It seems to me that a good number of folks who have boomerang “kids” may actually want them to return. But are we really doing our offspring any favors by allowing an indefinite extension of childhood?Let’s think about this. Where did you live when you were first starting out? I’ll bet it wasn’t quite the Taj Mahal.
Our first place was a one bedroom former screened-in porch that had all the weather proofing of the average wiffle ball. It was a veritable private zoo of insect vermin — and we were glad to have it… CONTINUE READING >>
27 Comments
While our oldest majored in economics and quickly found gainful employment in another city, child number two has been not so lucky. She graduated last May and is having trouble finding a job in higher education or working with youth. Her degrees are in history and Jewish studies. She and her younger sister have been out of the nest working camp all summer. As the rejections come in, she’s getting discouraged in this tough job market. On the bright side, she’s keeping her options open by applying all over the country. Baby girl will head back to college in a few weeks. I think she’ll have an easier time finding work in the event management industry. It’s hard for kids to find jobs these days. While we are encouraging them to find something, we’re not throwing them out on the streets.
http://joycelansky.blogspot.com
All three of ours have faced the current job situation, our youngest is currently juggling four part time jobs because it may take a while to find a full time one in his field (pilot). But two of those part times are flight instructing so he is using his skills and doing whatever it takes to get by. There is a big difference between getting a newly graduated kid on their feet and allowing a boomerang kid to move in for an indefinite period. That is our point. Also, every situation is different, so you should always do what works best for your family. All the best to your family!
My house currently has a revolving door as my kids cycle through in between college semesters and on the way to graduate school. I guess they can’t really be called boomerang kids yet,and they both seem quite anxious to be out on their own. I guess we’ll see.
But I for one am more than ready to sell the nest and ditch the large garden in favor of some containers on a balcony and freedom to leave Ohio winters behind. Just trying to talk my better half into it…
Try bringing it up again next January when it’s about ten below… that ought to do it.
Our first apartment had no sink in the bathroom, no heat in the bathroom, and a five-gallon hot water tank. Luckily, I worked at a college and took many of my showers at work. When we moved to our second place, we were so excited that there was a radiator in the bathroom! We couldn’t afford to keep the heat higher than 60 degrees, so when our daughter was born, she came home from the hospital (p.s.–we had no health insurance, so we had to pay for her birth on the installment plan), she was wrapped in blankets. Consequently, she still, 34 years later, breaks into a sweat when the temperature is higher than 75 degrees. When we bought our first house, the real estate agents thought we were nuts when we were seeking a place where there was at least a 20-gallon hot water heater, a sink AND a radiator in the bathroom! The next place we lived in for 24 years, and we really liked it, but we had no driveway (many snowstorms in the great northeast!). We had taken in my sister’s children. When they moved out, following our kids having moved out, we downsized into a small ranch–purposely, so that NO ONE, not children nor nieces–can move back in. When our daughter comes home with her husband, she has to stay in a hotel. If either she or our son comes home alone, they can stay here, but otherwise, it’s hotel-land for them. I like it this way. I don’t want my life, which I worked hard to earn, disrupted.
Amen to that!
Our first apartment was a one bedroom basement apartment with a view from the “front” door of a cemetery – quiet neighborhood! Our next one was 2nd floor apartment in a 3 family. When the C5A’s took off from the Air Reserve Base their lights would be shining at me through the kitchen window where I would be washing the dishes. Lots of dishes rattling around!
Talk about going from one extreme to another!
Did you finally end up somewhere in between?
we did! A single family on the other side of town; also on the other side of the base. Don’t really notice the noise from the planes too much anymore after 20+ years and we have a great view of the air show!
I like my parents’s story about their first place–a WWII surplus trailer with no running water or bathroom. (Dad was a grad student at Alfred University). They finally got an apartment when they woke up one morning and there were icicles hanging off the bed! Both our sons boomeranged for 3 months after college. They didn’t want to be with us and were in active job searches, so I was glad we had a place for them. I think the “rules” have to be flexible, but it’s important to recognize the line between assisting and enabling.
Love your parents’ story- icicles would be the last straw for us too!
