Seeking women 20-30 living at home for interview
A reporter from the Independent on Sunday is looking for a woman aged 20-30, living with her parents, who would be willing to participate in an interview for a case study for a piece on changing social demographics. If you (or your daughter) are in this situation, and would like to participate in the story, send me an e-mail at christina@adultchildrenlivingathome.com and I’ll put you in touch with the reporter.
TV Tokyo looking for family with boomerang kids in Washington, DC
TV Tokyo’s Washington, DC bureau is working on a story about boomerang kids and multi-generational households in the United States. Specifically, they are looking for families where adult children aged 18 – 34 have moved back in with their parents after a recent layoff or because they are having trouble finding a job after college. If you are interested in talking about your experience with boomerang kids, you live in the Washington, DC area, and you’d like to appear on a Japanese television program, please send me a quick e-mail at christina@adultchildrenlivingathome.com and I’ll put you in touch with the producer.
BBC show looking for adult children living at home
The BBC South Politics Show, which airs every Sunday in Hampshire, Dorset, West Sussex, Berkshire, Wiltshire and Surrey, wants to hear from people in the South of England who have Kippers or adult children at home. They want to find out why the adult children are still at home and how it’s working out for the whole family. There’s a chance the BBC would want to come and interview the family for the show. If this describes you, and you’re interested in talking to the BBC, send me a quick e-mail at christina@adultchildrenlivingathome.com and I’ll connect you with the people involved at the BBC.
The older the child, the greater the tension
Researchers from the University of Michigan recently did a study of parents and their adult children. Not surprisingly, they found that there is often tension between parents and adult kids. Parents tend to feel more tension than the adult kids, and parents feel more tension with daughters than with sons. As children get older, tension appears to increase.
Researchers found that the more tension, the less likely parents and adult kids were to use constructive strategies to sort out their differences.
Be sure to sort out annoying issues with your adult kids before they turn into major crises, and you’ll be much more likely to resolve things amicably. There are some excellent communication strategies based on years of leadership and communications training in The Hands-On Guide to Surviving Adult Children Living at Home.
The study mentioned above will be published in the journal Psychology and Aging.
80% of 2009 college grads moved back home
College grads are increasingly moving back in with mom and dad after graduation, according to recent poll results released by CollegeGrad.com, the #1 entry level job site.
Among 2009 U.S. college graduates, 80 percent moved back home with their parents after graduation, up from 77 percent in 2008, 73 percent in 2007, and 67 percent in 2006.
“Many factors are responsible for the trend of recent graduates moving back in with their parents,” says Adeola Ogunwole, CollegeGrad.com Director of Marketing and PR. “The economy is tough right now. Every year, living independently becomes more expensive and entry level jobs become more competitive.”
Another factor, said Ogunwole, is that “Gen Y” students–born in the 1980s and 1990s–tend to have close ties with their parents, depend on them for support and guidance, and feel no stigma at moving back home after graduation.
According to the CollegeGrad.com poll, nearly 70 percent of recent grads did not have jobs lined up when they graduated. The job market is certainly competitive, but Ogunwole believes there’s an additional dynamic getting in the way of some graduates’ employment: unreasonable expectations.
“Many recent graduates are turning down good job offers, holding out for better jobs and salaries in the belief that a college degree entitles them to more than entry level,” says Ogunwole. “In today’s job market, that’s just not realistic.”
“Moving back home with mom and dad may be a good temporary solution, but the sooner you embark on a full-time job search, land a job, and learn to live independently within your means, the greater your chances of being successful,” says Ogunwole.
The CollegeGrad.com online survey attracted more than 2000 respondents. New grads were asked, “Did you move back home after graduation?” and answered as follows:
- Yes, just for the summer – 11.5%
- Yes, Until I find a job – 68.9%
- No – 19.6%
Source: CollegeGrad.com
Interesting online discussion about adult children living at home
There is an interesting online discussion about adult children living at home happening here. The questions up for discussion are:
Do you live in culture where it would be considered inappropriate to move out of the family home before you are married? Are you a parent who feels you have brought up your children to the best of your ability and now its time for you start enjoying life as a couple again? or are you a twenty something desperate to strike out on your own but constrained by the cost of it?
Is your son stuck in “Guyland”?
Sociologist and Author Michael Kimmel has recently released a new book — Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men — in which he explores the results of his conversations with nearly 400 young men between the ages of 16 and 26. According to Kimmel, many of them are stuck in “Guyland,” in a Peter-Pan-like state where their high school or college life continues on well into their twenties, where the focus is on having fun and playing video games, rather than finding a good job and becoming independent. Here’s how Kimmel describes Guyland:
Guyland is the world in which young men live. It is both a stage of life, a liminal undefined time span between adolescence and adulthood that can often stretch for a decade or more, and a place, or, rather, a bunch of places where guys gather to be guys with each other, unhassled by the demands of parents, girlfriends, jobs, kids, and the other nuisances of adult life. In this topsy-turvy, Peter-Pan mindset, young men shirk the responsibilities of adulthood and remain fixated on the trappings of boyhood, while the boys they still are struggle heroically to prove that they are real men despite all evidence to the contrary.
If your son is stuck in Guyland, you may benefit from some of the strategies in our book, The Hands-On Guide to Surviving Adult Children Living at Home.
You can read a longer excerpt of Guyland on the USA Today website.