That does sound stressful. At least it seems like you've been able to retrospectively find some positive. But I've literally never heard of kids being told th

That does sound stressful. At least it seems like you've been able to retrospectively find some positive. But I've literally never heard of kids being told they had to leave home at 18, unless it's the foster care system where kids "age out" (even then, laws have changed recently to extend this to 21). As a parent, I cannot imagine telling my kids they have to leave, especially at a relatively very young age/maturity. Our kids leaving home comes up occasionally in conversations, most commonly perhaps with the typically exasperated parent retort of the genre of "well you can decide differently when you live on your own!" But even then, my kids have said things like "what if I don't want to live on my own?" And we always follow up with: "Then you can stay here as long as you want. This will always be your home." I really don't feel like our attitude in this respect is different from most other parents we know. But of course families can be very different, and I'm now aware that your experience may be more common that I previously thought. Thanks for sharing.