Posted on 11/09/2011 5:42:56 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
Faith Jacobson, center, with her mother, Debra, and father, Jerry, at her dad's home. She splits her time between her parents' residences.
Many young adults find themselves still tethered to the Bank of Mom and Dad, and that dependence is taking a toll.
Kevin Davis moved back home last December after receiving a business finance degree from the University of North Carolina. He has yet to land a full-time job.
The 25-year-old often commiserates with his father, John, an information-technology professional who was laid off as a project manager in October 2010 for the second time since 2007. "At times, it's hard for me to keep up my own spirits as well as Kevin's," admits John Davis, a resident of Winston-Salem, N.C., who currently receives unemployment insurance.
As recent college graduates scramble to find full-time jobs, numerous parents are helping their children pay bills or letting them live at home again. About 59% of parents provide or recently provided financial assistance to children aged 18 to 39 who weren't students, concluded a May survey of nearly 1,100 people by the National Endowment for Financial Education.
According to Census data, 5.9 million Americans between 25 and 34 years of age—nearly a quarter of whom have bachelor's degrees—live with their parents, a significant increase from 4.7 million before the recession.
But many parents can't afford the extra expense. A full 26% of those polled by the nonprofit group took on more debt to help their offspring, 13% delayed a planned life event such as a home purchase, and 7% postponed retirement.
Compounding the problem is the fact that certain parents are crowding the younger generation out of the job market because their support of their grown kids means they can't afford to retire.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
“If I am going to pay the rent, I might as well move out of the house,” he says.
I wonder where he’ll live for $100/mo. Maybe it’s me....
To the contrary it is quite moral, very natural and very healthy physically/spiritually all around for all - pr oven fact.
It is also very cost efficient, money saving, especially when so many are not home most of the time anyway.
Interesting the reference to the “bank of mom and dad” also that the author used. Perhaps a slip of the tongue there by the business minded who just sees individuals as sources of revenue, taxes etc. God forbid families think like a unit instead of individuals and pool their resources - can't have that.
If taxes and regulations were appropriate for the conditions, there would be room for everyone.
The 'old folks working takes jobs away from kids' BS is a zero-sum argument.
The pie is not fixed in size. It can grow and shrink, depending on depradations of parasites (gooberment).
/johnny
No, you should not toss the kids out in the street, but there should be some sort of reasonable expectation of contribution (financially) to the home. Adults need to be treated as adults...not adult “children.” If it means they need to get a part-time job flipping burgers to contribute some sort of rent so be it.
But in cases like these it is important to establish there is no longer a free ride. “Rent” needs to be enough to pinch too. Not some cents on the dollar kind of thing.
Rule of thumb for decades was to plan 25% of your income to rent. That is a good place to start the conversation.
Work or job of some kind is required. It is good for their character, skills, and value will be rewarded when the economy turns around.
I think the “bank of Mom and Dad” comes from the idea that many of these adults are choosing not to contribute or work any kind of job...unless it is their perfect job.
I think that is the difference between what you describe and a good chunk of reality.
I kicked the kid out years ago, and he’s hated me ever since. Hated. I prefer to think he’s taken it on as an inspiration. I’ll never know, so good luck.
I'm not in that situation but I try to understand how difficult it must be for you.
Not a flattering photo of the Dad. The daughter is stunning, the wife pretty, but I first thought I was looking at a photo of a lesbian “married” couple with a daughter. Geesh, I know I don’t photograph well either, but still ...
