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Two months ago, I moved in with my mother. Approximately two weeks after my move in date, my 21 year old brother also moved in, as he’d grown weary of living off of my parents in apartment downtown with noisy pothead roommates. So he opted to move into my mother’s house. At the very same time that I did. That sound you just heard? That’s the sound of my mother’s head spontaneously combusting.
She’d lived a life of misanthropy and relative seclusion without her children on top of her. A life she appreciated and enjoyed. She could watch as much QVC as she wanted and then could order to her hearts content all without being interrupted by children needing their daily fix of bad reality television. She was happy.
G – my brother moved in out of necessity. He’s a college student, currently studying abroad in Ghana. I moved in because the window between moving back to New York and starting a new job gave very little time for the intense laboring that it would require for me to find a new apartment that was up to my very specific standards (hardwood, balcony, by the bars, laundry…did I mention by the bars?). I also felt it my right as a hard working American to take some time off from supporting myself after having done so in one of the most expensive cities in the country for five years on a salary of 12 dollars a year and 8 pears.
Upon my arrival I made promises of temporary because this whole working together/living together thing would land one of us in a mental institution (most likely me) and because after living alone and being free for so long, I was confident that I could manage to live on triple the salary in a far cheaper city without feeling completely rattled by the price of a loaf of bread. Then I thought about it more and well there was always a constant supply of diet coke and dinner was made when I got home and there was always detergent and dryer sheets. And the money that would be saved from this fantastically brilliant arrangement, would be abundant. This was a good plan.
I happened upon an article in the Times this afternoon in regards to parents supporting their children after college. Sometimes putting themselves in debt or forgoing luxuries well deserved after rearing children for so long, just so their children could have a leg up in life:
In contrast to previous generations, when young people generally took control of their finances — and their lives — after graduating from college, more parents are supporting their offspring well into adulthood.
In part, it is a matter of economic necessity. College graduates face enormous loan debt. Their entry-level salaries do not come close to covering high housing costs in many parts of the country. And their parents, fearing the worst, agree to pitch in. Then there is the emotional attachment.
Understandable of course. Parents wanting and feeling that necessity to help their children through a difficult transition. Something that I often longed for over the past two years. Times when I felt very incapable of controlling my finances and times that things needed to be done and yet I wept, imbibed cheap wine, paid my rent and moved on. I saved absolutely nothing, but things just always worked out. Yet I always knew in the back of my mind that if I never needed anything at all, I could call my parents and they would stick some money in an account and all would be copasetic. But I enjoyed the feeling of freedom. It was a dichotomy of sorts. I didn’t want my parents feeling as if they HAD to support me and yet I wanted to know that they were there for me, if need be.
While reading of the money spent well after college graduation by the parents and the freedom given up by children, I kept thinking of a friend of mine who has lived with her parents literally forever. Not once moving out on her own or going through the hell that is the dry cleaner seriously damaging her favorite work pants and having to iron for herself and grocery shop on a Saturday afternoon in a market full of screaming children. She’s never once experienced just being on her own. I just keep wondering how one could go through life without ever experiencing any of the liberties that
