Raising your kid to be a wuss

Read an article in the latest Newsweek about the millions of 20-30 yr olds who are allowing their parents to support them. Many of these so called adults are actually moving back home.


If my daughters try this, I'll jump off a bridge(but only during high water).

Its a very strange phenomenon that I have noticed for a while now. I am 32 and have seen my younger sibs and their friends routinely move back into the family home whenever their money runs tight and they need some free rent to help them build a savings again so they can go out on their own (until they lose a job and move home again, often). It seems that many parents are more than happy to let them back in because they have not developed independent interests and like the activity that the kids (now adults!) bring into the house. Plus, some of these kid-adults are just plain spoiled. I asked one sister why her friend moved back home after leaving town for a master's degree and landing a teaching job in her hometown. Her reply "have you seen their house...its HUGE". She is right, her father is a millionaire and I guess the daughter would rather live off him than slum it in her own apartment...and the parents oblige her.


Still Ed, I wouldn't be jumping off that bridge if I were you. I'd be hanging a kid over it by the ankles and screaming "what did you ask me?!?"


/images/smile.gif


KJS

i read the article too. it was interesting.


i am 23 and have lived on and off with my parents ever since i left adn went to college. i never finished because of $$ and haven't always lived in the same place and had the same job, and sometimes i needed the free rent. i don't mind the free rent. i don't mind helping out around the house, or having mom tell me to get a haircut all the time. i can even handle the 1-hour drive to do anything social (my parents live in the burbs, all my friends live in the city). but id rather live on my own. i was just laid off last month (worked at same company my dad was CEO at) along with my dad and pretty much everybody but the Pres., Sr. Acct. (my old boss), and some techs. they are refusing to pay my last paycheck (or anybody else's) and my 2wk severance that i am entitled to according to the contract i signed. but i am broke, and the Pres. (depsite being an asshole right now) is a good friend of my family's (and it is a very sensitive issue right now) and i don't think that legal recourse is the option yet.


anyway, im broke, and i needed a place to stay and eat for a while as im looking for a new job/trying to get back into action. i don't think that it is always bad for people to live with their parents again. i think of it as cheap rent with roommates that i know well. (mom is a good cook too!)


i don't feel ashamed to live with my parents. id rather have my own place closer to my social life, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

baggins,


One thing that made it different when I was young (saying this is a sure indication I am now well into middle age) was that we generally were willing and able to live very cheap and not spend much on stuff and going out. All of my friends were like that and it seemed natural to have flea market furniture and all your possessions fit in your car or closet. No one thought to wear designer clothes, buy real furniture or pay any more than the minimum for a car, apartment and so on. When we went out slumming was SOP. It was a way of life.


Housing was cheap. Shortly after college (around 1978) I shared a two-bedroom apartment with an old teammate. It was located near the waterfront in Newport, Rhode Island and within walking distance of restaurants, clubs, sailing, docks with fancy yachts, fine mansions from the gilded age, the America’s Cup waterfront area, and historic downtown Newport (I later had an apartment across the street from a house built in 1710!). My half of the rent was $60 a month. Activities and work were so close I barely put 3000 miles a year on a car.


The apartment had only one sink. You washed your dishes and shaved in it. The shower was made of sheet metal. The guy downstairs wouldn’t buy heating oil and turned on the stove when he wanted it warm in case he brought back a “chick” from the club he worked. The place was about 100 years old and a firetrap. You had to get in via a staircase facing back that looked like an old spooky covered bridge (a few years later after I moved out the lower steps crumbled from rot and the tenant had a ladder stored in the enclosure – he would lower it when he wanted to get out).


When my friend and I found it the kitchen was lit by a bare light bulb and the only thing other than the bare walls was a standalone stove, a corner cupboard and a lone book shelve to store cans and food. We put a $2 shade upside down over the light. We made a counter by nailing an old door to the wall and covering it with some left over floor covering. I remember paying $10 for a used mattress instead of $20 for a nicer one. Their was no closet in my original bedroom, just a shelve with a rod for hangers underneath. (I eventually got the other bedroom and it had a small view of the harbor - nice).


