Why move out at 18?

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Do keep in mind that until recently (the last 30 years or so...basically MY generation), it was not uncommon for a person to leave the home at 16 and be able to get a job and support themselves. Society chooses to coddle young people and hold them back from being productive members of society until they reach 18-21. It used to be that as early as 12 a boy was expected to start conducting himself with the maturity of the adults.

I feel the "conflict" in views is when a young man who thinks he doesn't need to be an "adult" until he hits 19 and tries to get his first "real job" runs into someone in their 50s who not only worked full-time "real job" when they were just 16-17 but also did household chores that most of us would see as being a full-time job in and of itself.

Kids today simply have it too easy...they are not learning to be responsible as soon as they are capable of being responsible. Granted, society and parents are to blame for allowing that to happen, but you do see that the kid who grows up on the family farm and gets a paying job as soon as they are legally allowed to work usually is in a position to move out on their own at 18 because they have learned how to be responsible and self-sufficient. Kids that have a "pampered" life come across as unreliable and are treated as such until they prove otherwise.

Parents think they are giving a kid every advantage by not making them go out and work...the opposite is true. Having a job teaches a kid how to be responsible and lets them make mistakes when mistakes are quickly forgiven.

ahh to have the choice..
i was kicked out at 17 & "couldn't swim"..
I'm still floundering now & perhaps less independent than i was at 16

edit: have never had a job. without the benefit system i'd have REALLY suffered lol

Agreed, society has lost right of passage. The church is out of date (does not reflect modern life), and what's left, gangs? It is economic good times taken too far. It is like a perpetual summer where it never rains - and the umbrellas are all lost. In the history of life, 30 to 40 years is just a blip.

If you want to find out what it means to have a society without any rituals, read the New York Times. -- Joseph Campbell 1904-1987.

That is my exact feelings on the matter. That is why I still live at home. I'm almost 25 and have no plans on moving out until I have to move closer to the next college to get my degree.

Of course, I live by my father's example of making any sacrifice to save money.

I want to move out in the sense that I share a home with 2 immensely annoying kids, and I like to go to bed at 7:30pm usually every night, and they're loud.. I prefer to live alone. Really though, it's like 700$ a month to do so, and rent here is free. I can just keep saving up my money for... well, I don't know. I should move out. I just like the whole free rent thing.

Things in America have been going in one ear and out the other. Here, we grow up under pressures such as getting good SAT scores and a college degree. Then you get out of college and you find that having a college degree doesn't mean squat to anyone! It's all about talent and social skills no matter what variant of education you have. Without them, you really are fudged at finding work.

As for people leaving home by the age of 18, alot of Americans in the Middle or Low class range dump a lot of bad stuff on their kids that would make them want to leave home. They'll say things like "you need to go college, but I don't got the money for it so you'll have to pay for it yourself". Too many Americans have kids despite the fact that they knew they couldn't afford it because they think they can just dump some of the financial responsibility (that should've been the parents all along) on the kids. Many are forced to get a job while in middle school or high school NOT because these kids have things they want to buy...it's because parents want them to pay some of the parents' own debts. It is NOT independence if you are paying someone else's debts. I knew one person who was forced to get a full-time AND go to college full-time by his mother. No way in hell can that be done. But American parents have ungodly ridiculous expectations just because of where they live and then when a person requests something from the parents their excuse is always "you can't always have what you want". But in reality the parents are actually saying "...but I expect you to give me everything I want!" This is the kind of crap people have to put up with while living at home.

Last edited by raisedbyignorance on 25 May 2009, 4:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There is way too much flat out intolerance of people that live with their parents past age 20. Hell, I've even met plenty of people that imply it's a sign of laziness to be with your parents past 18!

This mindset I have found is especially common in dating. If you're not going to school and you live at home, you're obviously a deadbeat leech not worth even knowing. Lurking online dating sites, you'll be hard-pressed to find a decent looking girl that doesn't keep a zero tolerance for men that aren't already in the midst of cookie-cutter success.

As far as this stigma in its relation to careers, I've almost fell into this mentality trap too. I came close to going to college for something I knew I wasn't interested enough in to have a happy career in yet considered it because everyone was implying that since I wasn't getting any concrete progress now, I'm gonna end up being at a standstill all of my life. Alas, if I went down this path, I would've found myself unhappy, in loads of debt, and probably a college dropout. I have my plans, but this topic probably isn't the appropriate place to explain those.

But yeah, this whole ideology is sh*t.

In socialist Sweden, the government wanted everyone to be an academic and live on subsidized work, because it was seen as "class equalizing" to have a nice title. So Sweden got a lot of professors in "muslims feminist sociology" and stuff like that (exaggerated but you get the point) just to fill up on academical points for everyone. People who couldn't be academics, like me, were automatically put on welfare.

Now, the new right-wing government has a policy to increase trainee programs in traditional type of work and also increase wages/status of non academic jobs, bringing back a bit of the "old" society instead of this super socialist crap where the best thing you can be is a subsidized black lesbian person with a fake professors title in a made up pseudo subject like "social management art engineering".

