20 somethings not growing up

well said, i am not sure how us disagreeing with him leads him to the conclusion that we don't have a life and watch too many tv shows.i haven't owned a tv in 5 years and i can't remember the last time I went to a movieall i know is that a lot can change between when a kid is 12 and 17, and you of all people (a casual outside observer) can't sure as hell predict what that kid will be like.i am not saying he is not spoiled, he sure may bebut saying at 12 he will live with mommy and granny while he goes to college is just their wishes at this point... much will change in the next few yearsand rebelling against parents doesn't have to mean drug use - who is the one watching too many movies?

spaniel wrote:

He has a 16 year old sister and she sure hasn't rebelled and turned in to the drug crazy rebel without a cause the other guy tells us is likely to happen.

swear most of you here get 99.9% of your life experiences from movies and video games. Get a real life, will you?

Apparently you're to one venting adolescent angst anonymously on the internet, infuriated that in a long chain of posts someone lost a little of the train you weree on, so with that lack of character development I don't think I'm too concerned that your experience may differ from mine.

marijuologist wrote:

My mother coddled my younger brother to death and it has totally destroyed him. He's 23, a high school dropout, a meth user, and has never worked a day in his life. He sits around the house all day and is totally helpless, relying on his mom to do everything for him. He is worthless. My parents are pathological enablers and are utterly incapable of standing up to him or changing their behavior in any way. I don't think the situation will ever change.

Your brother is a different case than what we're talking about here. A meth addict is someone who has zero ability to control anything he does in his life. Your brother can't work and can't finish school until he gets clean. You sound like you're bitter about your brother, and probably rightfully so, because that's hard on the whole family, but if your parents can't help him out, you should step up and do it yourself. Meth is a fu.... up drug. To be perfectly honest, whether I'm right or wrong, you sound like the person we're talking about in this thread. There is a situation that you don't like, and rather than deal with it, you're complaining about it on a message board. I realize that this is an unfair critique of you, based on a very limited amount of what you have to say, but that's what I gather from what you said.

This discussion is about perfectly capable people who are not skilled enough (by their own doing or not) or not motivated enough, to make it in the real world. I know plenty of these people and I have a lot less sympathy for them than I do for your brother (and I do realize that your brother made his choice and now he has to live with it, but people who get in to that sh... really don't know what they're getting into).

marijuologist wrote:

My mother coddled my younger brother to death and it has totally destroyed him. He's 23, a high school dropout, a meth user, and has never worked a day in his life. He sits around the house all day and is totally helpless, relying on his mom to do everything for him. He is worthless. My parents are pathological enablers and are utterly incapable of standing up to him or changing their behavior in any way. I don't think the situation will ever change.

Substitute "marijuana" for "meth", and you just described yourself as well!

I put the blame on the parents

quite simply we are a nation of "Paula" parents

when we should be closer to a nation of "Simon" parents

Everyone's a winner- yay!!!

I don't know that many people living with their parents past age 24 or so (I'm 25) but I know a TON who are still getting significant financial support from their parents while living elsewhere. A lot of parents pay for law school/med school/whatever. That can be hundreds of thousands of dollars! Also they pay for weird things, like cars, cell phones, rent... and many of these people are married. Some even have children. This is just astounding to me......

Although I am no angel- my grandparents still send me $50 checks for my birthday. I love that!

Dean, for all the bashing on kids still living at home, how many kids living "independently" are receiving significant financial support from the parents. It's exactly the same as living at home...just with a different facade.

Again, cost of college is higher, amount of debt is greater...you can't compare your fossilized world to the here and now...sorry.

one reason that college costs are so high is precisely because the "consumers" are shielded from the true costs of college. Parents pay, parents take out loans, students take out loans, students get aid, etc. - no one gets the real bill until after the fact - if tuition goes up then the consumer takes out a bigger loan after they get their worthless degree in philosophy, art history, film studies, theater arts, women's studies, ethnic and minority studies, sociology or some other trivial pursuit.

is that the consumers fault? When I stay at a hotel I'm pissed to have to pay $12 for a couple soggy pancakes from room service. It's those damn business travelers that screw it up for the regular folks. Big business can absorb those stupid costs, I can't.

Bosnian Sniper wrote:

one reason that college costs are so high is precisely because the "consumers" are shielded from the true costs of college. Parents pay, parents take out loans, students take out loans, students get aid, etc. - no one gets the real bill until after the fact - if tuition goes up then the consumer takes out a bigger loan after they get their worthless degree in philosophy, art history, film studies, theater arts, women's studies, ethnic and minority studies, sociology or some other trivial pursuit.

What would you advise to someone who is majoring in something similar to what you mentioned? I will come out of a decent public university with a solid GPA and with no debt for me or my parents.

silly old fossil wrote:

Dean, for all the bashing on kids still living at home, how many kids living "independently" are receiving significant financial support from the parents. It's exactly the same as living at home...just with a different facade.