But it was in a safe neighborhood and you could go for a walk at midnight and see people on the streets and have places to go. There was a diner down the corner that has 25 cent grilled cheese sandwiches, 45-cent tuna, 70 cent two egg and toast breakfast (85 cents if you wanted home fries) and breakfast included coffee. A turkey diner was about $1.75 and if you left $2 your were a relatively big tipper. I used to love that place and treated myself to a breakfast a week and perhaps one lunch.


I bought a bunch of tins and made these giant slop casseroles. One portion I would eat that night. Another I would save in the fridge (naturally a flea market special – maybe we spent $45.) Then I would store two tins of tuna or hamburg casserole slop in the freezer for later use. I had a variety of frozen tins on hand at all times. My food budget was about $12 per week.


Even adjusted for inflation you can’t live like that anymore. In Los Angeles you would be in a bad neighborhood or way out in the burbs. In Newport that apartment has been remodeled and the neighborhood “gentrified” and probably rents for $1500 a month.


So I guess if I were 23 now I’d love to live at home and enjoy having more than four shirts.


Regards,


Rick

when you gotta go there...


they gotta take you...


i have been there...depends on overall motivation..gl

I understand that everyone goes through hard times, but, how does moving home help? Unless a tragedy has happened. You lose your job, get another one. I guess I feel that rather then move back home and get comfortable with the surroundings why not work harder to make things work? Moving back home, I feel, can trap you into staying longer then you should.

Ed,


There is a lot I forgot and I worry about my memory these days. But certain things stick out. The places I lived are among them, especially that place.


The bareness of that kitchen when we first moved in no one could forget, along with the one sink, sheet metal shower, and creepy staircase. The place had a goofy character. I remember the price because even then it was about the cheapest place near the center of town. After a year my roommate moved out to get married so I got the nicer, bigger front bedroom (we flipped a coin when we first moved in - I lost). A few months after my roommate left my brother and a friend moved in for the summer (summer rentals in Newport are expensive) and they paid me $50 per month each so my remaining rent was $20. It was a good deal for them and a good deal for me.


I remember the super cheap diner, called Utility Lunch, which was next door to a slightly nicer diner called the Handy Lunch. The Handy is still there but has been expanded and remodeled. A cheeseburger cost me $4 when I was there last summer (I thought this was very high). Ted Turner and Dennis Conner preferred the Handy during the America’s Cup races in the late seventies and early eighties. But I liked the extra funky atmosphere of the Utility. The owner/cook was an old geezer who would cook right at the corner of the “L” shaped counter with a cigar stuffed in a corner of his mouth. There was a giant poster on the wall with Andy Capp holding his wife with a leash (she was on her knees) with the quip “If your wife doesn’t cook, keep her as a pet and eat at the Utility Lunch”. I don’t think that would last in today’s politically correct times. I remember the prices because even then it seemed impossible for a tuna sandwich to be that cheap, and I felt like a big spender when I bought the 85 cent breakfast and left a 15 cent tip (since the owner usually slopped the food over the counter most didn’t tip).


But there will come a time when memories fade. I hope it won’t be soon.


Regards,


Rick

I'm in my 20's and still live at home, though as a med student with minimal income it's a chance for me to save on loans. Honestly, I don't see what's so bad about it, as long as you aren't mooching of off your family. COuld it be that some people actually prefer living with their family (gasp! horror!) Also, keep in mind that among many immigrants to the US, it is not altogether abnormal that people live with their extended family their whole lives. The just put an extension on the house every time a member gets married and starts their own family.

18 and off to college and I was out of the house. I haven't been back. Sure it'll cost you more to live on your own during university. But maybe you'd better give that some thought before embarking on your History of Irish Poetry degree, and consider taking something that will give you a marketable skill.


