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.
Support group for parents with adult children living at home
Two Madsion, WI mental health professionals are starting a support group for parents with adult children living at home in September.
“They don’t ever quite fit again,” Pat Gillette, a licensed marriage and family therapist, said. “You don’t ever go back, really, nor should you, go back to the parent-child relationship the way it was.
You can read about it in this article from The Capital Times.
Lessons learned from “The Nest”
We told you about an Australian reality show called “The Nest” that dealt with the issue of adult children living at home.
With the show having wrapped, the show’s financial expert has written an article sharing his thoughts on some of the lessons to be learned from the show. Here’s an excerpt:
One of the main reasons adult children continue to live at home is that it gives them a leg-up financially.
Yet none of the adult children on The Nest, including those in their late 20s, were any better off for all the benefits of being subsidised by their parents. Living at home had not made them better money managers. Quite the reverse.
Most had credit card debts. None had any savings to speak of.
Here’s the rub: letting them stay in the parental pad long after their education commitments had finished had hurt them more than it had helped them.
It was clear that the parents were killing their kids with kindness.
In our book, we discuss strategies for setting up financial arrangements that work for all members of your household, including any adult children who may be living at home, so that no on bears too much of a burden and everyone learns about responsibility. You can find our tips here.
Less stigma for adult children living at home
We all know by now that it’s becoming more and more common for adult children to live at home well into their twenties, thirties, or even forties. Fortunately for families dealing with all the extra challenges of extra adults in the home, social stigma is becoming less of a concern. With so many young adults still living with Mom and Dad, their friends (and their parents’ friends) are becoming less and less likely to think there’s anything wrong with the living arrangement.
This recent article from the Wall Street Journal explains why it’s becoming socially acceptable for young people to rely on their parents for a few extra years.
Sticks and stones may break their bones…
BLUDGER: noun, a person who lives off the efforts of others; a person who does not pay his fair share or who does not make a fair contribution to a cost, enterprise, etc., a cadger; an idler, one who makes little effort. (Australian National Dictionary Centre)
It seems adult children living at home in Australia are tired of getting labeled with the “bludger” stereotype. The author of this article talks to a few of them and their families to find out why.
Australian TV drama “Packed to the Rafters” features family with adult children living at home
Families with adult children living at home must be coming more common, and more socially acceptable — they’re starting to show up on TV!
Here’s the descripion of Australian TV station Channel Seven’s new family drama “Packed to the Rafters”:
Meet Dave and Julie Rafter (Erik Thomson and Rebecca Gibney) - just your average Australians with three grown-up children. On the eve of their twenty-fifth wedding-anniversary it seems they’re at last about to have the house to themselves. Offspring Rachel, Ben and Nathan (played by newcomers Jessica Marais, Hugh Sheridan and Angus McLaren) have all developed into well-rounded and out-going, if exceptionally different and complex, individuals, with a raft of their own conflicts and dilemmas. But home can seem a very welcome refuge when unforeseen problems loom.
Source: ebroadcast.com.au
Meet the 3 families of “The Nest”
Back in March, we told you about a producer looking for families with adult children living at home for a TV show he was shooting in Sydney, Australia. Over 300 families, applied, but the three who will be featured have now been chosen
- Paul and Jenny Wilkinson, who share their home with four adult children aged 20-27, plus their son Aaron’s live-in girlfriend.
- Chris and Kerri Curran, who have two of their three children still living at home.
- Oscar and Marta Troche, who adult daughter Anielka, 25, is in no hurry to move out.
The Nest airs on Australian TV station SBS on June 28.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Welcome to extended adolescence
We recently attended a conference where Max Valiquette, President and CEO of youthography.com was a keynote speaker. He shared some interesting insights about a new trend he calls “extended adolescence.”
If your adult children are still living at home (or have boomeranged home again) you already know that adolescence (that state of almost-adulthood) is lasting longer than ever before. For example:
- in larger cities, 54-59% of 20-29-year-olds live at home
- the average age to graduate from university is now 25 (20 years ago it was 23)
- the average age of first marriage is 28 (20 years ago it was 25)
- the average age to give birth to your first child is 29 (20 years ago it was 26)
What’s also interesting is that kid are entering adolescence earlier than ever before:
- the average kid is put into their first organized educational “classroom” before age 4
- the average kid tries their first cigarette by age 13
- kids now have to make decisions about what courses to take in high school that can profoundly affect the direction their lives will take (starting as early as age 14)
Fifty years ago, adolescence as a concept didn’t exist. You were a child, then you were adult. Now, we have this extended concept of adolescence that lasts for 10, 20, even up to 30 years. How is this changing the way you relate to your kids — and how they view your responsibilities towards them?
Are you helping your children… or stifling their independence?
Just because your adult children are living at home, that doesn’t mean you need to continue to support them in the same way you did when they were kids. As we discuss in our book, providing too much financial support for your grown children can hold them back from establishing their own careers and developing sound financial management skills.
This article, based on the book “Does Your Bag Have Holes” by Cameron C. Taylor, uses simple stories to illustrate why letting your children find their own wings can be the best thing you ever do for them.
Real stories of Boomerang kids
It’s simply a fact of life for modern families that adult children tend to return home at least once after they initially leave the nest. That’s why young adults these days are so often called “boomerang” kids — they just keep coming back!
This article features some interesting anecdotes from real familes with adult children living at home.