Trying to avoid failure to launch adults
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Anonymous
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We live in an affluent area and I’m shocked at the number of adult kids living at home not doing much. One mom told me not to let our kids move back home or they will never leave. I have multiple neighbors with college grad children who seem to be unemployed or quit their job to come back home.
How do we prevent kids from failing to launch? We live a very comfortable life. I could see my kids wanting to come back home, which I honestly love the idea of but not at the expense of the kids not working and becoming functional adults. |
Anonymous
| Make sure they are working jobs beginning at 16 years of age. |
Anonymous
| Once they’re adults, you can just say no to them moving back home. You can’t make your kids do or be anything, especially at this point, but you have total control over whether or not they live in your house. |
Anonymous
This is not true. I live in a very affluent area of MD. For one culturally some young adults in the DMV move home because that is their culture. It is called building family wealth. Others moved home because of COVID and work from home. Rents are insane so what if they moved back home if the parents are ok with that? I would love it if mine did. These are only a handful of families. The majority of young adults are not living at home with their parents you are an idiot. Most of us raised them to go to college get degrees that get jobs and off they go to their own lives. So what if they move home, MYOB |
Anonymous
| My kids are early 20s - one is financially independent in a big city and the other was independent in another big city for a few years but will be moving home to take a few prerequisites for a challenging grad course they want to pursue. Moving home makes sense for young adults in many situations - they want to work or intern for a non-profit that is low paying for the experience, they want to return to grad school and one of the local options is best (and don't want loans for living), they are saving for a house, they are having trouble finding work and need a home base for the job search, they hated their job, and want to make a career change etc. My DC knows quite a few kids that are home for various reasons that make sense. I also know of other young people living at home because they dropped out of college or have mental health issues that prevent them from holding a job. Severe mental health challenges are a bigger issue and something you cannot easily anticipate or remedy. I don't know of many kids that just want to loaf around and have mom cook dinner every night because its easy street. |
Anonymous
This is huge. I do not understand parents who say "My child needs to study". No, your child can do both. And yes get straight A's. It is called important life skills. Like reading a paycheck, paying taxes etc... |
Anonymous
. The oddly triggered poster had entered the chat… |
Anonymous
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Charge them rent and make them always have jobs. My UMC parents made me work at a minimum wage job until I had secured a high paying job and while I was interviewing.
You can always charge rent and then give it back to them in a lump sum specifically for a downpayment. Or keep it until they need a downpayment. My neighbors have wonderful, hardworking children. All of them went to fancy schools and have great degrees. And all of them returned home at various times. One just graduated and is working in DC currently, but living at home to save. Others stayed over summers while they had internships. |
Anonymous
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You avoid failure to launch by doing the work when they are young. Build them up, help them find a sense of self and a sense of purpose. Encourage their interests and invest in opportunities to grow and deepen those interests. Get them academic support if they need it. Give them chances to grow their confidence and make sure they feel secure in your love for them and their place in your family.
Model healthy adult behaviors -- healthy eating, regular exercise, positive social lives with friends and family who contribute to well being. Teach them about financial responsibility from a young age and give them opportunities to see the benefit of saving and investing in the future. Parents whose kids flounder in their 20s or even 30s will claim they did all this but they didn't. A well-raised person will not want to live at home doing nothing in adult hood. They might live at home for periods of time, to save for a downpayment or grad school, to help an ailing parent, to regroup after a job loss or breakup. That's fine and normal. But they won't get stuck there because they'll have the confidence and self-respect to go out and try again. Adults who don't have that didn't get the right support as minors. |
Anonymous
Ooo. OP hit a nerve, didn't she! |
Anonymous
| They need a job and to learn the value of the dollar very early on. |
Anonymous
| Do not give them enough spending money as teens that they don’t care about working. We live in a very affluent area and although I could afford to give them Starbucks and Lululemon money, I don’t. They have to pay for it themselves from working and or birthday/holiday gift money from relatives. I amazed how many of their friends seem to have unlimited budgets from the parents. |
Anonymous
This is the way. My parents weren't quite this strict, but we could only move home if we had a job or were actively interviewing and had a plan to move out. They also charged gradually increasing rent if we moved home. I didn't move home at all and my sibling took a few months to find a job that supported paying rent, then moved out. This did not come as a surprise to us, as we'd been told it throughout high school in a nice way. My dad also handed over the bills to basically everything that was mine as soon as I graduated college - car insurance, cell phone, and the like. |
Anonymous
| Just graduated from college, I was working a professional job and running down K St to waitress at night in order to barely afford a place to live. High school (W school) classmates came in, and were aghast to see me waitressing. They were living at home, going to the country club. It just seemed like they weren't willing to live whatever style of life they could afford on their own. Maybe it would have worried their parents and embarrassed them. |
Anonymous
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From my vantage point of who launched and who didn’t—
The ones that did not launch seem to have confidence issues possibly due to controlling or abusive parents. The ones with helicopter parents may have launched but seem a bit lost, spoiled, or have other issues. The ones who launched seem to have had parents who were bigger picture. They had and have healthy social lives, autonomy, their parents were not slave drivers or worse. Parents did not act like human shields to protect snowflakes. |