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More young adults moving back in with parents
Northwest Herald ^ | 02/28/10 | Diana Sroka

Posted on 03/02/2010 12:41:19 AM PST by jerry557

Scott Letzter thought when he moved away to college that he had left his childhood home for good.

His plan was to graduate, launch his career and live on his own. But at 24, Letzter is living at his parents’ house in Johnsburg, still sleeping in the bedroom he had as a child.

“I thought I would have more of a steady job, something that gets me on the right path to what I would call a career,” Letzter said. “I don’t really feel like there’s any job security.”

Letzter is part of a growing demographic called Boomerang Kids, adults who move back in with their parents after living independently.

Recent studies show this living arrangement is on the rise. And not only does living with mom and dad signal a delay of other life plans, it can create challenging situations at home and be disappointing to otherwise ambitious millennials.

According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, one-in-10 adults between ages 18 and 34 said the crippled economy caused them to move back in with their parents. Fourteen percent of young adults said they postponed having a baby, and 15 percent postponed marriage because of the recession.

“A lot of us feel like, we go to college and get the right job, and life will be in an upward trajectory,” said Elina Furman, author of Boomerang Nation. “But we’re seeing it now: You can work as hard as you want and look for a job for years but, in this economy, it’s hard to find.”

(Excerpt) Read more at nwherald.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: bhoeconomy; boomerang; generationy; parenting
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Now I know a lot of you would like to blame these kids. But I don't.

The last 40 years of liberalism and government has destroyed the American dream. This country is now broke. We are going to leave our kids with a $12 trillion debt bill, a bankrupt social security system, and a bankrupt medicare system. You want someone to blame for these kids failure to launch, you only need to look in the mirror.

Look at all the well-qualified people out there who are going months and even years without finding a job. If they cant find one with their resumes, how can you expect a young adult with limited experience to find a career that makes enough cash to support themselves?

Another question..is this really a bad thing? Most societies around the world, having children live at home into adulthood is perfectly normal. Children take care of their elders. Instead in America we send them off to 3rd parties (nursing homes). Maybe this is what we will soon end up with in America. I mean do you really think these kids are ever going to have the money to park your big butt in a nursing home?

Unless this country changes direction quickly...we are in for massive culture shock.

1 posted on 03/02/2010 12:41:19 AM PST by jerry557
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To: jerry557

My parents were married at 24 and lived in my mother’s parents’ home for five years. This was from 1944 to 1949.

No shame in it at all. Why should perfectly good living space go to waste, just for the sake of conforming to a convention that everyone must have his own house?

We are in a Depression, and in a Depression, people have to make do. When we have an American in the White House again, maybe we will get out of the Depression.


2 posted on 03/02/2010 12:48:24 AM PST by Arthur McGowan (In Edward Kennedy's America, federal funding of brothels is a right, not a privilege.)
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To: jerry557

Don’t waste years looking for a salaried job...create your own job, instead.

Employers are currently *swamped* with hundreds of resumes per day for any salaried job opening; if you get hired into a salaried job today, this year, or within the next 5 years, you have essentially won the job lottery. Congrats! Most people won’t be so lucky. Mailing off your resume is roughly the same as buying a lotto ticket; very similar odds now.

So what to do instead of emailing thousands of resumes...or instead of giving up and eating chips on your couch all day long?

Make your own job. Fish. Sell your catch. Pan for gold in national parks. Cut firewood. Recycle aluminum cans. Drive a taxi. Buy a tow truck. Put an ad up on Craigslist.org that you will haul large trash away and clean up property.

Learn locksmithing (vacant, foreclosed homes need their locks changed).

Teach firearms safety. Baby sit kids. Teach swimming. Teach sailing. Be the local parasail guy. Teach surfing. Scavenge tires from tire store discard piles. Grow/sell veggies. Be a sharecropper. Be a share-rancher (e.g. run cattle on someone elses land by paying them a grasslease fee).

Make your own job. Grab a metal detector and walk the beach. Search for treasure.

Brew your own bio-diesel and sell your surplus. Get the proper permits and make your own moonshine or beer. Ditto for tobacco; handroll specialty cigars.

Make your own job.


