Your mileage may vary depending on your parents.
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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Anything is better than living with my parents. I'd rather sleep under a bridge.
As someone who literally slept under a bridge to escape a horrible home, I can confirm!
boy do i know how that goes.
So…. It’s a psyop at age 18, but not at 21? What about 24? When is it not a “psyop”?
Could it possibly be that it was once believed that at around the age of 18 is when people should become mature enough to be responsible for taking care of themselves? No?
Or is it just not enough that the cost of living is going up every year to have a reasonable argument to remain home with family- now it has to be a “psyop” by big banking.
Horses, people- not zebras.
"Psyop" is the wrong term, but there is some truth to what they are saying.
During the post-WWII economic boom, the US government was rapidly expanding the highway system, making suburban land cheap and accessible. Developers like Levitt & Sons started mass producing suburban tract homes, and banks favored financing them over multi-unit buildings, due to the GI bill and FHA loans. This is when the "nuclear family" ideal was developed, which was defined as a single generation of husband and wife + minor children living in a single-family home. It was a marketing ploy to sell more houses, more appliances and furniture, more cars, etc. All of this led to more isolation, which in turn led to more consumption.
As George Carlin once put it, "you don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge." That's the case here. This was just Capitalism doing what Capitalism does, which is sell more shit to more people.
You're absolutely right.
This is just something we will tell ourselves to cope with our spiraling quality of life.
There's enough existing housing and resources for the vast majority of people to live off a single income.
Wealth inequality keeps all that excess under the control of less than 4000 billionaires that now own most wealth that exists.
Also why so many areas are zoned single-family housing and don't allow apartments or other "missing middle" types of housing. Houses require a lot more resources to maintain, including utilities and increased car dependency.
It is still normal in many parts of the world.
I've just spent six days on holiday with some of my extended family, all adults, staying in a hotel with my own room and en suite bathroom. It was great and we had a lot of fun but after less than a week I'm VERY happy to be back in my own home with the knowledge that it'll just be me and my cat in the morning. Maybe some people would prefer to keep living with family into adulthood, maybe I would if I'd been used to it but as it stands I love my parents and siblings though the idea of living with them fills me with dread.
lol yes wanting freedom and to be away from your parents at 18. A psyop. Jesus Christ.
I don't know psyop, but a cultural norm to say "when your 18 you're out".
From the age of 12 on, not only did my parent say this habitually, they also stopped parenting completely.
It was a common theme of rejection in my house. I could have been the perfect kid, and tried, but I'd still here "you're gone when your 18". Never mind I didn't even graduate Highschool until I had been 18 for a few months- it was habitual rejection all through my teens, and to me, sounded like, I'm done parenting you and I don't want you in my life past the years the government madates I take care of you.
Shit hurts. My husband's parents weren't like that, some of my friends were, some of my friends weren't. You can tell who's doing better now, and it's not the kids who were told they were out at 18.
If you don't intend to help your young adult children through their early start, especially today when it's so hard, don't bother having children.
To add, I got kidnapped once by a mentally ill "friend" off their meds when I was 20 years old. At 6:00 in the morning I was able to make it to my mother's door. When I knocked, she said I needed to deal with the consequences of my actions, And she didn't want to deal with this. So I had to get back into this person's car. My mother rejected me and my plea for help. I had just asked to stay at her house until the first bus ran to go home because I was in trouble. She said no and slammed the door in my face. I got back in the car, and a few hours later, I had no idea where we were. The man stopped stopping at stop signs because I kept trying to jump out. He locked me in the car. Eventually I was able to escape, and the police were called, and I couldn't call my mother for help. I will never do that to my children. Her consequences for her actions now are 15 years now of no contact.
I'm 42 and my parents recently moved in with me. Someone killed me.
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It's culturally dependent. It is not taboo to still live with your parents in some countries. And considering the housing market difficulties, it is actually becoming more acceptable in places where the practice has been previously taboo.
You're overthinking it.
Parents just want their lives back. Plain and simple.
When your kids are 18+ they shouldn't be impacting your life that much, assuming you spent the time doing things like chores, boundaries, etc as they were growing up. I moved out at 25. I bought groceries, did yard work, helped clean the house, did my own laundry, etc. I don't care if my kids choose to stay with me past 18.
That's the difference between having an "adult child" and a "responsible adult" living with their parents.
Not every parent has the latter 😂
There are horror stories of adult children abusing their parents and basically taking over to house.
But honestly, even with a responsible adult child in the home, it's not the same as having an empty nest. And I'm sure it works both ways with the adults living at home, feeling like they want their own space and not just shared living quarters.
The key term is delayed adolescence. Having a 19 year old that has a job, does their own laundry, pays their own bills, etc is different from someone who is still on mom and dad's insurance and phone plans, not paying rent, and not buying groceries.
As an example, at 25 I was working full time and my boss was 10 years older than me. My car insurance went up and I was complaining about it to my boss. Overall he didn't think it was a big deal, but the next day he came in and told me that our conversation had got him thinking. Turns out his parents were still paying for his phone bill and car insurance. A 35 year old man living on his own and his parents were still paying his fucking bills and, icing on the cake, he wasn't aware of it.
