5 ms·

I think it's hard for some non-US Citizens to understand how rather backwards and unwelcome the thought is for Grown Children as Adults to be living at home wit

I think it's hard for some non-US Citizens to understand how rather backwards and unwelcome the thought is for Grown Children as Adults to be living at home with their Parents. The cultural fabric of the US mentality is to grow up and achieve "Independence" as a general concept. That usually means living away from family, and having the means to do so. Culturally, living with one's Parents in the United States, as a grown Adult, with or without a Spouse, is going to be predominately portrayed as a negative lifestyle indicator. As in, the Individual doesn't have the choice of Independence, at least not the basic financial / living arrangements type. The "Sandwich Generation" label scares the ever loving spirit of freedom out of most US people who might find themselves caught between providing for both Kids AND Parents. Assimilation into values such as this US type of Independence are, understandably, quite foreign to several other Large Cultures elsewhere in the World. However, on this turf, it is the prevailing attitude. No amount of "Well in other countries it's perfectly normal" will turn the tide regarding this component of the US life experience, and, at least here, it's an indicator of a need to further assimilate or, unfortunately, deal with cultural push back. To be fair to the US, this happens when US people try to ascribe their values to other cultures as well. I get it. Two way street.

adventured 10y ago
I have some kind of fetish for saving interesting data images, so here's one for this (covering Europe + US): http://i.imgur.com/Ps8qQ4A.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Ps8qQ4A.jpg
- antisthenes 10y ago
  Overlay with unemployment and PPP per capita maps and you'll be starting to get a clearer picture.
- distances 10y ago
  It's worth noting that getting to the low percentages requires a society that subsidizes living costs. In the Nordic countries living with your parents as an adult implies some non-financial reason to do so; every adult will receive housing benefits for independent living if needed.
franciscop 10y ago
> "Well in other countries it's perfectly normal" The problem is that in other cultures it is not only normal, but going far away is bad! I am talking about moving from cities, not actually living with your parents. In Spain this happens mainly in smaller cities and towns and with somewhat more traditional thinking families. In many of these cases* you are expected to stay close so the family takes care of each other in both ways. Even the next big city might be a reason for relatives to feel bad for your family. The person moving away is categorized normally into: - Needs it for $: financially unstable OR greedy, while other cultures would see this as a positive career improvement. If these people are already at the top of their career path, then they should help improve the country! - Troublesome: someone who doesn't care for the family, while other cultures would see this as independent. These are expected to end up like those non-fancy-titled people who are flipping bugers or receiving you in a hostal in UK or Germany. - Temporary to grow: it is okay to go abroad as long as you come back later on. Normally it is expected that they tell a lot of stories about how crappy the other country was and all the trouble they had. Luckily I am from a bigger city and my family knows (even though they won't verbally admit it) how bad this country is for what my sister and I like doing. They try to show support us working abroad even though it's clear they are unhappy when we go away. *Yes, there are many situations where this is not the case! Normally with people who speak N languages and has a degree (like me) are not like this. I am talking about my experiences from smaller cities.
pdimitar 10y ago
You make it sound like the non-US countries have "living with your parents" as a cultural phenomena but this is barely true. It became a "culture" (if even that) due to economical pressures. Buying a flat or, gods forbid, a house in Bulgaria's capital (Sofia) is honestly a nightmare. The mortgages might as well be called slavery agreements (so don't give me the argument of "if you're 25 and have 3-4 years in one organization the bank will give you a mortgage") and well-paid jobs on the local market are as rare as unicorns. Thank all the gods for remote work or I'd probably be flipping burgers, my programmer skills be damned. In these conditions people try to optimize and make do with what they have. Bacterias adapt their behaviour depending on the environment, chickens do it, fish do it, everyone is doing it -- humans as well. Other posters here comment that obtaining homes in USA is becoming harder. I have no idea if that's true but if it is, expect more living with the parents in USA in the future as well.
- Markoff 10y ago
  go abroad, save money, return and buy without mortgage, that's what I did (5 years of easy job) together with savings of my wife and now I don't need to care about stupid mortgage like 90% of my peers, though we didn't return to my home country but step up a little bit moving into one of the most famous touristy capitals of Europe and I don't think we had some spectacular incomes when living abroad in her country, it's just that incomes there are much higher than in many European countries (so is cost of living, but renting is relatively cheap, so great place to save money for later) plus we are both frugal, so I never understood how people with similar salaries as us didn't have any savings, while we after 5 years saved for apartment in EU if you can work remotely, then obvious option would be to find country with lower expenses (PH/ID/TH) and work from there and save money (many of my friends moved there, not just because of cost of living but also for weather, enviroment), if moving to richer country and getting paid more is not an option
  - pdimitar 10y ago
    Apologies to everyone for off-topic. This isn't a forum for asking advice from strangers, but as long as @Markoff replied to me, I'll respond briefly. You're saying both you and your girlfriend are frugal. I am no longer neither frugal nor humble. I've been poor a lot of time in my life and even though at least 80% of that time was self-inflicted, this doesn't matter one bit in the end: your patience runs out. So here I am, totally out of patience, with debts and still having to think strategically. I am not a defeatist, I am a pretty strong guy, physically and mentally, but I am just burned out and very tired in a sense that cannot be fixed by sleep, sex, or food. I need a rest from being an adult. That won't happen. Ever. We all know it. So I am basically doing my best to increase my income but not decrease my expenses. Hard or not, it's my life and a battle for mine and my girl's happiness and fulfillment and I'll fight the battle as long as I am alive. Thank you for your advice.
princeb 10y ago
it's really not that on-topic here since the article is about children dependence on parents, but... I hope to eventually have the wherewithal to allow my parents to move into my home, which will have to be big enough to also house my wife and children with sufficient privacy for all, so that I (and my siblings) are right there with them to take care of them into their old age. guess you can call that "living with parents". it's such a broad definition of situations that I can't imagine that just the label alone is useful for judging much.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Markoff 10y ago
so in US they don't sell 2-generation houses? it's pretty common in Europe where I am from, not that common as it used to be in past, but they are still in market and especially in small towns/villages it's nothing uncommon that more generations are sharing same house or at least land, neighbors of my grandma from both sides are living this way, they are sharing their land but both generations have their own houses next to each other
- 6stringmerc 10y ago
  If I'm being brutally honest the only time in the US that one really sees "family clusters" like you describe is in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Or, in the case of St. Louis, a place that used to be nice but the City rotted around the homestead. The dynamic I've seen, especially in Urban US environments (Chicago, New York, Seattle, on and on miscellaneous Midwestern stops) versus International are drastically different - don't get me wrong, ROOTS are extremely a point of Pride. The idea, and I think Rap stars put it best, is to rise up and then buy your Mom a House somewhere nice. Go make it, then bring the rest of the family up. That's why them and NFL / MLB / US sports starts feel like they owe a lot of hungry mouths. It's complicated for sure!
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > If I'm being brutally honest the only time in the US that one really sees "family clusters" like you describe is in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. You occasionally see it in immigrant-heavy communities even when they aren't impoverished, because family-locality is a cultural value in many of them.
    - 6stringmerc 10y ago
      But, and I don't mean this blase style, I haven't seen immigrant heavy block-buying in $1-5M homestead Country Clubs, because people don't buy blocks of land like that in Westlake, Texas. Like you said - occasionally. It's not the status quo. Economics matter.

