Back to the nest puts families to the test

Jean Samuels expected her two oldest sons to graduate from college. She didn't expect them to move back to the family home in Minnetonka once they did.Her oldest, now 26, lived at home for almost two years after college. His brother stayed for a year, recently leaving for a job out of state.

"It has been stressful and challenging, both for us and for them. It altered everyone's lifestyle and strained relationships," she said. "We had many confrontations about 'the rules of the house' and were not surprised that it caused conflict at times."

Many parents -- and their twenty-something kids -- can relate. With jobs tight, more parents expecting to turn their children's bedrooms into guest rooms are once again finding their refrigerators empty and their laundry tubs full.

A recent Pew Research Center study found that nearly 20 percent of Americans ages 19 to 34 are living in multi-generational adult households, which in most cases means with their parents. More baby-boomer parents are also finding themselves pitching in to support these so-called "boomerang kids" financially.

The economy plays a big part, as does the trend toward marrying later in life. But experts also point to another sociological shift.

Boomer parents and their children are often good friends, sharing interests and being one another's confidantes. And some parents just really don't want to push them out of the nest.

On top of that, having to move back in with one's parents was considered a penance a generation ago. Not so today.

Barbara Risman, head of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an executive officer of the Council on Contemporary Families, sees two trends occurring simultaneously that have the same result: delayed adulthood.

"Many recent graduates aren't able to become adults in a real, structural way, because jobs are scarce, wages are low and the cost of living is so high," she said. "They are being pushed back into their parents' homes as a consequence."

If young people felt that living at home was going to be oppressive, she said, they'd cram four or five into an apartment and live with just the basics.

"But they don't need to, because the cultural difference between these two generations is very small, and the intimacy is higher than ever before. A high percentage of college freshmen say one of their parents is their best friend. Parents and children listen to the same music, have the same values. In many houses, children come and go as they please, with no rules about staying out with boyfriends or girlfriends or having them spend the night. There's no sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll gap like I had with my parents. That's why it's comfortable."

Maybe too comfortable.

Risman said there's a push back into the home, because of the economy, but no "push out." Still, she dismisses suggestions that today's young grads are coddled thumbsuckers with entitlement issues because life courses are much less predictable today.

"It used to be, you get a job, buy a home and get married, then you're an adult," she said. "Every generation thinks the next one coming up is lazy. But we're moving into a post-industrial society with less need for people in the workforce, so socialization to adulthood is going to take longer."

The recession has hit young adults particularly hard. Only 46 percent of people age 16 to 24 are employed, the lowest figure since 1948. One in 10 of the 18- to 34-year-olds surveyed by Pew said that they had moved back in with their parents for financial reasons, citing the tight job market and higher costs of rent, gas and health care.

But the "enabling factor" appears to be in play, as well. Two studies published for a Princeton/Brookings Institution joint project found that youths these days are taking much longer to achieve adulthood. One found that today's home-leaving patterns are similar to those of the early 1900s, but for different reasons: More young adults stayed with Mom and Dad at the beginning of the 20th century to help the parents, not the other way around. The other cites evidence that parents are spending 10 percent of their annual incomes to help adult children, regardless of the children's income.

A survey conducted this year by the Charles Schwab Corp., dubbing families that have both living parents and young-adult children the "sandwich generation," found that 41 percent of the parents are helping to support their kids to some extent.

The Samuels household survived the boomerang-kid interlude, but Jean Samuels said she doesn't plan on a repeat with her two younger children.

"We weathered the storm and both of my oldest have moved on to independence," she said. "I love my kids to death, but if I had it to do over, I would remind them as they began their senior year in college, 'Have a plan, because you are not moving home after graduation.'"

Some kids still do move back in to help out their parents. When Marjorie Rolland divorced three years ago, her two daughters moved in with her to offer emotional support, and Rachel, 25, is still there, with a bedroom on the second floor of the south Minneapolis house while Mom occupies the first.

"We really never argue," Marjorie Rolland said. "I wish I had a big enough house for my other daughter and her boyfriend. I love having the family together. Other people sometimes think, 'What's wrong that your daughter lives at home?' but we don't see it as a problem."

Rachel Rolland, who works full time as a coffee-shop manager, said she had some qualms at first.

Jodi Dworkin, an associate professor of family science at the University of Minnesota, says the situation can be good for a family, because relationships can be redefined while family members are in daily contact. But expectations on both sides should be renegotiated.

"The rules should be different than they were in high school," she said. "Young people need to contribute to the household and family in some way, paying rent, doing their own laundry. They need to take responsibility and pursue goals."

As for parents, they need to give their young-adult kids "an appropriate level of independence," she said. "It's nice for them to have a safety net, but not all the time."

Meanwhile, the old joke "God let Jesus move back in with him and 2,000 years later he's still there" is starting to sound familiar to a lot more people here on earth.

Kristin Tillotson • 612-673-7046