Why Are Young People Moving Back in With Their Parents? [View All]

[marmar]

from Psychotherapy Networker, via AlterNet:



....(snip)....

...... about 25 million young adults between between 18 and 34 are currently residing with their parents, and 65 percent of college grads move home for a year or two. It's the new family paradigm of bungee families: young adults and their boomer parents, mutually attached and living together for a while longer.

Just a generation ago, the child-rearing contract was clearly designed to last for about 18 years. Most families then, like my own, seemed pleased with a planned adolescent departure date. Kids didn't want to live at home, and after all the protesting and rebelling we'd put our parents through, they were usually relieved to see us go. By the time we'd finished high school, it was more than reasonable for our parents to assume that we'd move out and one way or another (through a job, going to college, getting married) start to stand on our own two unsubsidized feet. Most of us lived up to these expectations, not giving them a second thought—until we had kids of our own.

Family therapists were enthusiastic champions of this cultural narrative. Back in 1980, when Jay Haley's generative book Leaving Home was published, family treatment with late adolescents in the home focused on removing impediments to their departure. Parents learned to take charge and get their kids packing. Indeed, throughout much of American history, the ideal of successful maturity has touted the virtues of autonomy and individuation. The psychological necessity for such separation permeated popular sentiment, where even now it remains relatively unchallenged.

In its basic form, this story holds that most emerging adults still living at home are wretched, entitled, or manipulative kids, who are victimizing their hapless "permaparents." These parents, in turn, should get their own lives, stop being wimps and concierges, and escort their leeching offspring out the door. Good parents raise differentiated individuals who create their own paths. Even without agreeing on all the negative elements, most therapists still accept that an offspring's independence is the mark of a parental job well done, and that a successful intervention is one that helps cut the cord. ..........(snip)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/media/147821/why_are_young_people_moving_back_in_with_their_parents/