Trying to avoid failure to launch adults

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

How do you know what the kids are doing? What is your definition of "failure to launch?" What if the kids have some medical issues? Would that give them permission to live your life? Why worry about problems that might not happen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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

.

The oddly triggered poster had entered the chat…

OP was the oddly triggered one.

+1 to MYOB OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

OP here. I am afraid 2 of my 3 children will be like this, especially my daughter. She is used to and likes the finer things in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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

.

The oddly triggered poster had entered the chat…

OP was the oddly triggered one.

+1 to MYOB OP.

I’m not triggered at all. My kids are still young. They live a very privileged life. I genuinely want to avoid have them fail to launch when they become adults.

This has nothing to do with the neighbors’ adult children. I don’t really care what they do. They are not my children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

OP here. I am afraid 2 of my 3 children will be like this, especially my daughter. She is used to and likes the finer things in life.

You need to stop paying for the finer things for her. She needs an allowance to manage and to get a job at 16 to pay for the finer things she wants.

My kids are very frugal with their money. I'd be fine with them living at home for a year or two after to college to save money or while going to grad school. But we'll also charge them some amount of rent so they are used to not having all their money for fun. I don't see that as failure to launch (assuming they are working, which shouldn't be an issue- both are working FT this summer) but a smart investment to get yourself started on a strong financial footing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

OP here. I am afraid 2 of my 3 children will be like this, especially my daughter. She is used to and likes the finer things in life.

Until she’s 16 she needs a very minimal allowance (mine gets $25 a month and that’s it) and once she’s 16 she needs a job. Regardless, do not pay for Starbucks or smoothies or random clothing she wants. Even for seasonal clothing she “needs” set a low budget for it and make her pay the rest. My girls know they will never do without needs, but if they want to live the Starbucks/Sephora/Lululemon lifestyle of their friends, that’s on them.

[Anonymous]

Reading now, might be helpful:

https://a.co/d/hjCeTvN

You're Not Done Yet: Parenting Young Adults in an Age of Uncertainty by Dr. B. Janet Hibbs and Dr. Anthony Rostain

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

I don’t know but I also see this all the time in my UMC neighborhood. I would feel ashamed and like I didn’t raise my children well if they were to move back home as young adults! Not sure why it’s become socially acceptable now…..

[Anonymous]

My parents helped with rent while we took our first few jobs after college that were entry level and didn’t pay particularly well. None of us ever moved home and after a few years we didn’t need help with rent anymore.

[Anonymous]

I don't think you'll have an issue unless your child has a undiagnosed or diagnosed mental illness or you are very emotionally enmeshed in such a way they cant function on their own. Just buying them nice things and not making them get a job as a teen is not going to lead to failure to launch. Just keep an eye out for mental/emotional issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

I don’t know but I also see this all the time in my UMC neighborhood. I would feel ashamed and like I didn’t raise my children well if they were to move back home as young adults! Not sure why it’s become socially acceptable now…..

Because housing has gotten crazy expensive, lots of students had to move home during COVID and found it was ok, and I think generally today's parents/20-somethings tend to not have as big of a generation gap as earlier generations. Multiple generations living together has long, long been the norm for families. The everyone-on-their-own as soon as possible is really an aberration. My siblings and I all bounced between independence and living with parents for short stretches in our 20s as we established our lives. We're all close and doing well in our independent lives. And 83 yr old mom now lives with my sister and her 21 yr old son, continuing the multigenerational living.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents helped with rent while we took our first few jobs after college that were entry level and didn’t pay particularly well. None of us ever moved home and after a few years we didn’t need help with rent anymore.

I had a coworker in my 20s with this arrangement. I'd wondered how they afforded such a nice apartment while I'd moved home with my parents and dealt with a long commute. In both cases our parents were helping with housing but they looked independent to an outside observer while I might have been seen as 'failure to launch".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make sure they are working jobs beginning at 16 years of age.

This. Mine was expected to be working at least PT every summer. He loved earning his own money and became very price conscious because of it. He's now more frugal than I am. Make sure they use some of that money to pay for things like their cell phone, car insurance, etc.

[Anonymous]

NP here. I

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Are you a bot or an eager parent of elementary schoolers?

FYI, there are plenty of people that don’t eat healthy or exercise regularly, or have tons of friends who nevertheless launched very successfully. There are people who weren’t loved, and that’s why they launched super fast - didn’t have a choice.

OTOH, the main thing for launching is to have life skills. Low tolerance for frustration combined with low life skills is usually what lands the kids in their parents’ basement. And then once they are past a certain age, those become major handicaps.