Her parents were opposed at first. In Indian culture, Nethra explains, the early 20s are often seen as the last years a young woman has with her family before marriage. Nethra’s parents hoped she’d enjoy these precious single years by their side.
But despite having to fight “tooth and nail” with her parents to do it, Nethra moved out the summer after she graduated from college. Eventually, her parents got onboard. But initially, “It was an emotional, turbulent time at home,” she tells me. “My mom was like, ‘Oh, you’re moving out? You still haven’t really learned to cook or anything!’ ”
Settling in, Nethra took full advantage of her newfound freedom (and lack of curfew). She hung out with friends every night, paid the bills, cleaned and, yes, learned to cook for herself. But keeping up with this new lifestyle slowly took a toll on her health. In trying to do it all, she neglected self-care and began to burn out. In the end, she decided to give living with her parents a second try.
With a new appreciation for her parents’ gestures of love, home-cooked meals and bids to spend time together, Nethra is now happier and healthier than ever. And the feelings are mutual: “We understand each other better” after the move, Nethra’s mom says. Though Nethra is open to moving out again later in her 20s, she now feels at peace — not constricted — living with family. Since returning home, she says, “I haven’t really felt, like, lonely or anything even once.” Why? Simply put: “I had my fun. I accomplished what I wanted to when I was away.”
In the United States, amid a turbulent labor market and rising costs, multigenerational living is having a moment. But living with parents post-college is abundantly common in many parts of the world. Mutual caretaking not only cuts down on costs but also strengthens familial bonds and reduces loneliness.
Living with family can provide stability to young people navigating the transient nature of post-grad life. And practicing how to live well with others as an adult — cleaning up, helping to cook, shouldering family expenses, communicating, resolving conflicts and expressing love — sets recent graduates up for success in future relationships.
Sharing Nethra’s story, I could have been telling my own. I grew up in a household where moving out before marriage was out of the question. I have protective Arab parents who wanted the best for me, which meant that I spent my high school and college years mostly at home, mostly studying. Commuting to and from college with a tight curfew, I felt a lot like Nethra — lonely, and as if I missed out on all the fun.
I was also embarrassed to live at home at 22, especially without my own means of transportation. When I told people I lived at home or needed a ride, they would chuckle awkwardly and say things like, “Well, you’d better get a move on” or “You can’t just live with your parents forever, you know,” as if I had “failed to launch.”
So, like Nethra, I moved out into my own apartment (amid a lot of tears and drama) for a short stint. My new place was always quiet — ideal for writing and studying. I went out to late dinners and to nighttime jam sessions where I learned how to play the drums (poorly). I never had to wait to use the laundry machine. I could always find my ear buds, and my chocolate-covered pretzels did not mysteriously disappear when left on the counter overnight. The apartment was magical. It was also not home.
Luckily, I made my way back to my brothers and parents. When I did, my perspective shifted. I started to see my culture’s norms around living at home until marriage not as stifling, restrictive or patriarchal — but rather as a way of ensuring young people had the resources, love and support to thrive in their 20s.
Relationships with parents and siblings are the “closest and longest” we’ll ever have, says Susan Newman, a social psychologist and author of “Under One Roof Again: All Grown Up and (Re)Learning How to Live Together Happily.” Living at home is “an opportunity to shore them up and enhance them,” she notes. When I ask her about the “failure to launch” stereotype, Newman says living at home is anything but. By letting adult children live at home during their early 20s, parents are “putting fuel into the launchpad.”
Allan Njomo, 23, lives with his dad but travels for work often — sometimes more than three weeks per month. In terms of his career, he’s as independent as they get. But his independence isn’t mutually exclusive with his need for a “home base” where he can relax at the end of a hard day. Home is where Allan can work through the question marks in his post-grad life. He feels lucky to get advice from his father for “probably 98 percent of the things I do.”
A first-generation Kenyan immigrant living in Texas, Allan comes from a culture like mine, where young people generally live in the family home until marriage or achieving total financial stability. Allan and I laugh when he tells me he feels more pressure to stay at home than to move out. “And it’s not negative pressure,” he adds, reflecting, it’s “my dad always making sure I understand that I have a home. For as long as I need.”
Living at home has afforded him opportunities for better communication with his father face-to-face, a change that has made them both feel happier and more secure.
Newman tells me that living with parents in young adulthood is a chance to see your parents “as people” — not just as authoritarian rulemakers. And if recent grads can prove themselves to be responsible contributors to the family unit, Newman says parents will probably become more receptive to new adult boundaries around, say, privacy.
As a first-gen Mexican American, 23-year-old Jessica Olvera, a district representative for the California State Assembly, always wanted to experience young adulthood independently — what she calls the “American Dream.” But she has gained new maturity and closeness to her family by living at home and witnessing her parents go through difficulties of their own. “You get to see the human in them. I got to see my mom being sad,” she tells me. “And then I also got to see my dad stressed” about “all those individual things that they would see for themselves in their own individual lives,” such as dreams, decisions and relationships. She reminds me that parents are experiencing life for the first time, too: “It’s like watching them grow up. You don’t want to miss out on their moments for their life, too.”
Jessica takes pride in her independence. She supports herself financially, other than living rent-free, and sometimes helps her family by paying for groceries. But there are other gifts she’s grateful that her family provides for her.
“Once you cross that door and you smell a home-cooked meal in a clean house with people who are just excited to see you, you know, happy to actually see you,” the stress of the day melts away, she says. She laughs and adds, “And I don’t want to sound like I’m a little girl again, but … they’re still there to kind of protect you. You know, nothing from the outside world is going to get to you when you’re there.”
The young people I spoke to for this column are clearly not failing to launch. They are all highly motivated, mature, smart, successful and independent people. Not to mention all gainfully employed. They’ve embraced family life and developed strong interpersonal skills that allow them to live happily, and empathetically, with others. They feel secure, protected and taken care of in a phase of life when so much about their futures is uncertain.
The idea that we must reject mutual care and protection in favor of claiming our independence as early as possible needs revision. As do the unhelpful stereotypes depicting those who live at home as adult babies living in their parents’ basements.
Being a part of a family ecosystem as a young adult is an enriching way to spend one’s 20s. And these recent grads (including one who writes a weekly column for The Post) are proof.
I want to hear from you! Respond to this week’s question, and I might include your reply in the Tuesday edition of my newsletter, which is available only via email. (It’s free!) This week, I want to know: Recent gradates: Do you live at home with family or not? How do you feel about your decision? Fill out our form to tell us.
Know someone else navigating post-college life? Share this column with them!
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