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When Adult Children Come Back Home
One of the biggest risks to adjusting to a
child’s leaving is that she might come back.
All of us have certain preconceived notions about
when major life events are supposed to take place,
and we have a social clock that rings at the
appropriate time. If the clock doesn’t go off
at the right time, we’re likely to feel some
stress. Moving out of the house is one of those
events, and for most of us, the clock is set for
eighteen, which is when the majority of American
kids move out.
If a child is going to college at eighteen,
we’re perfectly content to hit the snooze
button and let her hang out at home for a few more
years. You may even be secretly—or
not-so-secretly—thrilled to have someone
around again who’s dependent on you. Or you
may be thrilled to have someone around you can be
dependent on. But if she’s still home at
thirty-five, you’re not going to be as happy.
If you had plans to retire or to sell your house
and spend two years on the road living out of an
RV, you may resent her for interfering with your
new, more independent lifestyle and for making you
be an active parent longer than you wanted to. And
you might see her moving back (or never leaving) as
a sign of some failure on your—or
her—part. In contrast, if the clock goes off
too early, say fourteen or fifteen, you might feel
that you’ve done something wrong, that you
weren’t a caring enough father.
In the United States, almost 60 percent of
twenty-two-to-twenty-four-year olds are living at
home. For the twenty-five to twenty-nine set,
it’s about 30 percent, and it’s down to
one in four thirty-to-thirty-four-year olds. Ninety
percent of adult children living at home are
single, but that still leaves plenty of married
kids coming home to roost with Ma and Pa for a
while. The most common reasons are housing costs,
debt, unemployment, and divorce. Unfortunately,
we’re a downwardly mobile society. It used to
be that children almost always had a better life
than their parents. But with housing costs rising a
lot faster than salaries, many young adults feel
that there’s no way they’ll ever get
ahead. In addition, young adults are waiting longer
before getting married. Between 1970 and 2000 the
average age at first marriage for women increased
from 20.8 to 25.1; for men, it went from 23.2 to
26.8 years.
About twice as many young men as women live at
home. Why? Well, first of all, because women get
married younger, they tend to leave home sooner.
They’re also more likely to have a husband or
boyfriend to support them (which is much more
uncommon for young men), say researchers Paul Glick
and Sung-ling Lin. Second, there’s an attitude
issue. Young men tend to have the idea that parents
have an obligation to house their children.
They’re also less likely to think that
children should pay for the privilege, say
Constance Shehan and Jeffrey Dwyer. Third, men
living at home are more likely to be unemployed
than women, although it’s not clear whether
they’re home because they aren’t working
or they aren’t working because they’re
home and they don’t have to.
Interestingly, researchers William Aquilino and
Khalil Supple found that most parents whose adult
children, ages nineteen -thirty-four, live at home
are happy with things the way they are. There were,
however, two important factors that caused
problems. First, the child’s being unemployed
or financially dependent on the parent increased
the chances of parent-child conflict. Second,
having a divorced or separated
child—especially one with a baby in
tow—move back home reduced the parents’
satisfaction with the entire living
arrangement.
If your child does move back home (or
doesn’t leave in the first place), resist the
urge to shout, “This is not a hotel!” and
set up a lot of ground rules—doing so is the
fastest way to create conflict. Adult kids
don’t want a hotel either. They want a home,
independence, and self-respect. If your young adult
child had responsibilities as a teen, and she had a
respectful relationship with you and your wife,
it’s pretty safe to assume that nothing will
change. She knows that coming home is a temporary
solution—something to help her over the
hump—and she’s looking forward to getting
out there on her own.
In general, adult children don’t feel very
good about living at home and being dependent on
their parents again. They worry that they’ll
be stuck there forever, and some respond to their
own fears by behaving irresponsibly. Laying down
the law and treating your child like a, well,
child, will be counterproductive. If she’s not
being responsible, sit her down and start a
conversation with, “It must be hard for you to
be living at home. How can we make things easier
for all of us?” That’s the time to gently
raise issues such as how long she’ll be
staying, whether she’ll be paying rent or
contributing financially, whether she’ll have
any responsibilities or chores to do, and if
it’s okay to borrow the car. It may also be a
time to go over your domestic policies, which will
probably be pretty similar to the ones you had when
your child was living at home the first time
around. Do you have a curfew? What’s your
philosophy on bringing lovers home (of course
she’s not a virgin, but, hey, it’s your
house, so you make the rules)? Do you want her to
call home if she’s going to be late (if only
to keep you from worrying)? How about smoking or
doing drugs (is it okay at home? okay out of the
home? neither?)? If necessary, establish some
milestones. If she’s unemployed, you might
expect her to have a certain number of interviews
or send out a certain number of
résumés per week. If she’s at
home because of a drug or alcohol problem, you
might set a timetable for finishing a rehab
program.
Whatever you do, make sure that you establish
some boundaries and agree to respect each
other’s privacy. That means that you
don’t pry into her personal life, and she
stays off your favorite chair. Don’t expect
her to be interested in participating in all your
activities, and don’t expect to be invited to
participate in hers. And if your child moves home
with her family, get clear up front how often
you’ll be available for baby-sitting duty.
Don’t let yourself get treated as a live-in
nanny in your own home.
The purpose of all this is to help your child
become more independent. It’s also to keep you
from building up a huge amount of resentment at
being taken advantage of. You need to strike a good
balance between allowing your adult child the
freedom she needs, asking her to take on a
reasonable amount of adult responsibility, and your
own sanity. Remember, though, that the more rules
you have, the greater the potential for conflict.
So try to keep them to a minimum and bring them up
only if you really need to.
©2008, Armin Brott
* * *
It's clear that most American children suffer
too much mother and too little father. - Gloria
Steinem
A
nationally recognized parenting expert, Armin Brott
is the author of Blueprint
for Men's Health: A guide to a health
lifestyle,
The
Expectant Father: Facts, Tips, and Advice for
Dads-to-Be;
The
New Father: A Dad's Guide to the First
Year, A
Dad's Guide to the Toddler
Years, Throwaway
Dads, The
Single Father: A Dad's Guide to Parenting without a
Partner and Father for
Life. He has written on parenting and fatherhood
for the New York Times Magazine, The
Washington Post, Newsweek and dozens of
other periodicals. He also hosts “Positive
Parenting”, a nationally distributed, weekly
talk show, and lives with his family in Oakland,
California. Visit Armin at www.mrdad.com
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