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| Men living with their parents: A social taboo?
Posted: 9/29/2009 3:44:43 PM |
You seem to think I came to my parents and asked. I was doing quite well on my own - it was their insistence and months of them convincing me to move back in to help me save money that resulted in this. You seem almost offended and to be honest, rude. You infer things when you don't know the situation. I take no offense that you discussed these issues with me, but I really wish you could have done so with courtesy, rather than making negative assumptions.
Well... first of all, I am sorry you perceived my questions to be "rude". I did not intend my post to sound rude in any way and I am certainly not "offended". This is an ongoing topic. It didn't just start as you entered the thread so if you were to read back, you would see that I am actually following the continuity of the thread.
I was not living with my parents while working on my degree - my parents actually kept telling me to move back in. They insisted that I do. I didn't ask. I offer to pay for things and they don't let me - they insist it's important that I save up my own money - my investing into buying places right now was their idea. They are quite wealthy and it's not that I feel entitled to it (I don't), but I suppose their point of view is that they're doing fine.
As I said previously, if your parents are quite well-heeled, then it is likely some of the normal situations experienced by less financially-comfortable families would not arise. It is, of course, very different to have 5000 square feet of home to lose one's self in as opposed to the average family getting along in far less space.
My younger siblings all live at home - I'm the oldest. They would have no more privacy with me gone than they have with me there. Plus I help do errands and lately I've been helping my mother day-to-day because she's been sick.
Most families, with younger children still at home, would experience a noticable shortfall in their finances with the older adult child still living there. Your parents' wealth makes a big difference from the norm.
I think it's commendable that you are assisting your sick mother and earlier in this thread, you may note that I said I could see an adult child moving home to assist with parents who are elderly or ill. | |
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| Men living with their parents: A social taboo?
Posted: 9/29/2009 5:10:29 PM | | I feel absolutely guilty for how much my parents have given me even if they're in the top 0.1%. I'm really quite blessed with how lucky I've been. I will spend the rest of my life trying to make it up for them. They were similarly born very lucky and they merely want to help their loved ones. I'll do the same for my kids when I have some in the future. | |
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| Men living with their parents: A social taboo?
Posted: 10/1/2009 2:09:57 PM | Here I go again.
I feel like I have been carrying the burden of defending all you 30+ people out there still living "at home" without much help, though I haven't read the other postings yet(will read some later) so maybe somebody else is.
I come from a rural farm background. I don't live that way now. I live in inner city Seattle, where people who consider themselves way tolerant about polyamory and every other darn thing, almost, but snicker and look down on adults who live with parents. But where I come from, farms were family businesses, and you darn well hoped at least one child would remain behind, with or without a spouse, to take care of the farm and the parents themselves when they got old. It's often the same with other types of family businesses. Remember the soap opera "The Young and the Restless"? I think the Abbotts lived together, even though they were rich. I think the Ewings on Dallas lived together, even though they were filthy rich. Stop being so damn judgemental.
Now I'll read some other posts. | |
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| Men living with their parents: A social taboo?
Posted: 10/1/2009 2:15:39 PM | | I don't think it is a taboo...I know loads of people well into their thirties back at home, they may have never left home, or parents are simply helping them out because of studies etc etc. It certainly wouldn't bother me, I have my own plce and love it, but had to live back home with my mother when I split from my Boyfriend in Spain, and came home to start all over again, it was hard, but it all works out in the end. No worries, if a girl ditches you because of it, then she is terribly shallow! | |
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| Men living with their parents: A social taboo?
Posted: 10/2/2009 7:52:29 AM |
What about your parents' privacy? What about the fact that they should, at this point, be able to chase each other around the dining room table in the nude if they want to? How much of their own savings are going toward supporting you while you save your own money?
If your parents are well-heeled enough to be able to take vacations away or to be unscathed by having to take out of their own pockets for your expenses, that's one thing but most parents are not so fortunate. So I wonder, have you stopped to think about their right to get on with their own lives and to finally, start enjoying the fruits of their labors???
First of all, before I respond to this quote, I wanted to say that you have made some excellent points in this thread, and I agree with the vast majority of them. I think you are spot-on in about 90% of the things you have said here.
Unfortunately, I think this one falls into that other 10%. And here's why.
It takes two to tango. And any parents that allow their children to move back home, stay at home, or continue to support their children on into their mid to late 20s whether it's for school or something else..... they are voluntarily putting themselves in that situation. If enjoying the fruits of their labors were of the utmost priority to them, they would exercise a little tough love and push the kid out of the nest.
While I understand being a parent means always wanting to help your kid out, you can't very well voluntarily do something and then complain about it.
In an incident like this, it is not any more the kid's responsibility to decide when it is time to leave than the parents' responsibility to decide when they are done supporting the situation. | |
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| Men living with their parents: A social taboo?
