Bringing up Adultolescents

March 19, 2002 5:29 PM

Bringing up Adultolescents Newsweek has a fascinating article on adult children who're still living with their parents after graduating from college. It's hardly a new concept, but this is a good piece. (Especially noteworthy: The parents who spend away their own retirement savings providing for grown kids.) And if you've priced a supposed "starter" home recently, you know as well as I do that this trend isn't going away any time soon.
posted by GaelFC (13 comments total)

Where I live:
Mobile homes <C$30K.
Condos <C$80K to $250K.
Starter Homes <C$110K to 150K.
Big family homes $130K-$250K.
Custom Homes $250K and up.

No need to live with mommy and daddy when you're all growed up.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:24 PM on March 19, 2002

The article's lead picture was intended to be humorous, but it's really crowding that fine line between funny and gratingly stupid.
posted by alumshubby at 4:23 AM on March 20, 2002

Yikes. I know some people 2 or 3 years older than me who still live at home.

I'm 19, and I started renting a flat (and later a house) 6 months ago... and i wish i'd stayed at home.

It's so much cheaper :)
posted by robzster1977 at 5:03 AM on March 20, 2002

“When she was an infant, the so-called experts said letting babies cry themselves to sleep was the only way to teach them to sleep independent of their mother,” says Iris. “But I never did that either.”

Seems like we have an answer to how this kind of thing happens.
posted by Irontom at 6:20 AM on March 20, 2002

make 'em pay rent!

I had to start paying rent at 17, ofcourse I'm the opposite, I'm waisting all my retirement money taking care of a parent


not that I'm bitter
posted by Mick at 6:29 AM on March 20, 2002

I found this article funny because it's customary for most people in South East Asia, Japan and Spain to live with their parents until they get married (and some never leave even after that), partly because it saves money and partly because it's nice to live with people who care about you, whether or not they're actually giving you money.

(The Japanese have a better-sounding term for "adultolescents" which, unfortunately, escapes me at the moment. Sorry.)
posted by lia at 7:00 AM on March 20, 2002

"Adultolescents?" That's just pathetic.

Grow up. Jeez.
posted by waldo at 8:22 AM on March 20, 2002

This is amateur hour. The deft trick is getting someone else's parents to put you up in your twenties.
posted by dong_resin at 9:23 AM on March 20, 2002

A slightly different take on this is that perhaps the extended family is making a comeback. Previous to WWII it was common all over rural America for grandparents, some or all of their grown children, a gaggle of grandchildren and sometimes the random cousin to be found living together in the same rambling, built-onto house. Of course they were all working the same family farm -- but it's not like multigenerational households never existed before. They used to be the rule, not the strange new exception.

If Junior has a job and contributes to supporting the household, and if there's room at home (or if that carport can be turned into another bedroom) why shouldn't he get married and bring his bride back to the old home place the way great-grandpappy did?
posted by jfuller at 9:31 AM on March 20, 2002

Well, personally, I'd probably end up killing. As good a reason as any to not shack up with one's parents! :-)
posted by five fresh fish at 9:36 AM on March 20, 2002

...er, killing myself, that is. Guh.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:36 AM on March 20, 2002

(The Japanese have a better-sounding term for "adultolescents" which, unfortunately, escapes me at the moment. Sorry.)

Do you mean 'freeters'? Though I've no idea about the derivation.
posted by CatherineB at 10:07 AM on March 20, 2002

At last we'll have some scientific evidence to determine who's floundering
and who's just a slacker.

'According to "Bringing Up Adultolescents," there are both personal issues and socio-economic issues that affect an adultolescent's decision to live with his or her parents. Identify some issues in both categories. Is it a personal failure for a twentysomething person to live "at home"? What factors should be used to decide? Create a chart, web, or other visual organizer to clarify your thinking and help you decide.'

Don't forget to turn in your response this week's Newsweek class activity before leaving this thread! Isn't it going to be fun for folks with unusual, identifiable names when the class assignments of their youth are submitted to an anti-plaigarism website, or start turning up on Google for the benefit of future employers and sweethearts?
posted by sheauga at 11:44 AM on March 20, 2002