3 posted on 03/02/2010 12:49:19 AM PST by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: jerry557

Our oldest is 26, she will be moving in this month. The cost of living along with a couple of bad choices, she’ll be fine just a second launch.


4 posted on 03/02/2010 12:53:17 AM PST by exnavy (May the Lord grant our troops protection and endurance.)
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To: jerry557

I think what parents should do is downsize immediately into a smaller house after the last child turns 18, eliminating all those extra bedrooms, which would encourage the young adults to grow up and be independent (and rent a room with lots of roommates, whether or not they attend college; no one “needs” granite countertops even if they grew up with them). . .

And I’m not one of our resident “crotchety geezer Freepers;” I’m Gen X, 40 years old, with teens, who know that I’ll love them forever and welcome them home for visits; but at 18 I expect them to move out, get an education (I’ll help), and get a job, even if low-paying and “beneath them.”

An added benefit of this downsizing would be a freeing up of all these big houses so the those with large growing young families could afford them.


5 posted on 03/02/2010 1:09:13 AM PST by olivia3boys
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To: jerry557

It’s better than having a MIL move in. Trust me.


6 posted on 03/02/2010 1:13:16 AM PST by moehoward
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To: jerry557

Its empty nest syndrome in reverse.


7 posted on 03/02/2010 1:25:00 AM PST by Sarah-bot (Ball sprouts $0.10 a bushel)
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To: jerry557

I suspect many liberal young adults never left home to begin with.


8 posted on 03/02/2010 1:29:23 AM PST by ComputerGuy (0bamas IQ = (100 + 85) / 2)
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To: exnavy

Same here, my son moved back in with me and pays half the expenses. It helps me, as my wages were cut.


9 posted on 03/02/2010 1:31:53 AM PST by gattaca (Great things can be accomplished if you don't care who gets the credit. Ronald Reagan)
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To: Arthur McGowan

Same with my parents. They were married in 1949 and lived for awhile w/my grandparents. Then they lived in an apartment in my grandfather’s business, rent was free but they had do work(in addition to their regular jobs) in exchange for the free rent.

I feel for kids today. Our son has an advanced degree, he has a good job, pays his bills, lives on his own, but the pay compared to salaries in the near past is low. Plenty to pay his way, but as I said, he has the weight of a Bachelors and Masters degree.

Big companies in our town are taking advantage of the glut of workers and paying pretty low salaries which is just supply and demand playing out in our economy. I saw a couple ads last week for accountants at major firms and they were paying $35,000...I don’t know what a “normal” salary for that field is, but that seemed low.

So moving back in w/parents, might be the wise thing to do for some of these kids...but that doesn’t mean the parents should give them a free ride. I guarantee the last thing a 20 something kid wants to do is live with their parents.


10 posted on 03/02/2010 2:37:48 AM PST by dawn53
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To: jerry557

When I was in my twenties, in the mid-80s, I needed a place to live while I got started, so I was with my family for 16 months. I worked like a dog and got out as soon as I could, so I could get on with my life and they could get on with theirs. I wouldn’t say it was good for them, but I had no other choice. As soon as I had another choice, I took it.

And, BTW, that choice was not an “upward trajectory”. I went from well off to pretty damn poor. But I was poor and independent, and the poverty did not last for long. Even in the mid-80s in Michigan (with 14% unemployment), there was a place for a young man willing to work hard.

So, I’m not knocking it. But it should be a temporary arrangement for the purposes of establishing independence. The problem, for many, is that it is a comfortable trap, that they are not willing to abandon until something better comes along. They should be prepared to abandon it for something much worse, because that something worse will be the foundation on which they build their own lives.

Of course, one of the worst provisions of Obamacare is the extension of medical care to “children” up to the age of 27. This just institutionalizes the problem, and gives people a strong financial incentive to stay in the trap.


11 posted on 03/02/2010 2:39:07 AM PST by Haiku Guy (If you have a right / To the service I provide / I must be your slave.)
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To: Southack
Make your own job.

If I were a young person starting out today, I would learn how to lay ceramic tile. People who can lay tile make really good money, and their skill is always in short supply. It is a skill that can be learned quickly and fairly cheaply. Go down to the local Home Depot and get some plywood, some cheap tile and a tile cutter. Lay the tile down in various arrangements and figure out how all of the angles work. Peel it off, and do it again, and again and again. In a little while, you'll be pretty good at it.