Posted: 10/2/2009 9:29:48 AM |
It takes two to tango. And any parents that allow their children to move back home, stay at home, or continue to support their children on into their mid to late 20s whether it's for school or something else..... they are voluntarily putting themselves in that situation. If enjoying the fruits of their labors were of the utmost priority to them, they would exercise a little tough love and push the kid out of the nest.
While I understand being a parent means always wanting to help your kid out, you can't very well voluntarily do something and then complain about it.
Well... I can see where you're coming from RAE and I agree wholeheartedly that parents need to have the cojones to speak up IF they want their privacy and IF they want their freedom to get on with their lives. There's simply no way around that responsibility. But you know, after spending 20 years of our lives raising our children and voluntarily making the requisite sacrifices, it becomes all too easy for parents to just continue making them. This doesn't negate their responsibility to speak up for themselves but it makes it a little easier to understand when they find it hard to slip the 20-year yoke from their shoulders.
Each and every one of us have soft spots... When I speak of "soft spots", I make reference to those special things that anyone around us know we truly care about. In "dirty" marital arguments, those are the things that are used to hurt each other and it is considered "below-the-belt" fighting for anyone in a marriage type of relationship to use one's intimate knowledge of those special things to try to level a partner during an argument.
Our adult children are well aware that they are our "soft spots" and in my view, it's equivalent to "dirty fighting" when they use that soft spot to get their own way, to stay childish longer and to avoid their responsibility to grow up.
In an incident like this, it is not any more the kid's responsibility to decide when it is time to leave than the parents' responsibility to decide when they are done supporting the situation.
I don't agree. When we were young and hitting our majorities, many of us knew that by the age of 18 or 19, it was going to be time to fly. (A LOT of us flew a lot earlier.) Sure, some people that were going to college or university might stay home a little longer but by 21, most people had found other accommodation that gave them the freedom to actually LIVE like adults rather than just pretend that they were all grown up. From what I'm seeing these days, there are almost as many 25 & 30 year olds living at home as there are teenagers. These people are not "kids" and I believe that they DO have a responsibility to make a considerate choice ESPECIALLY when they know that they are their parents' "soft spots".
It's "dirty fighting" to use anyone just because one knows they can. | |
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| Men living with their parents: A social taboo?
Posted: 10/2/2009 9:59:40 AM | I've said it before yet will I say it again.
I think there are many legitimate reasons economically and socially for parents to live with children when they age and for children to live with parents as they age.
In the past, when our worlds were not fraught with economic destruction or national wars and peril....families remained within the same home or even vicinity until death. Bodies were even buried on the family property - in life together and in death together.
My great grandmothers lived with my parent's when they were children and growing up....it was a blessing and a Hell and a challenge and a natural progression of respecting the life and world that they were living because of our elders.
I hope with GREAT sincerity that I see in my lifetime a return to these morals, ethics and beliefs about the family.
I fully intend to have my parents live with me when they age and are unable to remain on their own in their home unless Medical reasons cause them to be hospitalized and even then I will do everything within my power to care for them at home where they have lived and where I believe they should be allowed to die.
JMO - | |
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| Men living with their parents: A social taboo?
Posted: 10/2/2009 10:00:09 AM | | There are just as many reasons for adult kids living with parents as thare are parents and adult kids. In my own case, I have a house that I share with my daughter. I'm in a relationship but I don't live with the guy. She has the basement which includes a huge living room, fire place, the laundry room, full bathroom and bedroom. We share the kitchen upstairs. I have a mortgage, she pays rent. We're not just mother and daughter, we're extremely good friends and enjoy each other's company during the week. She's 26 and has lived on her own (with a guy) but when that ended I invited her to live with me. We both have our own social life and we definitely don't get in each other's way. This living arrangment is subject to change at any time either of us find ourselves on a different life course and we're fully aware of that. To say she can't live here strictly because she's of a certain age would just be cutting our noses off to spite our faces just to conform to other people's ideals of what expected living arrangments should be at that certain age. Every parent and child should be so lucky to say they have the type of relationship we have. You have male/female relationships where they decide to move in together, espcially now, because it makes more financial/economical sense, but as soon as you bring a child into that same equation, many people suddenly poo poo the idea. I agree if you have a freeloader on either end of the equation, be it a parent sponging off of a child and living with them or a child for the same reason living with the parent, ya, kick them out if you're being used; otherwise, don't be so quick to judge that just because a child lives at home it's because they don't have the where-with-all to live on their own. | |
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| Men living with their parents: A social taboo?
