Living With Parents

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I was reading a message board about a proud mother whose 18 year old aspy son moved out and is figuring out how to navigate through life on his own. My son could live somewhere else, too, I guess but then all his mental and emotional energy would be all about trying to not drown in everyday confusion.

Right now he's working on keep it together to be a successful student. He's fun to be around. I wouldn't ever hold him back from spreading his wings and going as far in life as he can but it's on his terms, not because he's legally an adult. There's NOTHING wrong with him staying around his parents while he finishes hatching. We are there to help and are his safety net so he can reach for the stars.

I, on the other hand, would have shriveled up and died inside if I had stayed with my parents but they interested in helping me or didn't know how or didn't care.

Being a 26 year old still at home, sometime the need to learn to live on your own can be a helpful push towards actually doing it. I find it so comfortable at home that I find it easier to not try and live on my own as it is easier to stay dependent on others.
That said I am working towards attending university and living on campus next year. So I think that in between step will be really helpful to me.

Maybe it's your time to try to strike out on your own but it's good that you decide when to do it and not follow some age that society has declared turns everyone into people who are grown and ready to be on their own.

I live with my mother, but I'm absolutely dying to leave. I hate it. I'd do anything to be independent and get out from under.

I just today, maybe, hopefully, fingers crossed, arranged for a group to meet at my son's college that includes parents and their adult AS kids all talking together and brainstorming about how we can make our kids'' lives good. No more living our seperate private individual cultures of dysfunction, each hiding in our houses, wondering about the future.

One thing I will keep bringing up in the group is that we need to create a model and encourage more parents and their adult kids to find solutions together in more groups in other places.

I have to live with my in-laws right now, we live in a small town that aims to stay small, so there aren't any jobs and we have so many bills we can't even think of leaving. There are basicly two problems, one being that there is a multi-millionair who lives here and dominates most of the jobs. My husband worked for him for a bit, doing everything from construction, to tree trimming, and beyong, for only 6 dollars an hour. The second problem is the mayor that was elected. Dispite the fact that living conditions are lower here than in surrounding counties, we have the highest taxes. The people also decided not to let in unions, to keep out big buisiness, so employers can charge anything they want and no one can do anything about it. About the only way to make money is to join the military, but David is flat-footed and I'm over-due to give birth. Aviation is another option but that needs years of college that we can't afford.

Summary: we're stuck -_-;

I'm 18 and I can't imagine moving out of my dad's house. Living on my own means working and paying bills and food and money and stuff, I feel like melting down just thinking about it.

Im pretty much the same way but at the same time I still have a strong desire to be independant, because it sucks here.

I lived at home while attending a local collage then moved 180 miles away to attend a private collage, when I came back home I was 22 years old and stayed for a bit. My parents had no problem with that until I blew it, During that time I was doing alot of stuff I should not have been doin and hangin with the wrong people, they warned me, if I kept coming home smelling like booze and going out to the bar everynight as opposed to try and find a place of my own and make my life better they would kick me out. I kept screwin up, every night coming home drunk, they told me it was time to leave i had a few days to find a place and get my stuff, I managed, it was hard at first but once you get established it gets easier, life becomes routine and I use microsoft money along with organizing and planning ahead, assuming bills will often come higher then they really are so dispite living check to check 3 years later I have my own home, nice things and live pretty comfortably, its establishing thats horrible, the chaos, the unknown, the doubt, the hopelessness, if you are driven and have the means, you can succeed, sometimes it takes a swift kick in the butt to get movin, perhapse my parents by kicking me out and forcing me to be on my own did the best thing they could have ever done.

of course, this will work for some, some will swim, others will sink. Its not easy and they helped me quite a bit. Now, on my own I dont screw up anymore, no more bars, no hangin with the wrong people, because being on your own means eather working or prepairing to go to work.

Good luck everybody, i hope your transition is not as rough as mine was at first, but it can pay off.