A conclusion perhaps is being drawn (by someone with an agenda - I think, or just projecting) that the majority of extended families living together are not happy with the arrangement. Who says so? How do we know this? Maybe all involved love the arrangement, love the money saving aspects, love and want the interdependence on each other. Who is setting this wretched, evil agenda that interdependence on each other is unnatural, wrong and unhealthy. Again - it is just the opposite. Dependence on each other is good, normal, right etc and has been going on forever. Someone with an agenda wants to stigmatize people depending on each other. They are mocking, ridiculing the family. The author is putting thoughts, ideas, feelings into minds that good chance are not there. Who says that extended families is taking a toll on each other. I call bluff and propaganda. Someone wants more ching ching and he can’t get his hands on it when families are so meshed, close and knit together. Families always do and always will pull together when times get tough. What kinds of individuals with what kind of agenda would preach this junk at a time like this - as if some scrooge has a blood lust to see young adults wandering the streets, homeless and hungry, like something out of a Dickens movie. Then again, wait, this is a republican forum-
I had to re-read that caption a few times also. I figured Jerry was the grandmother. That can’t really be a guy, can it?
That's cold! But I agree. Maybe Dad is the gardener or handyman? Or he could be the stepdad (moneyed stepdad). One of my sisters left her husband when he was poor but handsome, and her kids are nice looking. Soon after, her first husband got a sizeable inheritance and married a beautiful blond who then took in her kids. My sister regretted leaving her first husband. She later married again, to a somewhat wealthy guy (who gives her hardly a nickel).
In that case I agree with you. At the least, if the adult child is unemployed and has no income, s/he should be doing a LOT of physical labor around the house and yard, running errands, cooking, cleaning, doing repairs, making improvements, etc.
It's natural to want to keep the "clan" together. Our last son stayed with us for 8 years after he graduated from H.S. He worked the whole time and we were happy to have him at home. He has stayed close to us even after he married. Thank God, because I get to keep the grandchildren.
I told my kids they better study hard and get a good job so they can afford a nice house with a big guest room, because we’re moving in.
I guess you help him keep his faith strong, his body strong with exercise (maybe join Sierra Club or another group that has inexpensive adult social and camping gatherings), and grow his people skills and contacts by working as a volunteer, Lord knows there are many many many service opportunities and agencies desperate for volunteers
I know, volunteer work can seem like a fulltime job and be very rewarding emotionally and in building empathy
To get involved as a volunteer with a cause he has a passion for, ultimately may lead him to the contacts that will open up career doors for him
LOL. Sounds like a plan.
The daughter’s face resembles her Dad’s fairly well.
I thought my post made it very, very clear that adults moving back in with their parents need to be treated as adults.
When discussing the boomerang generation it is important to keep in mind the dependence on the system with which they were raised. A lot has been culturally incorrect in their upbringing and to dismiss it out of hand because it isn't in your home lends little to the discussion. Your independent adults you have raised are going to have to deal with these dependent adults in the near future. Heck we're trying to deal with them now! Just look at the demands from OWS.
This phenomena is the result of the culture they never taught the kids how to fail and learn from their mistakes. These are the kids that everybody got a ribbon for finishing, participating, or got to run the bases. This is the generation that had parents march into school and stop spanking. This is the generation that received grants and loans for school...instead of working their way through school.
The young adult who returns home and contributes nothing to the household is not in an interdependent relationship with the family. They are in a dependent relationship and the parents are enabling the dependent behavior.
I don't see this article as so much as pushing an agenda as I do read it as an example, a generational cultural example, of what is failing 47% of our society. What good is that family cohesiveness if it doesn't teach independence and how it improves that family's lot in tough times. This culture is what I also view as our biggest challenge as conservatives. We have inter-generational dependence without independent reward. In fact, we're watching the advent of making independent reward a secular sin.
The families, sounds like yours, who have a healthy interdependence on each other are going to be just fine in these tough times.
If men were taking for themselves a wife in their early 20s as they should be doing and having 5-8 children every 3-4 years this all would be non issue — because by the time the oldest children got married the parents would be heading toward 60-70 and be thinking of their grown children they were going to be settling down with in their senior years and which grandkids they prefer for the fussing etc.
If the “right” where truly concerned with the moralism they say they are they would realize families, whether secular or religious, are always at an advantage by being very close together — keeps everyone more honest, upright, moral, faithful to all involved etc. Keeps sons and daughters who are not married from hooking up with some dysfunctional inappropriate mismatched mistake out of desperation cause clock is winding down.
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