Half of young Australian adults are still living at home – we’ve raised a generation of ‘kidults’ | Susie O’Brien
The other night I caught up with school mum friends to talk about our favourite topic – the learned helplessness of our adult children at home, writes Susie O’Brien.
The kidult is a unique human species known for its limitation in domestic situations.
Its prime habitat is the family nest, which it will not vacate until it is at least 30.
These immature homo sapiens are 25 going on 12. The species has a surprising ability to thrive given that it is entirely dependent on grown-ups to raise it well past maturity.
Kidults have a very obliging nature. They are willing to sit around all day in a dirty house, waiting for their parents to come home from work and cook them dinner.
They’re happy to borrow our car because they need petrol in theirs.
And they lift up their feet when they’re on the couch and we’re vacuuming the rug. Bless.
They’re also very good at arguing the merits of their point of view: why put empty toilet rolls in the bin when you can put them on the floor or, even better, build a nifty pyramid on the wall behind the shower?
Nearly half of all young adults aged 20 to 24 are still living at home with their parents, but there’s good news on the horizon.
Most move out by the time they are 25, with only one in five left by their late 20s and one in 10 by their mid-30s.
The other night I caught up with school mum friends and we spent the whole night talking about our favourite topic: the learned helplessness of our adult children living at home.
One mum came into her 21-year-old son’s room the other day to find him standing on the bed, sheet in his arms, knuckles bleeding. He was trying to put a fitted sheet on his bed, perhaps for the first time ever.
Friends tell of children in university texting their mothers who go for a rare night away to ask where the dishwasher pellets are kept.
The answer is the same place as they have been for the last 20 years.
My own kids assure me they’re not moving out for years. YEARS.
Why would they? They’ve got it too good.
They are grateful, hard-working and appreciative, but they’re often quite happy to let me cook every meal and wash every piece of clothing if I let them.
I let them more often than I should.
I know of 21-year-olds who would never say no when asked to pack the dishwasher while in the middle of a four-month summer hiatus from uni.
But they do try and get out of it by saying they’re “too tired” (after a day spent doing nothing) or insist that it’s “not my turn” (it never is).
How can they be expected to find time to take the dogs around the block when they are so busy with 10 contact hours at uni, a part-time job and social commitments?
Other friends share stories of kids who flatter their mothers into dutiful domesticity well into their 50s.
“You do it best,” they say. “No one does it like you.”
It’s not easy. These people are young, smart and know our weak spots.
You tell your teenager he must vacuum the car before he can get $20 to buy a Grill’d burger for lunch. By the time the guilt-laden protracted negotiations have finished, you’re giving him $30 and cleaning the car yourself.
These days, I pick my battles. I do most of the cooking, but insist that no one leaves the kitchen until all the dishes are done. And I’ll tell them dinner’s ready even though it’s not, so they come out of their bedrooms and set the table.
I work full-time so I pay for a cleaner once a fortnight, but refuse to go into the bowels of their bedrooms to remove dirty washing or plates (until we run out of bowls and there’s no choice).
My partner is a much better parent than me because he’s not afraid to say no.
One day my daughter asked him to drive her two blocks to the station as it was raining.
“Did you give her a lift?” I asked him.
“No,” he said. “I gave her an umbrella.”
What would I have done? Given her a lift.
It’s time to stop doing things our children for could, and should, do themselves.
Research shows that there’s conflict in many kidult nests given that 80 per cent of young people living at home do less than an hour a day in housework.
That’s no surprise. Most parents would see 15 minutes as a major breakthrough.
Hell, I’d settle for five mins of vacuuming, a quarter of a tank of petrol and a ban on toilet roll bathroom art.
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Originally published as Half of young Australian adults are still living at home – we’ve raised a generation of ‘kidults’ | Susie O’Brien
