Failure to launch what age?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Should be out of the house after high school. Put your foot down and don’t allow your kids to boomerang back home.

Okay Kansas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think it's an age thing.

You can be 28 or 35 or 47 and live with your parents because it's a mutually fulfilling choice. Saves money for all of you, help each other out, maybe grandparents help with childcare. Intergenerational living isn't by definition a failure if everyone is on board.

If you are a parent who wants you kid to move out, but your fully employed, independent kid prefers to live at home to save up for a down payment, and you're unwilling to express to him that this is no longer working for you, similarly, I wouldn't call that failure to launch. That's just failure to grow a spine and communicate.

But if you're in the more common American position of a child living at home who is un/under employed, with or without a college degree but no graduate school, and truly unable to financially live independently when that's the parent's desire, I'd move that to the failure to launch category when the situation has been fairly static for over a year and the kid is over about age 25.

What does grad school have to do with it? Or are you saying that a kid could be underemployed but in grad school and that doesn't count

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has a job and living at home is NOT failure to launch. It is likely an affordability issue … do not blame the ridiculous cost of living on the adult kids.

If housing is too much, they have roommates like all the other twenty-somethings. The ones moving home are the exception, and their parents are their enablers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Figuring things out: 19- 24.

Failure to launch: 25-30.

I disagree with this.

After investing half a million dollars in each of my kids' educations, they damn well better have it figured out by 24.

That's on you. You're an idiot for spending that much, and you're also a bad person/parent for doing it voluntarily and then attaching strings to it.

[Anonymous]

22 after college duh

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Figuring things out: 19- 24.

Failure to launch: 25-30.

I disagree with this.

After investing half a million dollars in each of my kids' educations, they damn well better have it figured out by 24.

I feel the same. I expect my kids to have internships in undergraduate and a job lined up at college graduation, and independent housing lined up shortly after. I've sacrificed a lot for their education, and they need to do something with it. Also, I recently learned that the trust fund that my parents set up for my kids requires them to finish college, and they get a match on earned income up to a certain amount, which I think is great. Failure to launch is not an option.

Not all of us have trust funds to fall back on.

The trust fund was news to me - my parents told me they were giving everything to charity until last year, and when they mentioned they wanted to do something for my kids, I had to say that I've been maxing out their 529 plans since birth, so we don't need help there anymore. So, the trust funds are set up to reward the kids for getting through college and working. My kids are neurotypical, so they have no excuse. If they want to be bums, they get nothing. And they don't get to live it at home after their mid-20s. Happy to have them over for Sunday dinners, etc. But we won't enable failure to launch.

You really sound awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Figuring things out: 19- 24.

Failure to launch: 25-30.

I disagree with this.

After investing half a million dollars in each of my kids' educations, they damn well better have it figured out by 24.

I feel the same. I expect my kids to have internships in undergraduate and a job lined up at college graduation, and independent housing lined up shortly after. I've sacrificed a lot for their education, and they need to do something with it. Also, I recently learned that the trust fund that my parents set up for my kids requires them to finish college, and they get a match on earned income up to a certain amount, which I think is great. Failure to launch is not an option.

Not all of us have trust funds to fall back on.

The trust fund was news to me - my parents told me they were giving everything to charity until last year, and when they mentioned they wanted to do something for my kids, I had to say that I've been maxing out their 529 plans since birth, so we don't need help there anymore. So, the trust funds are set up to reward the kids for getting through college and working. My kids are neurotypical, so they have no excuse. If they want to be bums, they get nothing. And they don't get to live it at home after their mid-20s. Happy to have them over for Sunday dinners, etc. But we won't enable failure to launch.

You really sound awful.

It would be awful to be OP's kids with a paid-for college degree and a trust fund upon graduation to supplement earned income and help them launch.

[Anonymous]

I think it is a state of mind, mostly. Is the adult child an addict, looking for a job, holding a job/friendships/relationships? Does she have kids with whom she has a good relationship and for whom she is a role model?

If an addict, does she recognize and is she willing to accept help or does she claim “medicinal?”

There are so many variables and it is not clear cut.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Figuring things out: 19- 24.

Failure to launch: 25-30.

I disagree with this.

After investing half a million dollars in each of my kids' educations, they damn well better have it figured out by 24.

That's on you. You're an idiot for spending that much, and you're also a bad person/parent for doing it voluntarily and then attaching strings to it.

Strings? Hardly. PP saved for their education. Her kids can use it or not. If they don't, PP can get the 529 plan funds with only a 10% penalty. And kids damn well better have life figured out by 24, whether or not they went to college. By then, they are full-fledged adults, and they have no claim to parental assistance in the form of money or housing. Anything they get from their parents is gratuitous.

[Anonymous]

35

[Anonymous]

iF THEY ARE STILL LIVING AT home and have no plans to move by 35, they are failures ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Failure to launch is a mindset, not a place or an age.

You can be in failure to launch, living in a parent-funded apartment, without a stable job or relationships, like my 30 year old nephew. He suffers from severe depression, anxiety and sleep apnea. His father subsidizes his lifestyle, and my nephew is with it enough to worry about his long-term future and tries to invest wisely (his father's allowance) to have a little income in decades to come. He also has a tiny disability income.

Or you can live like many 20 somethings in Europe, where I come from, in your parents' home, with a fulfilling job, soon to be married to a nice person, planning for kids and a normal future... but saving for a place of your own because the cost of living and real estate is too damn high. Italy in particular is very hard hit with a housing shortage. There are empty villages where no one wants to live, but all the cities are crammed to the gills and foreign investors are driving up market prices.

But at no point is failure to launch a reason to hold someone in contempt. No one wants to be that person. There are always reasons behind it, even though they may not be visible to you.

Well said, pp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:35

35 is way too old to be still relying on parental assistance for housing or anything else! If you're a failure to launch by 35, you're just a failure. The moment has long passed.

[Anonymous]

I actually care less about the FTL adult child than I do about the parental reactions. Do they consistently or episodically enable and support destructive behavior? Do they disagree with the FTL child’s warped sense of reality?

And then … if the FTL child is 40 and still getting substantial financial support, whose fault is that and WWJD?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My brother has a degree (including two different Masters) and has lived at home with my parents for the last twenty years since graduating from out-of-state undergrad. Has a salaried job, girlfriend, and dog, from his childhood bedroom. At this point, we all know he's never leaving.

Situations like this fascinate me.

The girlfriend is OK with this? (Do they actually go on grownup dates?) Your parents are OK with this? Has your brother always been a little .... odd?

DP. I have a brother who did this (and lived with my parents until they died in their nineties. The girlfriends were fine with this arrangement as they had their own condos or houses.