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The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

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Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#851

Post by hosh »

donw wrote: post #846
hosh wrote: post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some thoughts about that: 1. In the US, zoning laws discourage building things like the "mother in-law suite". These zoning laws were originally created as a way to get around federal laws prohibiting discrimination of race and sex by making it more difficult for people who can't afford housing to live within a certain neighborhood. Even if US residents wanted to add housing for some semblance of independence, zoning…

> 6. If your sense of self-worth and purpose is derived from making meaningful contributions to the family, community, and society, you're no longer pidgeonholed into the role of being a child. As such, I think a lot of the tensions and inter-generational drama we expect from adult children living with their parents is no longer there. This times ten to a very meaningful exponent. A large number of factors in society…

I think Carol Sandford's work has a shot at making this happen, but it won't happen at a policy level or through collective action. It's not so much that it is not scalable, but that by nature, it is impossible to implement with policy. If we were to make a policy to implement this, even if everyone agrees to do this, it misses the point. The motivation no longer comes from the inside nor would it be self-selected. But that does not mean it is impossible to implement at all.

This isn't something that you try to change the whole world. It is something that an individual makes the choice for themselves. It's something I'm in the process of implementing with my own children. That is one of the things I came up with when I ask myself, what meaningful thing do I want to contribute to the world? Your answer for yourself might be different.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#852

Post by lowdose »

sokoloff wrote: post #375
lowdose wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing in the Netherlands is really awful, in the '90 the boomers have build smaller apartments for their parents to move in and actually profit in an illicit way 2x of their real estate gains of sometimes 6x. No boomer is living smaller to make room for the next generation. I think the best way to combat current shortage in housing is putting up a limit on m2 that an individual could claim. 300m2 for a single perso…

So, someone who worked their entire life and paid off their house should be forced out of that house and made to move in retirement because...you'd rather be able to live there with a roommate?

They did that to their parents, and on top of that advantage they systematically didn't build enough houses for the projected population growth.

I think it is reasonable to ask if you set up a whole generation for failure yourself. Millennial choices are severely handicapt considering how we inherit the world versus how the boomer in the 90ties got it.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#853

Post by Frondo »

abnry wrote: post #794
novok wrote: post #777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call the counterargument "You can't live on pepper". As in even though pepper is way cheaper than it was 500 years ago, you'll starve if that is all you can afford.

A good thing is still a good thing. And for the vast majority of Americans, we aren't talking about starvation, or even homelessness.

With tens of millions of Americans facing food insecurity and tens of millions of Americans facing eviction now, thanks to years of precarity exacerbated by the COVID-19, I think the situation is worse than you're suggesting.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#854

Post by bird_monster »

mwfunk wrote: post #789
_5yoy wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well - it's abnormal in that it is not what the US's coming-of-age systems look like. Hit 18, move out, get a job. Whether that is good or bad or right or wrong is irrelevant, it's definitely abnormal from a cultural standpoint.

Yeah, there's definitely a cultural aspect. People WANT to get out of the house ASAP. It's not like all of those American 18 year olds are bummed that their parents expect them to go someplace, it's that many/most of them are chomping at the bit to have their own place and their own life with day-to-day financial and social independence from their family. If they're more likely to be staying home now, it's a sign of…

Agreed. I wish that the stigma would go away, but not because of mass financial instability. I wish it was just more of a culturally acceptable thing to do - it'd be easier to start a life at ~25 or so after a few years of working and creating somewhat of a nestegg.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#855

Post by dang »

chillwaves wrote: post #694
dang wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post like this here. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24496544 for more explanation.

Sorry dang, my tone is wrong. I'll do better. I agree with what you wrote in your link.

Appreciated!

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#856

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

gpapilion wrote: post #770
abnry wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point. The cheap fluff today was expensive stuff yesteryear, if it existed at all.

I’m not sure how cheap that is overall. For example an extra $400 a month is $100k in mortgage loan right now. It all adds up, and is easier to do if you avoid the wasteful spending.

This is an excellent point - I think we are definitely a generation of consumers, and what happens is, kids who aren't taught how debt works get caught up in it.

And once you're caught up in debt that extra 400 doesn't go to a mortgage it goes to that credit card or that high car payment on a 72 month term..

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#857

Post by TuringNYC »

treis wrote: post #844
TuringNYC wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the "Avocado Toast" argument that we're poor because we spend $10 on Avocado Toast. It is totally false. It blames citizens for national structural economic problems like hidden inflation and like bad housing policies discouraging building/planning. People spend $10 for Nextflix, $90 for Amazon, etc as short term pleasures because they cant spend $GIANT on a mortgage. What are you supposed to do? Might as wel…

>It is totally false. It's false for some locations but not for others. I checked on the two homes I lived in growing up and both appreciated slower than inflation from the late 90s to the early 2010s when they were last sold. In real terms they are about 20% cheaper than they were when my parents bought/sold them. Flyover suburbia is more affordable than it was 20-30 years ago. All major physical items are better an…

I dont quite agree. I dont think you can compare home to inflation only -- you have to also look at the income in that area as well as total cost. If incomes have also fallen, then the relative cost/income ratio may have remained the same (or as i'm proposing -- has increased.)

As an example, there are depressed areas in flyover states where costs have indeed gone down. But incomes have gone down even more -- they are once thriving places like Binghamton NY which had industries that have since moved overseas.

There is also the cost of healthcare, education, and retirement savings. My father benefited from a pension plan -- I have to save myself in a 401k. My father paid no employee premiums for healthcare, I pay about $900/mo for the family premium (before copays and coinsurance.)

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#858

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

refurb wrote: post #822
Havoc wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. London. In the land of limp pay cheques (compared to US). Financial sector means being in a financial hub though so not much choice. I'll probably end up moving further out and accepting a long commute eventually.

Why are you shocked you can't afford a house if you live in one of the most expensive cities in the world. My parents grew up in the "golden years" of the 60's and they couldn't afford it either. That's why they moved to a small town with cheap housing.

Expensive cities have most of the jobs.

There's a reason Pittsburgh's population declined by the hundreds of thousands since the 1970s. Sure you can get a cheaper house. But you aren't making coastal money.

In the 60s those "small towns" had manufacturing plants you could just walk in and get a job at, many of which were union and paid extraordinarily well.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#859

Post by jackcosgrove »

zepto wrote: post #768
kelnos wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also useful to note that the "nuclear family" is a very Western thing, and the US takes it to an extreme. In other parts of the world it's abnormal for adults in their 20s to be living anywhere but with their parents, often even with a fiance or new spouse in the mix. The idea that having a multi-generational household means that the younger members haven't "grown up" and need to "learn to live on their own" is…

Definitely a western thing, but actually commonplace since 1200s in England.

Correct. Neolocal households coupled (no pun intended) with later marriage ages are unique aspects of historical marriage patterns in northwestern Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_marriage_patt...

Many more regions besides England have also shown this pattern for centuries, but those are mostly within northwestern Europe to the west and north of the Hajnal line.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#860

Post by irrational »

GiorgioG wrote: post #552
irrational wrote: post #480

My 21 and 23 year old daughters have moved back in with us. They stay up until the wee hours of the morning watching streaming media, then wake up mid afternoon to get on social media, eat dinner with us and then repeat. I can't wait till they leave. At least when they are living on their own I don't have to know about their bad habits.

And they aren’t pulling their weight in your home why? There’s plenty of work to be done around the house. Turn off the internet at 11pm. They’ll either get with the program or move out ASAP.

I do. They are using hotspots through their phone data plans.
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