I also think I was better off learning how to budget and cook for myself and take care of myself in University where if it was too much, I could blow off a class or two, rather than waiting until I got into the working world, where if it became too much, I couldn't exactly blow off a few days of work.


Parents who coddle their kids will not be pleased with the results. Kids who know that their parents will take them back don't save money and don't prepare for the worst.


I like parents who take their kids back. They are preventing those kids from becoming a danger to me in the business world by ensuring that those kids will never get the motivation to go out there and get ahead.

I enjoyed your posts. I too remember $50 rent and flea market furniture. In fact I still have flea market furniture. Only difference is I made a deal with a bank, I give them all my money for the next 30 yrs and in return I can say I own this dump.


Ed- living poor in Montana and enjoyed every bit of it.

I have noticed this myself. Of all my friends from high school, I am the only one who doesn't live at home. We are all 22-23 yrs old. You would think by this time in their life, they might consider moving into their own place. It really isn't all that expensive for two or three people to split the rent in a small apartment. Plus, these guys have no debt/monetary responsibilities (unlike me, who went off and racked up 80K in debt at one of dem dere fancy universities), so they should have no problem covering rent, even with their crappy jobs. Yet they don't do it. Why? Because they are comfortable staying at home and mooching off their parents (aka they have drive and no self respect). Plus, their parents allow them to do so, and in no way encourage/push them to find a job, or get into some kind of training program that would help them to get a job. These parents don't seem to mind that their kids have no direction. It is one thing if you are living at home while getting some sort of education, or perhaps when you first start working (putting that unused rent money towards debt), but there reaches a point when you should no longer rely on your parents for support.


-- HOMER

Open the classifieds, and you'll see a plethora of ads for relatively high-paying, unskilled jobs, albeit mostly in the restaurant industry. If you think you're better than that, swallow your pride and do what you have to in order to have a roof over your head and food on your plate. Anything beats slinking home to Mommy and Daddy with your tail between your legs.


Work in the evenings and search for a job by day. You'll eventually find a job that suits your ability, guaranteed. In the meantime, you'll be earning a decent wage.


Even in these difficult times, economically and otherwise, any able, sane person can find a way to make ends meet. Period. Moving back in with Mommy and Daddy is nothing short of a cop-out.


Btw: My parents had the attitude that once I graduated college (which they, thankfully, paid for), I was on my own. I struggled, and I still do, but I'm glad that they held a hard line. Having your Mommy tell you to get a haircut when you're 25 years old is embarrassing. Be a man.


FWIW...

well if you ever finish painting your house maybe you would proud of it, and of course they will raise your property taxes for your trouble.

'we generally were willing and able to live very cheap and not spend much on stuff and going out. All of my friends were like that and it seemed natural to have flea market furniture and all your possessions fit in your car or closet. No one thought to wear designer clothes, buy real furniture or pay any more than the minimum for a car, apartment and so on. When we went out slumming was SOP. It was a way of life.'


pretty much SOP here too. my car is a '90 ford taurus that was given to me in july by my aunt who's husband is doing very well and they were getting rid of their old car. i haven't bought clothes for myself from anywhere but thrift stores and concerts in about 9 or 10 years. i eat as cheap as possible (was getting meals of 2 $.99 chicken sandwiches at Mcdonald's or eating 2 $.15 packs of ramen noodles for dinner, sometimes with apple juice, sometimes not.) when i was making money at my job, i was able to spend money on other things, like the odd book or cd, the meals at more expensive restaraunts (think $3-$5), and occasional trips to the movies (ok, ill admit i saw Lord of the Rings 6 times and Royal Tenenbaums 3). rent (in a 3 1/2 bedroom apartment with a decent bathroom, a living and dining room and kitchen) was $300/month each for 3 roomates. i paid my car insurance every month, and when we go to the bars, i usually have only 1 beer, never more than 2. i even took public trans. to work. i don't think i spent a lot of money on luxuries. i mostly got by, and did the social thing (mostly consisted of sitting around in a restaraunt and drinking bottomless cups of coffee for $1.10 and $1 tip) and then i would hopefully be able to be in action when i could get to the cardroom. when i would win, i would pad my expenses a little bit, be able to help out a friend who was broke, buy obligatory gifts for people (christmas and birthdays) etc. when i would lose, i would eat on the tighter side of things but everything would be ok because i made sure that everything was taken care of.


