Residz Team 3 min read
Moving out of home was once a rite of passage for many young Australian-born adults in their late teens or 20s. Now it might signal a mid-life crisis! Recent research shows fewer and fewer ‘kids’ are moving out of the family home by the time they are 30. Multiculturalism and larger houses are factors, but money pressures are also to blame for this demographic change.
The Finder survey of Australians found that while almost all baby boomers (92%) had left home by age 30, only 75% of Generation X and 72% of millennials had. This means up to two million family homes might have millennials aged in their 20s and 30s still using up the last of the milk and stretching out on the sofa. Let’s look at what that means for the homeowner or leaseholder parent/s.
My parents cut off all financial help to me when I was 22, which was one of the best decisions they ever made. It made me (finally) grow up and live within my means. But older ‘kids’ in 2022 have much more saving to do if parents are ever to be rid of them. A recent Domain Rental Report found that median rents had increased an average of nearly 9% year on year in every Australian capital city. Canberra was especially unaffordable, rising 16.7%. Can parents ask ‘kids’ to pay bills when the rental bond and rent they’ll face ‘outside’ has risen so much?
Sharing a living space with a couple of children and their Lego ® is one thing. But sharing spaces with fully-grown adults can make large rooms seem overcrowded. And it’s not just their bodies, it’s their belongings that they drape over every chair and plonk onto flat surfaces. It’s the hobby kits that they buy on eBay and store on the dining table. It’s the phone chargers that move, and the frypan that ‘soaks’ for days in the sink. Living with adults is hard because you expect them to behave like guests, but they behave like themselves.
How is it that asking 20-30 year olds to walk the dog is harder than asking them when they were 10? Everyone pats the dog, takes photos of the dog, and laughs at the dog’s antics, but no-one but the parent/s or carer/s walks the dog. When the dog is sick, adult children may cry out “He needs to be taken to the vet.” They then jump in their own car and visit friends (without the dog).
Adult children living at home may have to navigate relationships under the strict, concerned, prying, or overly enthusiastic gaze of people who once brushed their hair or bought them pimple cream. While parent/s might pretend a casual interest, they are watching every move like Mrs Bennett from Pride and Prejudice. Adult children who are single have to suffer parent/s getting excited about anyone who parks in the driveway, including the Uber Eats driver.
Adults living at home with parents don’t host parties in a share house, they share their parties with their hosts. Parties full of beautiful people in their 20s and 30s make older people feel decades younger so don’t expect us to sit in a corner. Some parents will be up on the kitchen counter in a Madonna cone bra, others will dart about with Jif and a sponge. Either way, it’s just another aspect of living at home through your best party years.
Living at home does delay some adulting. From repairing a washing machine to laying mousetraps, having your parents around is the default setting for getting dull stuff done. For people who have never lived out of home it would appear that houses run themselves. The home insurance is paid (hopefully), the broken mailbox is replaced, the sticky sliding door is fixed. This is not a bad thing or a good thing. It’s just how it is.
These days it’s not as easy for parents to sell the family home from under their adult children’s feet. Homes are too expensive for entry-level buyers, and rent is becoming too exorbitant to pay with a stagnant wage and inconsistent work. Perhaps the biggest change in the future will be the end of ‘downsizing’ as multigenerational households rotate through the living spaces of the family home. There are many positives to having adults at home, it’s just a pity it’s becoming a necessity not a choice.
Image: Take off your shoes before you enter. Photo by JoeInQueens, Wikipedia.