If you live in India, there’s nothing abnormal about a young adult living at home. I recently guested on the podcast KAJ Masterclass. My host informed me that if a twenty-something young adult in India were not living at home, the parents and community would be concerned. Seventy to eighty percent of 18–29-year-olds live with their parents in India. Twenty percent of couples live with their parents. We have a different mindset and bias in the US, and that is that anyone who is at least 21-22 should leave the nest. So, is a young adult living at home a problem, or is our cultural mindset the problem?
My Definition of a Launched Young Adult has Nothing to do with Where They Live
Most popular definitions would argue that a young adult is “launched” successfully if they accept responsibility for themselves, make independent decisions, and become financially independent. (Arnett, 2008)
My addition to this characterization includes requiring the young adult to have a healthy emotional separation from parents. By this, I mean that they have resolved their issues with their parents and can maintain a caring connection with the parents. They don’t blame their parents for their lives or hold onto resentment or anger, resulting in contentious engagement with parents or estrangement. I suspect years of seeing parents and adults in therapy who are hurt, angry, and resentful toward each other has caused me to want to promote reconciliation between these family members for both parties’ sake. Both parties suffer when issues are unresolved.
Living at home has nothing to do with a self-sufficient, independent, “launched,” and emotionally separated young adult. I would be hard-pressed to say a young adult who has a caring and amiable relationship with their parents, and who contributes to the household (pays rent, cooks meals, does their laundry, helps out with household chores, pays for their expenses) is not launched. My focus is not on where they live or when they will move out, but on increasing the responsible independence of the young adult. This is not to say that thoughts should not be given to a time when they might move, but that’s less important. Even as I argue for a positive view of a young adult living at home, when I ask young adults where they want to live in five years, no one has said “with mom and dad.” When their parents hear this, the sigh of relief in the room is almost palpable. Once young adults in our society reach their late twenties, the alarm bells go off, and the parents fear their kids may never leave. Our kids, maybe because they feel the cultural bias of not being viewed as a grown-up unless they move out, all want a place of their own, sooner or later. Parents should not feel embarrassed to tell friends and extended family members that their son or daughter is living at home as long as their kids are responsible, independent, and connected, per my definition above. Check out my blog: If You Have A Young Adult Living at Home You Have A Roommate.
I want to recognize that a caring bond may not be possible in all cases. These would include experiences of physical or sexual abuse that the young adult has experienced that are too painful to allow for any reconciliation or renewal of the relationship. If young adults don’t resolve their feelings toward their parents through forgiveness and other measures, they can remain negatively fused to their parents and unlaunched. Forgiveness sets the forgiver free regardless of whether a parent wants or believes they need forgiveness. Parents have a greater responsibility to be the bigger person and reach out to their son or daughter who is estranged with love through apology and forgiveness to reconcile the relationship. I devote two chapters of the book referenced below to these “healing practices” that are part of the launch code.
Two Questions
There are two questions that parents need to ask themselves to determine if they are on the right track to successfully launch a young adult.
- Is my son or daughter progressing toward self-sufficiency, responsible independence, and a healthy, separate, connected emotional relationship with the parent?
- Are my actions, through the practices of love, support, apology, forgiveness, standing firm, and letting go, facilitating their efforts toward a healthy launch or impeding them?
If you want a step-by-step guide on how parents can successfully launch their adult children, please consider my latest book: The Parents Launch Code.
Julie Lythcott-Haims, author of How to Raise an Adult, is writing a book on multigenerational households. If you have a multigenerational household with an agreed-upon group of different generations living together and wish to share your story, please click here and respond to her survey.
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