I am going to venture off of politics today and make myself very unpopular with some of all of the generations, as I am going to tell you exactly what your returning home to your parents home as adults, is doing to both you and your parents self esteem. This is something that neither your parents or your friends who also live at home, will be honest enough to tell you but what both your friends who are independent enough to move out talk about as well as your parents discuss with their confidants usually over that mixed drink or glass of wine.
Time magazine published an article entitled , “Living At Home Is Not Lame But Awesome”. Clearly this was written to bolster the ego of the millions of 25 to 30 year old adults who are living at home with their parents. No parent on earth, if they want to inspire and reassure their children will be honest enough to tell you that in your own selfishness and due to your own lack of independence and ambition you are draining them of their own self esteem as well as the money they would otherwise be able to save towards their own retirement.
In cases where parents doubt their own parenting skills and if they did enough to teach you to be independent to want to stand on your own two feet, they will welcome you back home. In cases where the parents refuse to let go of control and make your life their focal point over getting a life of their own, they will welcome you back home. In cases where parents admit to themselves, if no one else, “You couldn’t “wipe your butt” without them, they will welcome you home. In cases where your parents are lonely because they do not want to spread their own wings far enough to enjoy their own independence or freedom, they will welcome you home.
In cases where they refuse to acknowledge that all adult children need to learn the lesson of what going hungry will teach them towards developing independence and ingenuity, they will welcome you home. In cases where you are draining them dry financially because of your refusal to take responsibility for your own finances and they can see where it will save them money if you move home, they will welcome you home.
In cases where you have a drug habit and lack total drive to get a job and they are afraid that you will be on the street, they will welcome you home. The list goes on in how you are relieving your stress towards passing your responsibility onto the shoulders of your parents and at the sake of adding to your parents stress because you moved back home. Most parents will not acknowledge this fact to themselves, much less to you, as to do so will brand them a failure as a parent. If you are feeling like less of a failure because you are living at home as a adult, then ask yourself,”Who is it that absorbs my feeling like a failure for me?”
The statistics now show that adult children who earn a bachelor degree are getting employment. As a matter of fact unemployment for those who have a bachelor degree now stands at a low of 4.2% with an over all 5.5% being the National average of unemployment during a booming economy.
It may not be that job that will pay off the massive debt you occurred because you refused to hold down a job while attending college. You may have to work another job as well, in order to now pay back the piper. You may have to have more roomates because the rents have increased, sometimes unfairly.The truth is that those who are independent and able to find employment and do understand that their lifestyle will not be the same as they got accustomed to while living with Mom and Dad, are getting jobs either in the Continental United States or across the Ocean.
If you are not doing so well it is because it is clear, if not to you and your parents but to future employers, you lack the skill and ability to take on the necessary hours and ambition that the job that you really think you are qualified for will entail, in many cases.
How you paid your bills, what kind of ambition did you show while a student, what was your social life like, did you make a general nuisance of yourself or did you show a strike of independence and inventiveness, were you willing to explore possibilities that showed real ingenuity, what kind of credit rating did you maintain, did you take responsibility for your own mistakes,rents,appearance, punch the time card on time, or did you just borrow more in student loans over working part time, etc? These are all questions that will find answers by future employers before you are hired by them. College
is not simply a training ground for grades but also the type of person that you are capable of showing everyone, you are.
The high rate of unemployment as well as the economy is having a much harsher effect on the the highschool graduates who did not get the opportunity to go on to earn their bachelor degree. It also includes the massive lay offs done by Corporations to the 50 plus age of workers, who will not be hired back, and have to re-invent themselves and thier futures. Too many young adults who really do want to have their parents home from 9 to 5 to entertan their friends, while their parents work away from home and stress out over their adult childrens’ responsibilities are taking advantage of the situation and instead begrudging those who are on their own, the idea that those who do work a job they would not ever take, as being losers.
Its time to get real.Corporations are not going to hire every College graduate who does not show a willingness to stand on their own two feet without having to have their hands held. The reality that it is tough to have to stand on our own and eat Ramen Noodles after getting out of college and while earning a job, has not changed that much for a college graduate. That has always been pretty much the norm,but that degree will open the door so that a young person with drive and ambition who is sometimes willing to travel, can begin a sucessful future has not changed.
Attitudes, lack of responsibility and a dwiddling salary while rents continue to go up is a difficulty of todays graduates that do require inspiration and sometimes groups of friends or aquaintances who will sometimes need to combine incomes in order for you to
accomplish and to defeat your excuses as to why you can not move out of your parents homes; it is your reality to be dealt with. Rarely do any of us or have any of us gotten to choose the reality of the circumstances facing us when we did get the degree and graduated from College. Our generations and generations before faced the draft and going to war. Other generations faced great depression and the “dirty thirties.” Every generation has unique problems that we must all deal with as the adults that we are through establishing our own answers through becoming the adult that adds to and contributes to the economy we form for ourselves and future generations without making it the problem of Mom and Dad.
The answer to simply avoid it so that you can return to being the child of Mr. and Mrs. again may feel temporilly satisfying,but in the long run it will always defeat your own goals the longer you stay, as well as the goals that your parents had for you. As I have written before, “Excuses Are For 6 Year Olds.” Maturity that goes along with adulthood, means standing on our own and providing for our own needs, and that never changes. Sometimes we do have to “bust our chops” and go without to make it happen but I assure both you and your parents that the rewards of doing so are all worth it.
Sometimes we have to be humbled before we do earn our own success. We can’t count on Corporations and Companies to come to us with the offers when too many see the the bottom line as a profit margin to increase the wealth of the Board of Directors and no longer offer support or give loyalty to the worker. Too many aged 50 plus workers have had to learn that the hard way over the last 25 years. Many of us have been there and done that, and that is why I write this for you. Your success begins today with you.
Good Luck and when you arrive, never forget those who helped you become the success you knew you could be. The person you were when you moved home and thought it was awesome and those who hindered you with excuses as well as yourself, won’t be there when success does happen and that is a guarantee that most of us who did realize the American dream will give you. It may be the only guarantee that any of us ever have or do get. We make our own success or failure beginning with our own attitudes and dedication to the reality of the situation we are in and the character of the people we work for, because they are willing to pay us for an honest days work. They still exist but many times we need to earn our own way before we find them.