In a few weeks, you can be doing jobs (for the cost of materials) for friends and acquaintances. Do a good job and take lots of pictures. Tell them they don't have to pay you, but they do have to write you a reference. That work can then be the portfolio you use to land paying jobs.

It is good-paying work with low barriers to entry. And, in it's way, it is beautiful.

12 posted on 03/02/2010 2:47:39 AM PST by Haiku Guy (If you have a right / To the service I provide / I must be your slave.)
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To: Southack

Locksmithing is a smart idea. I’ll mention that to my oldest son, who says he never wants to be a corporate employee.


13 posted on 03/02/2010 3:11:11 AM PST by Tax-chick (Aw, CUSSWORDS!!!)
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To: olivia3boys

During my first semester at college, my mother sold my furniture and moved her tax office into my former bedroom. When I got home, she said, “Nice to see you, when are you leaving? The next guest needs the room starting January 15.”

Point made.


14 posted on 03/02/2010 3:13:10 AM PST by Tax-chick (Aw, CUSSWORDS!!!)
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To: Haiku Guy

Ooh, another good idea for the boy who’s handy with his hands. The hardware stores even offer a free half-day instruction course fairly regularly. I’ll have to check the schedule.

And you’re right about the Obamacare provision for “children” in their late 20s. Just as in Europe, it would be one more reason for people to avoid forming their own households indefinitely. Drops your native birthrate down to practically zero, which increases the “need” for Moslem immigrants. Hmmmm ... could there be a plan, there?


15 posted on 03/02/2010 3:16:29 AM PST by Tax-chick (Aw, CUSSWORDS!!!)
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To: jerry557

It’s karma - the older set has dumped all kinds of debt on the kids, and ruined the economy for them.
Ironically, what FDR’s program of Social Security did drove families apart, (by giving kids an excuse not to look after their aging parents) and the laws of economics he violated in doing so are bringing families back together.


16 posted on 03/02/2010 3:18:12 AM PST by H.Akston (Please, AZ, throw out that tired old moderate, John McCain.)
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To: jerry557
I'm with you. I don't blame them at all. I know a lot of very smart, hard working young people who cannot break into a career right now.

1. Many "Baby Boomers" are not retiring, nor will they retire at the early age they thought they would. Their "201K" took care of that. There is not enough room for the younger people when this happens.

2. The cost of housing, insurance, gas, groceries, automobiles, etc is still very high. There are not a lot of jobs where a young person can receive a starting salary and pay for everything they need to pay for. Despite the Great Recession, we have only seen prices for most things (including TUITION!) go way up.

17 posted on 03/02/2010 3:19:08 AM PST by SkyPilot
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To: jerry557
How else will the govt. get its money? If these young people, who have spent close to a hundred grand on a degree, don't go out and buy a house who will pay the property taxes? How will the govt. claim the U.S. is wealthy due to "home ownership"?

I got one of these next door. Nice enough kid till he decides to "practice" his guitar. He opens his bedroom window and practices the same riffs for five to seven minutes. He's awful. I can't understand why he does it with the volume all the way up on his amp. I don't understand why he wants the whole neighborhood to know he can't play the guitar?

18 posted on 03/02/2010 3:19:14 AM PST by raybbr
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To: moehoward
It’s better than having a MIL move in. Trust me.

Now THAT I can also agree with.

My boss had her MIL move into her home. The woman gets her dead husbands pension, annuity checks, social security, and has a big savings account.

Her daughter in law pays for her car payment, car insurance, food, and charges no rent. The MIL contributes nothing to the home financially. She does work outside the home part time, but all of that money is "hers." The MIL likes to go to Atlantic City every weekend to spend time with her friends, check into the Tropicana, and blow a few hundred here and there.

19 posted on 03/02/2010 3:23:56 AM PST by SkyPilot
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To: raybbr

It’s the marijuana. ;)


20 posted on 03/02/2010 3:27:56 AM PST by Does so (ObamaCare...I pay for medical-marijuana claims by millions of Americans?)
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