adventured 10y ago

I have some kind of fetish for saving interesting data images, so here's one for this (covering Europe + US): http://i.imgur.com/Ps8qQ4A.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Ps8qQ4A.jpg

antisthenes 10y ago
Overlay with unemployment and PPP per capita maps and you'll be starting to get a clearer picture.
distances 10y ago
It's worth noting that getting to the low percentages requires a society that subsidizes living costs. In the Nordic countries living with your parents as an adult implies some non-financial reason to do so; every adult will receive housing benefits for independent living if needed.

franciscop 10y ago

> "Well in other countries it's perfectly normal" The problem is that in other cultures it is not only normal, but going far away is bad! I am talking about moving from cities, not actually living with your parents. In Spain this happens mainly in smaller cities and towns and with somewhat more traditional thinking families. In many of these cases* you are expected to stay close so the family takes care of each other in both ways. Even the next big city might be a reason for relatives to feel bad for your family. The person moving away is categorized normally into: - Needs it for $: financially unstable OR greedy, while other cultures would see this as a positive career improvement. If these people are already at the top of their career path, then they should help improve the country! - Troublesome: someone who doesn't care for the family, while other cultures would see this as independent. These are expected to end up like those non-fancy-titled people who are flipping bugers or receiving you in a hostal in UK or Germany. - Temporary to grow: it is okay to go abroad as long as you come back later on. Normally it is expected that they tell a lot of stories about how crappy the other country was and all the trouble they had. Luckily I am from a bigger city and my family knows (even though they won't verbally admit it) how bad this country is for what my sister and I like doing. They try to show support us working abroad even though it's clear they are unhappy when we go away. *Yes, there are many situations where this is not the case! Normally with people who speak N languages and has a degree (like me) are not like this. I am talking about my experiences from smaller cities.