i even used to work at outback steakhouse when i was 19 and lived with a friend, and we worked from 8:30 a.m. to usually around 7p.m. 5 days a week for $6.25/hr just so i could have my own place. we were able to get by on free meals there every shift and cheap frozen pizzas from Aldi.


but i do understand what you are saying. it was possible to get by cheap in your day, and well-paying jobs were not as necessary because you didn't NEED as much money to live frugally. but how far away from your parents did you live? i mean, id rather not live here with my parents, but if they lived in the city i wanted to live in, and i could live there free of charge, id certainly take them up on that. i mean, people live with all sorts of roommates these days for different reasons (rent being a big reason) and i have a pretty good relationship with my parents, so i don't mind living with them as people. i spend time with them too. i love watching movies with my dad, and analyzing them, etc. he's a real intellectual, and we can converse on a pretty cool level there (not the same with mom).


anyway, yes, i know that living on my own is quite possible, and i have done it off and on for years now. but right now, with no job and no savings to fall back on, a month or two with the P's aint so bad.

baggins,


There is no stigma attached to living with your parents. I did it off and on when I was 22 years old after I graduated from college until I was 28. Basically, because most jobs suck. When I was 28 I found a good job and moved out east to Philadelphia.


The company went out of business in three years, so I moved back to Illinois and lived with my sister for 6 months. Now, 12 years latter I'm almost in the same situation again. The stupid company I worked for sold our division to another company. When this new company took over they gave me my notice four days before Christmas that my last day will be April 30th this year.


This time it's not as bad because I've had many years to save my money. But, the days of long term full time stable employment are gone. This is what is different today. My parents generation had jobs for life. So, all I have to say to those grouchy old parents out there is up yours.


Good Luck


Mark

man, there sure is a lot of sentiment on here against living with the parents. seems like a situational thing where you might not understand. i went to a 1-year college after high school. immediately after that i had a place with a friend (mentioned in previous post) and lived there just fine (but i wasn't going anywhere, and i wanted to go back to school and finish an undergrad degree). the job blew so bad (i will never ever work in the food service industry again, if i can help it.) and some things came to fruition around christmas and i quit (long story, was a blizzard, couldn't get there on XmasEve, called in, was told come in or you're gone, didn't come in, figured i was fired, was called about 2 weeks later saying maybe we were wrong come talk to us, went back and could never get to talk.) was at home for couple days for holidays and my parents said 'come live here, and we will pay for you to go to Jr. College here and get you grades up so you can get into the school you want to go to.' i said alright, and did that. and i helped out around the house while going to school (mowing lawn, doing dishes, running errands, cooking dinner, cleaning house, giving rides to sisters, etc.). that fall, i started in the school i wanted to go to (where my friends all went for free because their parents worked at the school. few would have beena ble to afford ANY school, let alone this one, without that advantage). was doing fine, until mid-semester in march, when i found out that some of my loans fell through. well, that blew, and my parents couldn't afford to send me to school there. it all happened very quickly and i had to move home. i ended up getting a crappy job at a gas station and worked there for 16 months. then, i decided to move to L.A. with some friends for an indefinite amount of time (of course they both graduated college already). lived there from jan.2000 til end of june2000, and worked and paid rent with 8 other people in a 5 bedroom house. my job was on a tv show and was schedule for 1 season only. when it ended, i decided i wanted to get back into school, but wasn't sure where or how. talking to my dad, i decided that going to school in illinois where i am a resident was a better option than waiting for residency in CA and paying my own way to go to school there, AND pay rent and expenses. when i moved back here last june, i was hoping to get right into college and not have to live with mom and dad. that didn't quite work out, however, and i couldn't get into school right away. but i did have a job, and was working, and helping my parents out with $$ too. then i found a couple girls i thought were cool (am finding out recently how uncool they really are) and they needed a roommate. i jumped at the chance to move out and live nearer to my social life, and my job. that was all well and good until a month ago when the company decided to scale down (president couldn't handle a growing company where he didn't have his hand in every little part directly... was a dumb move in my opinion) and i was left without a job (and without my last paycheck, and my severance check which they owe me.) when i first found out, i was leaning towards moving to Tucson and living with friends there and working for the summer and going to school in the fall back here. but i have decided since then that's not the best idea. the best idea is to stay here and save some $$ so that when i start school up in the fall i will have some so that i don't have to work full time while i am in school full time.


