I recently read an article from the New York Times called, “It’s Official: The Boomerang Kids Won’t Leave.” The story is a familiar one: adult children fall on hard times after college and need to move home in order to make ends meet.
This is an experience that many parents have had.
The challenge is this: how do you get the kids to leave? What can and should you be doing in order to get them to a place of autonomy?
In today’s show we tackle this subject.
We also cover some ideas for younger parents to implement in order to help your children avoid the boomerang effect in the first place.
Joshua
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Aw what a nice intro to the show. I grew up with James Harriot too. My mom watched the TV shows in the 80s. It was really authentic, the actor would actually shove his arm all the way up the cow’s you-know-what. British TV was always pretty good stuff.
I really don’t understand what is up with people these days. Why do they want to live with their parents at that age? I moved out at 23, got a freakin’ dishwashing job and had 7 room mates in a crappy house. It was SO MUCH FUN. I wasn’t even slightly worried in a “career”. It took about three years before I did, andmade moves towards it. I’ve had many different jobs since, some with good pay some without. I’ve had loads of room mates and made life long strong friendships from it. I have never moved back home or even needed to ask my folks for money all that much. Living with the folks an’t fun! No silly things happen, no spontaneous parties or back yard fires. No networking happens.
So many wussies out there now.
Another great podcast Joshua.
Point well taken.
We have seven kids; 4 adults and 3 teens.
Strong medicine in this podcast.
I also listened to your podcast about how you are going to “take off the restraints” on what you talk about on your podcast.
I’m glad you made that decision.
Stay radical my brother…
Thought I’d provide “the spice of life” to your podcast by disagreeing.
Although there are certainly cases where children are being leeches and refusing to take responsibility for themselves, we have a different situation. Both our children moved out fairly young–our daughter when she was 18 (she lived in Mexico for 9 mos then to college), and our son when he was almost 16 (moved out, shared a house with 4 other boys and worked full time). When our daughter graduated, she took a job and rented a house with two other women. Around the same time, both realized that they really didn’t like sharing their living arrangements with their respective house-mates and preferred to live with “the people they love.” Even though both are financial responsible and able to support themselves, they both moved back home with us. All of us were happier for it.
We didn’t ask them for rent since we don’t need the money. Our children saved their money and bought rental properties. Our daughter moved away last year (*sniff*) to enter a PhD program. Our son quit his job to write the great American novel. He’s finished it and is about to shop it around to publishers.
Neither of our children is irresponsible, or a drain on our finances. They are both the joy of our lives and can live with us whenever and where ever they want. We lived together to support each other and enjoy each others’ company–no matter their ages. We look at our time together in their adult years, when many (most?) American families are separated due to school and work, as a gift.
Isn’t that how families should be?
As an aside, I am well aware that in past generations, both would be married by now, but in our bizarre culture, people are marrying much later and our children are fitting into that pattern. Ugh.