I don't agree with the current government on many points but if the option of getting an apprentice education as for example a baker had even existed in Sweden 7 years ago, I would have aimed for something like that. I guess it's still not too late but I just can't see university as the only way through life and atm my only real goal is economical independence. I'm thinking of ways to achieve it, writing a book, inventing a product which would revolutionize some basic area of everyday life etc. Sooner or later I will get the perfect idea. Maybe I will even become a self educated fashion designer like Paul Smith or Raf Simons (who don't have formal educations, just to name a few designers). I have a lot of ideas but I need to master the tailoring trade as well.

Because being a black lesbian is SOCIALIST PLAGUE! Agghhhhh it's spreading! The children! The children!8O


I think there should be some sort of balance. Part academia, part working class, part menial jobs in equal amounts. But the way right wing values red hot money and left wing values cold hard brains, we are all going straight to hell!

I don't think it really matters as much in certain parts of Canada as it does in the united states, thank god. We don't care if you live with your parents, just as long as you have a job doing SOMETHING.

Lucky for me that I don't live in Canada then, because I do nothing except buy luxury items for taxpayer money. At least people leave me alone here. Especially now during the recession I know of many young people who have to go to social security and get money for food. Compared to them I'm wealthy.

Well, I was talking about supporting THEMSELVES LEGALLY! Sorry, but it IS'T legal at 16, and people in most places of the US can't get a job that pays an amount that allows them to LIVE! Younger people either have to live in SHACKS, with family, or get roommates! And BY THE WAY, that has NOTHING to do with maturity! Some very mature people CAN'T support themselves, and some very IMmature people DO!



K, how many here in their fifties supported themselves FULLY at 16 or 17?!?!?!? Come on, HOW many! I am ALMOST fifty, and probably did better than ANYONE else in my class, and I wasn't able to until perhaps 21 or so! COME ON! Do a survey! I bet the average is OVER 24!



well, I think 11yo should be RESPONSIBLE and act like adults, but that is a FAR cry from somehow having the law accept them as not being minors anymore, and giving them adult rights. And HOW many 11yo do you think would be paid a salary!?!?!?



YEP, but if I ran a company, and they fixed cars, and the car had a defect, I could LOSE MY COMPANY because they wouldn't trust the ability or knowledge of the 11yo. And they could NOT be held to any contract. Do you think I would pay them a full salary?!?!? NO WAY!

Besides the fact that nowadays it's impossible for a younger person to make a living wage, this is untrue. This was actually studied in my senior seminar for my degree in Psychology - studies found that those who worked while in cchool were more likely to agree with statements like "Anyone who works harder at a job than they have to is a little crazy" or "There's no such thing as a company that cares about their employees."

To be fair, many employees learn that by they time they turn 30. But that isn't the product of being in the workforce as a worker...it's the product of what the workplace in America has become.

Many, many jobs cater to those who do the least to get by. When you don't reward those who do more (like many places you will work), the staff learns quickly to not bother going the extra mile. Likewise, when an employer chooses to cut staff who gave everything just to save some money, employees learn that there is no master/servant loyalties.

Those who work while in school just learn the reality of the modern workforce. Sadly, if they have bad experiences, it will jade them if they possess an unbalanced view of working. I could probably come up with as many people who worked at a very young age who are industrious and hard working because in spite of what your study establishes, they realize if you work hard for the RIGHT people, you get what you put in and then some.

I am 40, and I know that giving your all is worth it if your employer rewards you for what you do. If they don't reward you, then it is foolish to keep giving your all to the employer. Hold strongly to one extreme and you are a useless employee to anyone because you won't make any effort. Hold strongly to the other and you'll be the sap who is exploited by every employer you work for.

Balance in everything.

You are correct. Society has legally established that you are not an "adult" until you are 18. However, even if you can't go out and support yourself in TODAY'S world (the 18 standard wasn't always so, and it is reflective of the coddling mentality we have as compared to how society used to expect people to mature), you can begin working at 15...it's limited if you work for another, and you can work for yourself even younger if your parents ENCOURAGE and entrepreneurial spirit (no law can tell a child it can't go out and make money selling a product or service of it's own creation).

Assigning a child chores (and not stupid stuff like cleaning your own room), encouraging them to go out and mow lawns for neighbors for money, etc. all teach valuable lessons in responsibility and form the building blocks that lead to self-sufficiency.

In contrast, a kid who waits until 18-19 to go out and get a real job (self-employed or otherwise) has no clue on how to meet the expectations of an employer compared to the kid who started working (even part time) when they were 15.

My post was reflective of how in the last 30 years or so, the emphasis of a person going into the workforce (in any capacity) as soon as possible has almost disappeared and what we see are kids becoming adults with no knowledge of how to hold a job, and being able to hold a job is key to being self-sufficient. Go back to the turn of the century and even with child labor laws, the requirement that a kid be able to go out in the world and take care of themselves at 18 was not unreasonable because most kids grew up with more responsibility on their shoulders at 15 than they do now at 19.

Society has gotten soft to the point that it has no foundation anymore.