Young people must learn to cope in the real world and leave family home

How you can tell if you’ve raised an adult-baby and why it’s a bad thing, writes Dr Judith Locke

A few years ago, a friend of mine went on a date with a man who was a bit of an artist. All went well until his current living arrangements came up. To her horror, she discovered he was a 33-year-old man still living with his parents and sharing a room with his brother. This wasn’t a temporary situation, but an arrangement unchanged for the entirety of his life. Suddenly his career, or lack thereof, made sense.

I understand why adult children may be living with their parents at ages where they would be normally moving out. With housing prices skyrocketing, low wages, and people staying longer at university, then living with your parents into your 20s becomes more understandable.

But my concern, echoed in my clinical experience, is the type of arrangement which is set up between parents and their adult children. Too often, it isn’t ideal for anyone – particularly parents.

The fundamental problem is a mismatch between their rights and responsibilities. Often, they have adult rights but are only undertaking child responsibilities. That is, they can invite friends over, drink alcohol, and have their partners stay over, but they still leave their dishes in the sink or bedroom and expect parents to do their laundry. Or sulk when their favourite cereal isn’t in the cupboard or Mum asks them to shift their legs so she can watch TV too.

When children grow up and refuse to leave home it can often resemble reality TV, much like the ultimate adult babies, the Kardashians. Picture: Getty Images

Too often, adult children tend to revert to childlike behaviours in the presence of their parents. If their parents let them, then these bad habits become more entrenched over time. When this has happened, the act of moving out of home provides an essential circuit breaker to enable children to grow up. Unfortunately, without moving out, then the childish behaviours often stick around with them.

Living at home can also stop them from needing to get a career that enables them to live independently. If they don’t have to earn enough money for rent and groceries, then why not pursue a screenwriting career, writing a page or two of a script every week, watching movies on the couch (as research of course), and work part time at the local bottle shop.

An adult-baby stops living a truly grown-up life.

With no pressing rent demands, they can take it slowly – and put more effort into dreaming, rather than doing.

Even if the young adult is at university, allowing them to still live as a child is not developing their life skills. How can they be studying at Masters level, if they aren’t living somewhat independently?

They aren’t even mastering basic living skills. The adult-baby life is not an existence that allows a great sense of pride or accomplishment. And here’s where I see the biggest impact. Research done in 2016, showed that the group who have the poorest wellbeing in Australia are the adults living with their parents. Of course, this includes those whose mental health or disabilities necessitate this arrangement.

But I wonder how many of these adults could move out, but their parent allows them to keep living at home. And does this ongoing situation deny young adults the dignity of living a truly grown-up life at an age they should be living as such?

Remember, you are growing an adult here, not preserving a child in the liquid of your indulgence and misdirected care.

The most loving parenting actions are often the ones that, on the surface, appear the cruellest. Perhaps it’s time you forced them to fly out of your nest or take an active part in its upkeep.

And how are you going to do that? Well, I’ll tell you in next week’s column.