Exactly. I'm 24, and I live with my parents and will for another year until I finish grad school. It lets me finish grad school debt free.

A lot of my friends have apartments that their parents pay for, get help with bills. I don't pay rent here, but I buy my share of the groceries, pay for my car, cell phone, etc. I do my share of the cleaning, cooking, yard work. Is taking up a room but not really any money any more mooching mooching/being less independent than people who don't take up that room but take buckets of cash from their parents?

I am 40 and had to move back in with my parents a couple of months ago. I lost my job after a messy divorce and was just flat broke. I don't want to be here, am just here until I can get back on my feet. Just started a new job a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully it won't be long. I do all of my own laundry and am a buch better housekeeper than my parents are, so that's definitely not why I'm here. Just recoiling after a string of bad luck combined with a couple of bad decisions.

I graduated from a good public school but I'm taking more math classes and trying for a master's degree in applied math or computational finance. I was thinking about medicine but I decided it wasn't for me right now. I figure that getting a master's in something quantitative will be a good investment. My degree is econ and international studies but I didn't take much math.

I have a part-time job and get financial support from my parents (both government analysts). I feel pretty good about life, my hobbies, and that I'm still learning. My parents have helped me and I'll pay them back and take care of them when they're older.

If a recruiter thinks I'm lazy, then oh well. Math skills seem like a useful thing. If somebody wants to go back to school or travel, who cares if it creates an employment gap? We'll all probably get outsourced anyway. HR people suck.

I can tell you this. We were all sold on this culture's "American Dream" and we bought it hook line and sinker. We don't know what the f*** hit us when we all didn't turn out to be famous actors/rock stars/athletes/overnight millionaires. Who's fault? I think everyone shares it.

I'm in my mid 20s, graduated from college debt free through scholarships and some help from my Dad who told me from the beginning he'd cover whatever in state costs were. Relied on a no-interest loan from pops when I graduated from college that I'm paying back (that only lasted for a few months at best). But since then, I have been completely on my own and never moved back home. Of course, I've lived below the poverty line for the last three years (luckily with health insurance for the past year and a half or so), but I'm doing what I want, hopefully putting in the time and experience needed for my chosen career path, have had the freedom to continue to run/train pretty hard and travel by various means. It's been the best three years of my life.

I also realize that if I continue down this path, I very well may never have the trophy wife, kids, big house, vacation home, six-figure salary and church-on-Sundays lifestyle that we've been told we want. I don't think I'll be missing out on much.

Just an alternative route I suppose although some may very merrily accuse me of never growing up.

This is the only informative post in the entire thread.

From my perspective, the article seems pretty worthless without statistics. So here you go:

For all the generational bickering, not much has changed. Shocking.

yes, that is also true.

My brother is able to be economically self-sufficient living at home, going to school FULL TIME and working a FULL TIME factory job. As long as he's working hard, my parents are happy not to pay for his school/car/bills, and let him stay home abit longer (he's 26 btw).

Me, 22, always more than 3000miles from home, trying to be a self-sufficient student (college fund covers tuition and airfare only). I'm a uni athlete, full time school, and work two crappy part-time jobs. I took some time off sports to focus on school (injuries), work, I'm always worn out, getting injured. I can't wait to graduate this spring, a few thousand less to payout each year and more time to work and train! but yes, I'm worried about continuing to scrape by for another 15 years.... :(

several of my friends have moved home, and commute to work as they can't afford big-city condo rent with entry-level jobs, but are saving up so that one day they can.

The point is that the situation developed out of my parents' coddling. They did everything for him, bought everything for him, gave him whatever he wanted, and never put any pressure on him to do anything for himself. Over time he learned that the way to get money was not by getting a job and working for it, but rather by demanding it from my mom. He is 23 and my mom still makes his meals, does his laundary, and drives him around. He is enrolled in a high school competion program and I have caught my mom doing his homework for him. It is the most disgraceful situation imaginable.

And for those of you who would call me a hypocrite, I no longer live with my parents and no longer smoke pot.

marijuologist wrote:

And for those of you who would call me a hypocrite, I no longer live with my parents and no longer smoke pot.

I hope this doesn't come across as patronizing, but you do seem like a different person than the guy who first started posting here (in a good way).

Some people, like myself, who have a lot of savings can afford to not work for a period. It doesn't mean we're freeloading off mom and dad. I've taken breaks a few times because of life events and to reflect on things.

And if my kid needs some support, as long as they're going to school or doing something useful that's fine.

One of my friends (36 y.o.) used to work in financial services and has been studying philosophy for two years while living partly off his family's trust fund. Would you employ him or is he freeloading in your opinion? Maybe you guys would call it coddling but I think it's good that he's happy and learning something new and that his family saved something (most Americans don't save enough).