i don't see why it is so bad to let your kid live rent free for a while so that they can save up some money and go do the things they want to. and i don't think that you should only study in college what will give you a marketable skill. thats an old paradigm that is still present in our society. it works for some people, but not for others. i don't care what kind of job im going to get with a philosophy degree, that's what i want to study. what's the point of getting a business degree if i hate studying business?


anybody who questions my manhood because i choose to live rent-free with people i love and pursue my goals from that platform can bite me. (incidentally, maybe people who resort to questioning the manhood of other people just can't handle the fact that there might be a different value system in play for other people, which would dictate a different 'manly' course of action) im secure, so think what you want. living at home is +EV for me right now, and im not socially inept because of it.

Ok I don't mean to insult you but:


I don't understand your priorities. They are all about what makes you happy and have essentially no factor of becoming a productive member of society. You move places because its better for your social life. You study what makes you happy.


Anyways, if you want to live at home and take a philosophy degree, more power to you. You won't in any way impede me from achieving the things I want in life.


All I'll say is that mom and dad won't be there forever. Just think about where you'll be 10 or 20 years from now, and decide if you're happy with that. If you are, best of luck.

Ottosen, what is this bit that you hope everybody else is a lazy-ass, so you can be the one guy on Earth succeeding in business? If you had ever been in business, you would know that how far you can get is constrained by how many good people you can put around you, and cooperate with.


So far as Baggins, I was under the impression he would rather be kicking it in some pad downtown, screwing girls on the pill, working as a career bartender, and drinking Double Diamond's with his pals. But he is doing the right thing, instead.


If Baggins has made an error somewhere - and I am sure he has - I can't find it. This is the country where people can live their dreams and, inadvertently, become rich. It's that invisible hand, not their own conscious planning.


Why do people bitch when a bank charges them $2.00 for an ATM withdrawal, or when some guy lives with his own parents, but not when the government takes 50% of their own paycheck? I'll tell you why, people are half-wit sissies.


I guess I would probably frown if I found out where Baggins' student loan was coming from. But, other than that, he's not costing me a dime. As long as there is no mechanism for him to steal my money, he has to plot his own course.


Baggins is smart enough, and at an age, that the more he learns now, the more we'll all benefit from him in the long run. A guy like Baggins should be going to college, and learning how the world works, rather than gutting fish in Alaska or something, just to keep some random landlord in rent.


eLROY

Of all the people on this board that I would listen to a rational argument from, you are the last.


But thanks for your opinion. I'll give it all the validity I feel it deserves.

you write:


'I don't understand your priorities. They are all about what makes you happy and have essentially no factor of becoming a productive member of society. You move places because its better for your social life. You study what makes you happy.'


why on earth should i be working toward making you (or anybody else) happy? are you suggesting that i should figure ou how best to serve my nationalist country and then go do that, whatever it may be, despite the fact that i would most likely hate my life doing so? why wouldn't i do what made me happy? productive member of society? how do you know what the ends to my means are? do you want me to go make Chalupas at Taco Bell and pay my rake and taxes like a good little American?


