Did you see the one about the boy who just wouldn’t leave home? So desperate were his Italian parents to get this “Mama’s boy” to move out, they hired a lawyer and threatened to take out a protection order.
You can imagine the formalities in the letter: “Thou shalt not ask your Mama to pick up your dirty undergarments or iron your shirts. Furthermore, demands for pasta and antipasto platters shall be limited to Sundays only.”
I think the parents were hoping for a harsher approach though, something to the tune of: “Pack up your stuff, move out and don’t come back. Period.” Written in Italian, it would probably sound a little more elegant.
In this case, it seems the mistake of the 41-year-old “child” was not that he was still living at home – but that he was so demanding. Expecting his washing to be done, and his meals to be cooked. Mama mia!
It’s not just the Italians struggling with older children at home. Australians, it seems, face a similar challenge.
Take these NSW figures. In 2006–07, 509,000 people aged 18–34 years had never left the parental home, compared with 1.1 million who had. So roughly one-third of young people were still living with mum and/or dad.
Of those who had never left, 31 per cent stayed at home for financial reasons (44 per cent in the case of males; 21 per cent in the case of females), 22 per cent because it was convenient and 21 per cent for other reasons.
Kids living at home and parents getting them to leave is turning into a bit of an industry. There’s a wiki on how to prod the not so young ‘uns to fly the nest. Dr Phil’s even giving advice.
In the Australian context, the big question is, do parents actually want their kids to move out? Demographer Bernard Salt – a partner with consultancy KPMG – reckons keeping the kids at home is a way for baby boomer parents to feel young and connected. I chatted to Salt about this a year or so ago for an earlier piece on the same issue, and it seems little has changed since.
If that’s the motivation, there’s other ways to feel young folks – and they don’t cost as much either. When you take into account all that power, water and food that grown up babies consume for free, or for a very low cost, it certainly gets pricey.
To be fair there are plenty of good reasons to stay living at home. It can allow the kids to save up for a place of their own, and it can also provide company and security to ailing parents.
Just as highlighted in the Italian story, the issue is probably more about HOW people live at home and not IF. Whether or not the “kids” are living at home as fully fledged adults, contributing their fair share, both financially and in terms of effort in splitting the cleaning jobs and helping out with the general upkeep of the home.
However, for those parents who do want the kids to move out, it is potentially not surprising that mum and dad are finding it difficult to nudge the offspring from the nest. In most Australian capital cities rental vacancy rates remain super-tight (although in Melbourne things have eased somewhat). And many real estate agents report that first home buyers have become near extinct.
So if young people can’t find a rental, and they’re not buying, there’s probably only one other place they are staying – firmly at home.
Anyone know a good locksmith?
Carolyn Boyd, domain.com.au