Posted: 10/2/2009 12:57:33 PM |
I don't agree. When we were young and hitting our majorities, many of us knew that by the age of 18 or 19, it was going to be time to fly. (A LOT of us flew a lot earlier.) Sure, some people that were going to college or university might stay home a little longer but by 21, most people had found other accommodation that gave them the freedom to actually LIVE like adults rather than just pretend that they were all grown up
University costs rise every year - outpacing inflation. They've grown exponentially in the last 10-20 years. On top of that, anybody going beyond just a bachelors degree will be in school far longer than 21. Medical school, for example, requires first that you have your bachelor's degree (which takes 4-5 years if you go to university full time), then medical school (which takes 3-7 years depending on if/what you specialise in) plus you have residency for another 2 years+. If you start grade school at the age of 5 (which is standard as far as I know), you'll be 18 the year you graduate high school. So our prospective physician, taking no time off school and going full-time from the age of 5 will not be done until he/she is 27 years old at the earliest. To get into medical school, you have to meet a fairly high quota of volunteer hours. Medical school itself is 20,000 - 30,000 a year. Living at home, rent-free, is almost a necessity for most, because it cuts down living expenses big-time.
I'm really not sure what you would think the person in such a situation should do. | |
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| Men living with their parents: A social taboo?
Posted: 10/4/2009 6:53:15 PM | | well the way i see it, some men have legit reasons to live with their parents, to give back to their parents for looking after them, and some people just have it hard by their own doing and have no where else to go, be it drug addiction or something but yeah it is and it isnt taboo in my opinion | |
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| Men living with their parents: A social taboo?
Posted: 10/5/2009 9:14:13 AM | Our adult children are well aware that they are our "soft spots" and in my view, it's equivalent to "dirty fighting" when they use that soft spot to get their own way, to stay childish longer and to avoid their responsibility to grow up.
I agree with this. But at the same time, it was also the responsibility of lifelong parental nurturing to instill that sense of responsibility in them over the years to deter them from wanting to remain childish after they are grown. And it is that same responsibility to stay the course when these adult kids attempt to "fight dirty." Parents are authority figures for a reason. They must remain strong, do what is necessary, and lead by example. How are these kids supposed to learn to take responsibility for their lives if their parents are sitting idly by and not taking responsibility for their own?
I don't agree. When we were young and hitting our majorities, many of us knew that by the age of 18 or 19, it was going to be time to fly. (A LOT of us flew a lot earlier.) Sure, some people that were going to college or university might stay home a little longer but by 21, most people had found other accommodation that gave them the freedom to actually LIVE like adults rather than just pretend that they were all grown up. From what I'm seeing these days, there are almost as many 25 & 30 year olds living at home as there are teenagers. These people are not "kids" and I believe that they DO have a responsibility to make a considerate choice ESPECIALLY when they know that they are their parents' "soft spots".
I didn't say they didn't have any responsibility. I just said they didn't have any more responsibility than their parents did. Which they don't. It's an even split, being that they are only 50% responsible for the existence of the situation in the first place.
It's "dirty fighting" to use anyone just because one knows they can.
I agree with this, but at the same time, that doesn't negate someone's personal responsibility to make the right decision for themselves just because somebody else knows they have a soft spot. This is the same kind of argument rapists use when they say, "Did you see the way she was dressed? I couldn't help myself."
Obviously, that was a rather extreme example there. I didn't mean to compare a mountain to a molehill, but the basic underlying principle is the same. There is nothing wrong with having a soft spot. It's human. But ultimately it is still your own personal responsibility to do what's best for you. It's irresponsible to blame someone else for exploiting something you're not making a solid effort to protect. And in a situation like this, that's sending the wrong message to your child. It's saying that they are in charge now, and you will pretty much do whatever they want. | |
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| Men living with their parents: A social taboo?
Posted: 10/5/2009 1:43:58 PM | | it is understandable with economy as it is today---but it should be a short term arrangment only to you can afford to get out on your own---i do not soeak for all women,but it is a turn-off if a man wants to live with his parents--on and on--shows dependance and 'mommie/daddie take care of me!!! | |
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| Men living with their parents: A social taboo?
Posted: 10/5/2009 3:38:53 PM | | I think if you cant make it financially in todays economy and you have a good relationship with your parents its not unreasonable to accept help from them as long as its temporary until you find gainful employment. There is a stigma attached to anyone living with thier parents after they are grown up but it may be wise not to discuss this matter since it is actually your matter and no one elses. It isnt anyones business so it shouldnt enter a conversation and anyone that prys doesnt deserve intrusive answers. | |
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| Men living with their parents: A social taboo?
Posted: 10/10/2009 12:34:39 AM | I've moved in with my mother four times. Firt three times were right after divorced and my ex's got the houses. Fourth time was different.
I moved in with my mother because she wasn't doing well physically. I owned the house across the street, but that was too far for some problems, when she needed help immediately. In less than a year she got so bad I had to put her in a nursing home, and she died shortly thereafter. Personally, I didn't care what women thought or said about it, she needed my help and she deserved it. I wasn't going to abandon her because some shallow woman thought I should live by myself and ignore the woman that bore me. I'm glad we had that last year together. | |
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