I'd rather not, thanks. What's wrong with studying philosophy anyways? when i have my PhD ill be writing, and teaching, and sitting on a think tank somewhere contributing more to society than i ever could slingin burgers or answering phones.


what priorities would you like me to have?

oh please, get off your high horse and smell the freaking roses:


if an idea is valid, it doesn't matter who said it. just because you may not like eLROY doesn't mean anything he says automatically loses some argumentative merit. if you think it does, i have NO reason to talk to you any further, because i don't care to discuss my life with an irrational stranger.


aside from the part about 'screwing girls on the pill, working as a career bartender, and drinking Double Diamond's with his pals', i think eLROY is right on. im not hell-bent on getting laid all the time, nor do i have any interest in being a bartender, career or otherwise. im not sure how old you are david ottosen, but i think there is probably a huge age gap in a lot of values that are clashing here.

"What's wrong with studying philosophy anyways? when i have my PhD ill be writing, and teaching, and sitting on a think tank somewhere contributing more to society than i ever could slingin burgers or answering phones."


You really think you'll get paid for sitting on the toilet?

Please study the "free rider" concept in game theory and think about how it relates to society. Like any non-free rider, I am opposed to free riders.


FYI: I'm 28.

That is just so silly, I don't even know where to begin. The thing is, it would be hard to show how Baggins is costing you a dime, rather than himself, by making these decisions.


Ever heard of the concept of moving assets forward and backwards in time? In any case, if you have mistaken Baggins for the parasite, chances are you are covered in them without realizing it.


Though believe me, I put you about a thousand miles ahead of everybody else who doesn't even try to think about it in terms of game theory, Ottosen:)


I like your post! If only more people would take your advice!


eLROY

baggins wrote:

"do you want me to go make Chalupas at Taco Bell and pay my rake and taxes like a good little American? I'd rather not, thanks."


If that doesn't sound like a free rider, I don't know what does. Someone else can pay taxes that pay for little things like police, highways, hospitals, so on so forth. You don't feel like it. But I'll bet you'll be the first to bitch if they aren't there when you need them.


He may not be a parasite at this exact moment, but my opinion is that he's walking in that direction.

Walking in that direction? What is wrong with going to school and going after a job that is going to make you happy? I quit my job as a mechanic after 15 years because I hated it. I'm back in school and when I graduate, I can expect to make at least 10 to 15 grand LESS per year that I got for turning wrenches. But at least I'll be enjoying my work. I wish I had taken baggins's road at 23 years old, instead of waiting 12 years.

If you were living on that kind of daily expenditure, how could you not be saving money?

well, i guess its pretty easy.

1. i wasn't making that much $$ to begin with

2. there were other expenses i forgot (like gas and cigarettes , money i 'lent' to people who aren't going to pay it back, toll charges when taking the tollway system here in Illinois, the occasional concert, etc.) and those all add up pretty quickly when you consider #1.


plus i only had that job for 8 months, which isn't exactly enough time to really save a lot of money. especially when you don't have a separate bankroll for poker, which means that it all comes from the same pool of ca$h, which means that a big downswing WILL effect spending until the next paycheck (which actually did happen, pretty big downswing right after the last paycheck i got )

who are you to predict where i am 'walking toward'?


as far as paying taxes, i have always gotten a return every year i have filed taxes, so what's your point? its not like im evading them or anything. as far as the 1 or 2 unemployment checks i may get, those come out of a fund that i contribute to by having taxes taken out of my paycheck.


as far as being a 'free rider', well, i don't own the book you reference (and i can't exactly go buy it right now). but i don't ask for anything i haven't earned, and i certainly don't see where your hard-earned $$ is buying my ramen noodles, so quit whining. get on with this mighty business that i am no longer standing in the way of, and let me choose my own path, thanks.

i didn't choose the structure of the society i live and don't work in. why should i jump right in and produce?


fuckin drones...