pdimitar 10y ago

You make it sound like the non-US countries have "living with your parents" as a cultural phenomena but this is barely true. It became a "culture" (if even that) due to economical pressures. Buying a flat or, gods forbid, a house in Bulgaria's capital (Sofia) is honestly a nightmare. The mortgages might as well be called slavery agreements (so don't give me the argument of "if you're 25 and have 3-4 years in one organization the bank will give you a mortgage") and well-paid jobs on the local market are as rare as unicorns. Thank all the gods for remote work or I'd probably be flipping burgers, my programmer skills be damned. In these conditions people try to optimize and make do with what they have. Bacterias adapt their behaviour depending on the environment, chickens do it, fish do it, everyone is doing it -- humans as well. Other posters here comment that obtaining homes in USA is becoming harder. I have no idea if that's true but if it is, expect more living with the parents in USA in the future as well.

Markoff 10y ago
go abroad, save money, return and buy without mortgage, that's what I did (5 years of easy job) together with savings of my wife and now I don't need to care about stupid mortgage like 90% of my peers, though we didn't return to my home country but step up a little bit moving into one of the most famous touristy capitals of Europe and I don't think we had some spectacular incomes when living abroad in her country, it's just that incomes there are much higher than in many European countries (so is cost of living, but renting is relatively cheap, so great place to save money for later) plus we are both frugal, so I never understood how people with similar salaries as us didn't have any savings, while we after 5 years saved for apartment in EU if you can work remotely, then obvious option would be to find country with lower expenses (PH/ID/TH) and work from there and save money (many of my friends moved there, not just because of cost of living but also for weather, enviroment), if moving to richer country and getting paid more is not an option
- pdimitar 10y ago
  Apologies to everyone for off-topic. This isn't a forum for asking advice from strangers, but as long as @Markoff replied to me, I'll respond briefly. You're saying both you and your girlfriend are frugal. I am no longer neither frugal nor humble. I've been poor a lot of time in my life and even though at least 80% of that time was self-inflicted, this doesn't matter one bit in the end: your patience runs out. So here I am, totally out of patience, with debts and still having to think strategically. I am not a defeatist, I am a pretty strong guy, physically and mentally, but I am just burned out and very tired in a sense that cannot be fixed by sleep, sex, or food. I need a rest from being an adult. That won't happen. Ever. We all know it. So I am basically doing my best to increase my income but not decrease my expenses. Hard or not, it's my life and a battle for mine and my girl's happiness and fulfillment and I'll fight the battle as long as I am alive. Thank you for your advice.

princeb 10y ago

it's really not that on-topic here since the article is about children dependence on parents, but... I hope to eventually have the wherewithal to allow my parents to move into my home, which will have to be big enough to also house my wife and children with sufficient privacy for all, so that I (and my siblings) are right there with them to take care of them into their old age. guess you can call that "living with parents". it's such a broad definition of situations that I can't imagine that just the label alone is useful for judging much.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Markoff 10y ago

so in US they don't sell 2-generation houses? it's pretty common in Europe where I am from, not that common as it used to be in past, but they are still in market and especially in small towns/villages it's nothing uncommon that more generations are sharing same house or at least land, neighbors of my grandma from both sides are living this way, they are sharing their land but both generations have their own houses next to each other

6stringmerc 10y ago
If I'm being brutally honest the only time in the US that one really sees "family clusters" like you describe is in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Or, in the case of St. Louis, a place that used to be nice but the City rotted around the homestead. The dynamic I've seen, especially in Urban US environments (Chicago, New York, Seattle, on and on miscellaneous Midwestern stops) versus International are drastically different - don't get me wrong, ROOTS are extremely a point of Pride. The idea, and I think Rap stars put it best, is to rise up and then buy your Mom a House somewhere nice. Go make it, then bring the rest of the family up. That's why them and NFL / MLB / US sports starts feel like they owe a lot of hungry mouths. It's complicated for sure!
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > If I'm being brutally honest the only time in the US that one really sees "family clusters" like you describe is in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. You occasionally see it in immigrant-heavy communities even when they aren't impoverished, because family-locality is a cultural value in many of them.
  - 6stringmerc 10y ago
    But, and I don't mean this blase style, I haven't seen immigrant heavy block-buying in $1-5M homestead Country Clubs, because people don't buy blocks of land like that in Westlake, Texas. Like you said - occasionally. It's not the status quo. Economics matter.