We don't fit in our house I don't need all three to leave, but I need one of them to. I don't have an office/personal space.
I also don't have an office space and worked covid from my basement. I think modern homes are too big, but I also totally get the desire for a home office. Unfortunately, for me at least, most homes that have an office also come with things like a formal dining room which seem like a waste of square footage.
I don't have a basement or an attic. My oldest sleeps in part of what once was a one car garage garage. It now is a laundry room and a small bedroom. There are many nights when the only place we don't have someone sleeping is the kitchen, the laundry room and the two bathrooms. I really could use an office space tho. I've been working from home more in 2025 than any other year and my PC is in the living room but there are often teenagers sleeping in there and I like to start working around 5am because my wife gets up for work at 4. I'm just waiting it out at this point, one of these kids will move out someday. Right?
Right?
That does sound pretty tight. We're very fortunate to have a basement, which is pretty common in the Midwest but not universal. Without it the covid years would have been very tough, especially since our kids were very young at the time and wouldn't have understood "parent working". We wound up having to put a lock on our basement door.
The way your post reads, it seems like you're doing the best you can. I'm sure a kid will move out someday and wish you the best both before and after that occurs!
Yeah they're 20, 17 and 15. It could still be a few more years but we're making changes to keep the living room more free. It's also been extra challenging because for the last six months my job has been going through big changes and I haven't had an office at work either, which is why I've been working at home more. I can't tell you how many hours I've worked standing in my kitchen, sitting at a conference table alone at work, or working from my car or a cafe or something. It's actually been really cool, but sometimes really challenging.
Remember, just because someone posts something on the Internet with confidence, doesn't mean they know what they're talking about.
A lot of people really need to stop taking advice from Twitter/X, Facebook/Meta, Reddit/Lemmy, etc.
Spare me the predictable reply "but why should I listen to you" or any variation.
Username checks out
I think it's more complicated than that , I immensely despised living with my parents and even if it was unaffordable I didn't want to move back even though I did a few times
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I'm in the party that thinks if you have a full-time job you should be able to afford a home
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I wish this was our problem. Of course, there should be no shame in living with your parents. But it should be out of free will, and here in the Netherlands sadly that isn't the case for many. Our housing market simply doesn't offer affordable housing options. For many young people the only option is a rental apartment that will cost you so much, that if you can afford it at all, you can forget about ever saving any money. Which means that you'll effectively be stuck in this situation forever. Which is an option to consider, but meanwhile those who can afford to buy a house, because of rich parents or whatnot, they have a far better deal, often even paying less on a monthly basis, while at the same time their house increases in value. It's a major dividing factor in our society, separating the rich from the poor. Of course staying home is another realistic option to consider, and more and more people make this choice, but only for lack of a better option. The real tragedy is of course when staying at home is also not a realistic option. A fucked-up housing market makes the vulnerable all the more vulnerable.
this is basically what it’s like in america… including the infuriating fact that people’s mortgage payment on a home is usually less than rent… but the man won’t give you a home loan so you’re endlessly a wage slave and paying rent.
landlords even brag about how smart they are by paying their mortgage directly with the rent… like they have a free house hack… forgetting that someone is forced to pay to live….
the only good way to beat it i know is to buy a foreclosure home for cheap and fix it up… but even then you need a good chunk saved up and it’s risky
The real reason your parents want you out is so they can fuck everywhere in peace and bring the kink back into their life. Kids are the ultimate mood spoilers.
*meant in jest, you're all lovely*
Other way around too. One major reason why the current cohort of 18-25 year olds aren't getting any is because no one wants to bring someone back to their parents' place.
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No THIS POST is a psyop to help normalise the idea of generational family living at home again so that we'll swallow the ungodly recession and poverty that will be brought upon the entire working class; should we not agree, as a global unit, to Tax the rich and restore wealth to the Government, Middle and Working classes and out of the hands of Billionaires. Fuck this post.
Anytime anyone suggests we need to decrease consumption people complain that it's a plot by the rich to get us used to poverty.
we should eat less meat
The elites are trying to make the poor eat bugs
we need to drive less
The rich are taking away our freedom
we need to live in denser housing
The rich are trying to force you into a shoe box
You know what the rich really want?, consumption. They want you buying as much as possible because that's the way we get growth and it also makes it so you have less savings and are more dependent on your job, and less likely to make demands or quit.
I agree we need massive wealth redistribution and consumption by the 1% is magnitudes more harmful then the rest. But the current american lifestyle of heating and cooling an entire house for 1-2 people in a sprawled out suburb where you have to drive everywhere and have meat with every meal is not sustainable either. We need to reprioritize what we value as a society, deemphasizing individuality and private ownership and moving towards community.
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Here's the thing.
It shouldn't be stigmatized, and it shouldn't be something that's any of anyone else's business beyond being an interesting fact about a person. Just one more nugget to find.
There's no single right answer for everyone.
Families are fucking complicated. Some of them, you could happily live together your entire life. Others, you might need a giant house and you'd still have friction. Some, you don't even want to be in the same state, much less share a house.
