But it's not just privileged white kids hanging out at home. Working-class twentysomethings have long boomeranged following high school or vocational training because entry-level wages make independent living a financial challenge. Still, lower income Americans today are even less able to be independent than just a decade ago, according to Frank Furstenberg Jr., professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and head of the Network on the Transition to Adulthood study. Furthermore, America's growing diversity means more adult children at home come from immigrant and ethnic communities in which living at home during one's twenties is normative and even favorable. A national survey of Latinos found that 78 percent agreed "it is better for children to live in their parents' home until they get married."
Leaving home is getting tougher across social classes and ethnic backgrounds. In the absence of a stable labor market, and with a lack of federal support (such as the GI Bill for education), "we're throwing a lot of things back on the family that the government was doing before, in terms of job training and housing subsidies," says Stephanie Coontz, professor of history and family studies at Evergreen State College in Washington state. Kids today aren't necessarily slackers, she argues; they're just coming of age when economic and federal forces thwart independence. Parents are stepping in, Coontz says, because they don't really have a choice.
Perhaps expectations are higher as well. Many experts say today's twentysomethings don't want to downscale by sharing a walk-up with three roommates when their middle class parents have a house where they can crash. Boomers don't want their kids to rough it either. "Emotional and financial dependence is a two-way street," says Adams, a Baby Boomer herself. "Our generation has taken it upon ourselves to make our grown kids happy. We've abrogated our responsibility to insist they make a life for themselves. Instead we're providing it for them." Often, if parents don't house their grown kids, those with extra cash will help an adult child purchase a home.
Keith and Virginia Edwards have allowed all three of their twenty- and thirtysomething kids to live at home, with spouses and grandchildren in tow, for periods of up to three years. The Edwards's latest boomeranger, Jon, who is in his 30's, moved back—along with his wife and daughter—two years ago. That way, he could train for a job change and his wife could be a full-time mother while they saved up to buy a home.
Keith says he doesn't mind that his adult kids have returned home, and has even encouraged it. "In each case, they wouldn't have been able to save for a down payment if they'd had to rent an overpriced apartment," he explains. "We wanted them to buy a home rather than rent, so the best solution all around was for them to come back and live with us."
The Parental Toll
Permaparents suffer potential financial and emotional repercussions. The empty-nest years are a crucial time for adults to bone up for retirement, rather than pay off their child's credit cards or feed another mouth. Keeping the kids also prevents couples from reconfiguring their lives in a post-parenting marriage, when, historically, many marriages break up. When marriages do end in divorce, or when one spouse dies, parents may be especially inclined to reconnect with their adult kids.
"The empty nest is doubly empty when you don't share it with a partner," says Betty Frain, who sees close relationships between single mothers and their adult children so often that she labels it a phenomenon. Nevertheless, as Roberta Maisel explains, "For women who find themselves widowed or divorced in their 50s or 60s, being too involved in adult children's lives can be a big mistake. They have decades ahead and need to find a way to approach their lives as individuals."
Married or not, adults who re-feather the nest past its prime postpone their own personal development. During the late 1990s, a spate of books with titles like Give Them Wings or As You Leave Home: Parting Thoughts From a Loving Parent appeared to address the challenge of accepting children's adulthood. But despite the temptations—pleas for help from adult children, the desire to pitch in financially, the urge not to let go—experts agree that having kids at home is generally a bad idea. Unless the child is suffering from a crisis, adult children belong on their own; empty nest parents have their own lives to attend to. Jeffrey Arnett, author of the book Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens Through the Twenties, believes boomeranging home may not be such a bad idea for twentysomethings but concedes it may not be best for parents. "Parents like being in a position to help their kids, and they like the fact that they get along well enough to live together," he says. "But parents are usually ready by then to move on with their own lives."
Indeed, many psychologists believe the post-parenting period is one in which people have the opportunity to reconfigure their identities—to relocate, downshift or change a career, become more involved in the community, take continuing education courses or learn new creative skills. Carl Jung in particular emphasized the importance of this last stage of development. Having an adult child lurking around the house and feeding off the parental nest egg robs parents of some of this latitude. "These parents end up impeding their own transition into a new period of adulthood," say Furedi. "It's a flight from life." Permaparents, perhaps it's time to grow up.
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