Such an important topic. My kids won’t be moving back unless they are in a real crisis (e.g., health). Lack of a job will not be a reason. When I think about all the great houses we turned down when looking for our first because they cost too much and then I look at the outrageous sum we paid for our current house I have to laugh. Our first apartment wasn’t much bigger than a masterbedroom/bath combo. It included a dog, a full drum set, and all the mice you could want.
We won’t be selling it all so kids can’t move back, but we’re in the process of buying property in France as a vacation/work landing pad. It will have one bedroom and a foldout couch. If my kids ever want to see it they have to find their own way over.
A foldout couch in France! Très romantique!
My children are still young, 11 and 7 so I’m a long way off from this issue but I pay attention b/c I have a BIL who is 31 and still at home with no job and no incentive to get out. I already tell my 11 year old that no matter where you go to college, even if you can walk there from here…you have to move out! If you don’t go to college, you have to move out! Why, b/c I love you and want you to be a productive, responsible adult and learn to make your own way in the world! Honestly I don’t understand why you have to sell your home to get rid of an adult who doesn’t own it with you…GET OUT…give them a date then put their stuff in the driveway and change the locks!
We also felt it was important to tell our kids that they would be expected to start their own lives after high school. We wholeheartedly agree that communication is key!
many times I’ve been tempted to sell the house and run off to some foreign country where my adult children won’t find me
Great read!
My first apartment was one room with a refrigerator and a couch which pulled out to make a bed, plus a bathroom. There was a hotplate in the bathroom which I used for cooking. When I tell my grown boomerang kids about this, they roll their eyes like I am telling a “walked ten miles to school in the snow” story.
Our first apartment was a small duplex near the end of the runway at a major airport. The planes were so low you could see the glow from the cockpit when the planes were landing, and all conversation had to be put on hold until they were gone. But it was home, and it was OURS.
we didnt have an apt but lived in the basement of a house for many years. It was great, gave my daughter baths in the kitchen sink and it was really just one big one room, I wouldn’t trade it for anything now
My husband and I shared a bedroom in a house with 2 other people and then we finally got our own 2 bedroom apt. and the only 3 windows faced another apt in the parking garage and it was the best!!
Our Priest came to visit shortly after we moved into our first home. He took one look around and asked when the rest of our furniture would be arriving. I was actually proud of our hand-me-down furniture and cinder block and plank bookshelf. He couldn’t understand why I was laughing.
I am 40 (1/2)I have a 20 year old who has a 1 year old baby and no job. He currently resides in the garage. I advised him that sometime between now and Jan of 2012 I would be moving to Tennessee, some 450 mi away, and that he needed to get his head out of his behind and find a job and a place of his own. To date he has put in a couple of applications. I guess when I start packing my stuff in my vehicle for real he will get the picture. Sometimes no one really is home and the light bulb needs replaced. Can’t wait to take a picture of the “priceless” look on his face.
I have been cracking up over your blog for a week now! Thank you for having it. I do have a spin for you- we MOVED OUT of our house when the kids didn’t take the hint that they needed to find work and a place due to the house we were renting getting foreclosed on. Rude awakening, but that fire under their butts made lala land come crashing down. Is it just that generation??
lol patti we did the same thing to the kids best move we ever made. lit a fire under their behinds now they are handiling it on there own sometimes they do need that awakening.
Parents who allow their grown offspring (I’m not saying ‘children’ because they are NOT)- if you allow your offspring to depend on you like that, you are CRIPPLING them!! That 34 year old has to start out with a HUGE handicap, his age. Employers expect inexperience in a 20-something, but not in someone who is over 30. He may NEVER catch up to where he would have been if they had pushed him out of the nest at 20. It’s really sad.
My husband and I were in many ways happiest when our rentals were tiny and we owned next to nothing. We actually had time to enjoy life instead of spending our free time fixing up a house, taking care of a yard, and picking up stuff.
I’m all for starting out on one’s own with next to nothing and then figuring out a way to keep it like that! That is the ultimate good life…
“People do it every day and don’t die.” Great midlife motto to live by. I remember the “apartments” and starter houses (ours was cat pee soaked too, whats up with that?). I remember paper decorations on my first Christmas tree and of course, bookshelves made of bricks and lumber. These boomerang (parasite) kids don’t know what they are missing.