I will be 43 in nine days, and I still live at home. The second floor of my house serves as my "apartment," with computer room, bed and bath. I have everything I need, and four-footed roommates who treat me better than any human roommate I have ever had. Cats are much better company than a lot of people. I have a job, my own interests and, aside from driving, which I plan to take up again next year, I am fairly independent.

I left home at 16. I've never gone back. I would happily be homeless on the street first. It's been almost 14 years since I left, and I don't even like to set foot in the house.

And psychologically speaking, I went from a broken human being who believed she could never be fixed...to a fully functioning adult with a "normal" life, husband, children, college degree (next month is graduation) and I credit my parents with none of it. Unless you count the part where they signed me away to my legal independence. Thanks mom! I look back and think maybe all I went through made me the independent person I am today. There's nothing this world has shown me that doesn't pale in comparison to where I've already been.

Try to find the positives in whatever situation you have.

I'm almost 20 and I still live at home. I can't afford to leave, but when I'm ready to I'll find a way.

25, still living at home. I know that there are certain aspects of the real world where I would be unable to cope, because they aren't in my system. Also a combinatin of that, and money. Where I live and where I want to live are no that far apart, but for me alone to afford property here would mean doubling my income, and that isn't going to happen. Cheap property on Dartmoor starts at £200,000.

I love your attitude! Your son is lucky to have you as a parent.

I started small by going to a college that was only 15 minutes from home and living in the dorms. There were a lot of things I had to do for myself, but my mom could pick me up or bring me things if I needed it. I had my driver's license and a car by my final year, so I could drive myself around (my roommate that year joked around that she was living in a single room with my stuff in it, so I guess I wasn't around much).

When I graduated, I moved back home, but I had a lot more responsibilities because it was just my mom and I by then and she was sick. She died at the end of that year and since I don't get along with my dad well enough to live with him, I moved in with a cousin (she's like a big sister to me) and then my boyfriend.

Now I'm 24 and I couldn't live with my parents if I wanted to. Moving to a new state was difficult for me (I'm from Connecticut, my boyfriend is from Rhode Island, and it made more sense for me to move away from home than for him to) and feeding ourselves on a budget was new to me when we moved in together.

My parents put up with me till I was 27.

I finally got a job that paid well enough to move out and maintain the middle class lifestyle to which I'd become accustomed without the need to go into a sharehouse (which would've driven me nuts).

After renting for just over a year, I bought a unit and haven't looked back (except to say that I should've done so earlier)

I want to start an adopt-a-teenager charity, I swear.

I'm really lucky; my parents are letting me live in their basement till I can afford the down for a house, which will be a lot easier to scrape together without the rent in the meantime. And even though there's six of us, our parents have managed to help everyone with food and or tuition and or rent. I'm 24, I graduate in a couple months with my bachelor's, and I'll start paying below-market rent when I start a real job. So I'm all for parental assistance till economics make it impossible.

That being said, it's much easier for my parents and my Aspie brother to get along at a distance; someone would likely have beed murdered or seriously damaged if they were all in the same house with me. I don't know if Dad, little brother, or I would've snapped first, but it would be bad. And I can only handle being as close to my parents as I am because I have my own kitchenette and door. So, adopt-a-teen, or even swap-a-teen, would be enourmously helpful to a lot of people. Especially since rent costs as much or more than mortgage most of the time, but you can't save up for the down on a house if all your money is going to rent. Teen or young adult, I should say.

Consider this: there have been places and times where it was perfectly normal for people to stay around family for their entire lives. It simplifies childcare, it makes housing less costly, and it provides emotional support, especially if it's considered normal. So what's with this "go away the instant I can legally kick you out" nonsense? It's not like the minute someone turns 18 they magically aquire the ability to deal with life with no support structure, and anymore in the U.S. you pretty much can't get a job that pays enough to live on without a college degree or being willing to haul garbage or do something similarly undesireable.

So, go you for not expecting your son to leave before he's ready; and you're right about nothing being wrong with it.