It is, however, true that as the number of people in a group increases, the work required to maintain healthy relationships increases exponentially.
If there is not parity between those relationships, it multiplies the effect. Which means that everyone involved has to be willing to adapt and change over time for things to stay hair and healthy. When that isn't the case, the household is going to split in some way or another, and that usually means someone leaving is essentially necessary.
Think about it. Two people that love each other have work to do to maintain their relationship, be it romantic, friendship, parent/child, siblings, whatever. You add a third person to that, and instead of one relationship you have 4, not three. Because each individual relationship exists, and now the three way one does.
Now, think about two people starting a family. Say they only have one kid. The kid becomes an adult, with adult needs, responsibilities, wants, and habits. If the parents keep treating them like a child, dissonance will occur in most situations.
Now, have that child get married too. You've now got 4 individual relationships to maintain, the original triplet, the new triplet with the spouse and parents, plus a triplet with each parent, the child, and the child's spouse, then the quartet.
That's a shit ton of work. You've got all those people having to compromise, adjust their habits and remember boundaries. That's not something where everyone is going to major the optimum decision every single time. It's impossible almost, though if everyone puts in the effort roughly equally, it can be maintained for a lifetime.
Now, the second couple have a kid. Map out those connections and the level of difficulty spikes hard.
But, as hard as it is, if you find someone that's living in shared space, people still assume there's something wrong with the younger adults involved. And there may be, but it isn't a certainty the way people assume it will be.
There's benefits and drawbacks to every option when it comes to how a family lives, be it centralized, spread out, or fully disconnected.
Now, I've done all of that. At various points, I've lived with my sibling and parents as an adult; we've all lived apart as individuals, we've lived as duos (though not in every combination), and I've had two partners that lived with me during all of that, and a best friend that was there through damn near all of it, and his husband for a while, plus my kid in the mix.
At various points, different people owned the house, even though it's been the same house that I grew up in for most of that. It was originally my dad as owner, with my mom having her share of that as a spouse. Then they divorced, and my dad got the house and my mom got a big check. She still lived here, but that's a separate thing. Then my dad fucked up, and me and my best friend bought it. Now, I'm the only one on the mortgage.
The dynamics of that meant that the "power" shifted as ownership did because at the end of the day, whoever is on the mortgage/deed has final legal responsibility, financial responsibility, and that means having final say on some matters, no matter how democratic everything else is. That creates an extra dynamic on top of all the others.
I can tell you for sure that it takes work, hard emotional work, to navigate every iteration of that. When that work isn't being done by everyone, shit can get bad fast.
But it's also amazing. The amount of good in it is mind boggling if you take each family unit being apart as the goal that is the only measure of success. When everyone is clicking along, and there's equity between everyone, gods it's beautiful.
Just on a practical level, everyone with income had more left over than they otherwise would have, and none of us have ever had to face the bad times alone. We've had each others back more times than I can even count (I tried, and I kept remembering more until I gave up, and I was creeping on triple digits where the level of support was part of at least one of us making it through).
And on the emotional level? It can be chaotic, yeah, but if you don't know the goodness of being able to just hug your dad any time you want to because he's just in the other room, I'm sorry. Right now, I can go hug my dad, and don't have to leave the house. He'll laugh, and ask what's up. I'll say "nothing, I just love you", and then we'll get teary eyed and he'll say it back, and then we go about our days.
It isn't for everyone. But gods damn, it sure as hell isn't a bad thing to try either
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Its because the US excluded housing appreciation from the CPI, leading to lots of cheap debt all over the world that gradually bid up home values via the cantillon effect. Its now called owners equivalent rent, and its ridiculous.
Exporting all our production to China also helped dropped rates via deflation, though housing being excluded allowed it to simply flow into housing instead of achieving prosperity.
Asian families: what do you mean "leave"?
Seriously, it's not a bad thing to stay until you can afford to leave.
My mother's family was similar to this a few generations ago, 4-5 generations used to live in one house in Midwest USA. Their home spread from one city block to another. That said, I cannot imagine living in a <2500 sqft home with my parents and my significant other. My SO would go Thunderdome on my Mom and my dad would be freaking out on the sidelines.
I have a coworker who is engaged, he lives at his parent's place and his fiance lives at her parents place. As someone who lived without my parents (even if it meant having roommates) since 18, I cannot at all understand long term living with parents.
Communal family living was a thing in the past because modesty, temperance, and christian values were expected norms. If you want to be a puritan, or don't have familial shame, then do whatever you want. For me, I'm gonna have my privacy and peace.
PS: My coworker can't spend the night with his fiance because her parents are mega religious. He can either sleep on the couch or go to his parent's place. Likewise, his parent's won't let her stay overnight at all because they aren't married.
Communal family living was a thing in the past because modesty, temperance, and christian values were expected norms.
Most of human existence have communal family living... it wasnt until the last century were it became common place to leave the family because we no longer live in an agrarian society and work can easily be found away from your family home.
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Maybe the kids also want their privacy? If you don't own n old house with thick brick walls between the rooms, you are basically unable to casually have sex without all adjacent rooms hearing you.
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