.

I want to raise sheep. Hope everyone’s OK with that. I want to learn to spin and dye yarn.

@Seek_Kolinahr I think Frodo could get into herding sheep.

It sounds sensible, but I start to fight with people, including my own family members when I spend too much time with them. Also, not too many women think too highly of guys who still live with their parents, though when the sexes are reversed it’s a different story.

Why don’t more women jump on other women who help to reinforce gender stereotypes and who have high masculine expectations of men instead of jumping on men for merely following what they have been taught to do by society? Not everybody lives in gender neutral Europe.

Seriosly, about 10 years ago I was looking for a big property with this idea in mind, but given the housing bubble was at its bubbliest, large properties were out of reach. Many of the collective, intentional communities tend towards semi-cultish rules from my research.

@Paradox25 Agreed, I need space, and although I care about a lot of jellies, I’m picky as far as who’s in my immediate world on the daily, humor is an absolute necessity.

I actually DO have a problem with some women who reinforce gender stereotypes, but what can you do? Sometimes I get really frustrated but you can’t demean them for being who they are,just encourage them to branch away from societal expectations.

I hate to reinforce stereo types, but I still can’t resist checking out a confident, self sufficient man. That is sexy. If I heard a man still lived at home, I’d be worried I was dating his mother instead of him.

@Paradox25 @KNOWITALL I don’t think there is much difference between genders for how society thinks of adult children living at home. Maybe not the same if we are talking about who we would consider as someone to possibly date, but if we are just talking about the neighbor’s children and whether they are becoming successful adults do you look at women living at home differently than men?

Hey….I totally believe taking out the trash is a mans job. lol ;-)

@Coloma So, as long as he is taking out the trash for his mom he is a keeper? ~

@JLeslie I think my society here looks at women living at home as being okay (especially with no husband or SO and kids to support), but men are to be independent or taking care of their parents, so it’s not as acceptable.

In my area we also have family compounds, with mutliple homes on one large property, so it’s not that unusual.

@JLeslie No. Only if he takes out the trash for you! haha
I agree, some stereotypes just are what they are, and regardless of the times, a man living with his mama after his mid-20’s would be a turn off to me.

@KNOWITALL I think most parents, but maybe I am completely wrong, worry about both their daughters and sons being able to take care of themselves. I think most people expect adult children to have at minimum a plan to get out of the house. The plan could be they are in college. The plan could be they are working and saving so they can leave in the future. Some sort of plan. No plan, just living at home and doing nothing that shows initiaive to be independent, is not ok anymore for men or women I don’t think. If the family lives on a compound I have mixed feelings. Part of me thinks that is wonderful. However, if the property is owned by the parents or grandparents and everyone else just lives in the houses provided I have a big problem with it.

I do think there are two separate issues. One is being financially independent, and the other is living at home or not. People can be making money and able to live on their own and still choose to live at home.

I think if the economy continues to stagnate, more people might end up living with their parents. And unless things change for senior citizens—parents will be likely to move in with their kids. I’m not saying that I’m paranoid, but I am saying that I’m going to be extra nice to my daughter so she’ll be willing to take me in when my social security doesn’t cut it.

@keobooks I tell my mom she’d better be nice or I’ll stick her in the guest room and lock her in- jokingly of course. We actually bought our home with two guest rooms specifically because we both have unmarried mothers now, although I’m sure that neither will want to come unless it’s necessary.

Wow, these comments prove my points about how women too reinforce gender roles on men, but who then turn around and find ways to criticize men even when they do live up to them.

On top of that I did come close to living with my mom not too long ago when I had a few brief setbacks in my life.

@JLeslie These comments prove my point (yet again). I’ve heard several women on here state that a guy living with their mother would be a turnoff. However, I’m yet to hear a guy on this thread state the same thing about a woman living with her parents.

@Paradox25 I agree, anyone can fall on hard times. I think the stereotype is not about a man living at home due to falling on hard times, but more about the Peter Pan syndrome, men that refuse to grow up. Huge difference between hard times and arrested development. haha

@Coloma My sister still lives at home.

@Paradox25 Sure, can happen to anyone. Times are tough for many and one has to do what one has to do.

@Paradox25 I agree with @Coloma. Mostly, I am talking about adult children never truly becoming independent not only financially, but emotionally also.

Anyone can fall on hard times and I think that it is a wonderful thing when family, parents, give the opportunity for those of us who are going through a hard time a chance to recoup and gather ourselves. It’s about the attitude though. Why are they living there? I would say by 40 years old it doesn’t matter why in the sense that the 40 year old is independent probably. But, I think leaving home for 20 year olds is a good thing usually. I have a friend that I feel pretty sure he would be much better off if he had left home for college. I truly believe he went to school near home, because she is so attached to him and depends on him because she doesn’t drive, she kind of pulls on people, all people. He had a scholarship to two schools, he is very smart and always did well in school. He dropped out of college after the first semester. I think if he had went away to school living with other students on campus he would have his degree today. Instead he is 25 and still at home, been through a few odd jobs.

I have a girlfriend who moved in with her parents with her son when she finally decided to divorce her husband. A few months later he suddenly died. She decided to stay with her parents for the last three years. She felt it was more stable for her son and liked that her parents were there, especially since his father had passed away. Her parent’s home was the calm in the middle of a storm. Now she just got engaged and will be moving in with him with her son once they get married. I think her decision made perfect sense and I would think the same thing if it were a man instead of a woman.

My neighbor (a 35 year old guy) moved back with his mother after having a fallout with his wife. He and his wife have a kid that I sometimes see with him at his mom’s house, but he and his wife are currently estranged. I know plenty of people, both men and women, who live with their parent/s for various reasons.