(NewsNation) — Many Americans have hit a brick wall post-graduation, struggling to find jobs, even with a college degree; while others are struggling financially due to student loan debt and looking for affordable rent. This has led to an increase in “boomerang kids” moving back home with their parents.
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I lived with my folks for a few months after I got out of the army, supporting myself with a full time job that paid a whopping 800 bucks a month, and making up the difference by hiring myself out for day labor on the weekends. I was trying to save up to move out but at those wages it was going to take a while.
As long as I was paying rent and earned my keep around the house, my old man didn't care if I stayed with them. It was just less yardwork for him to do, giving him more time to hunt and fish. Mom on the other hand, was giving me small hints that it was time to move on, shit like "Have you given any thought to moving yet?" or "Don't you have any friends you can live with?" and of course there was the time I came in for breakfast on a Sunday morning and she looked all surprised and said "What? You're still here?"
Mom never was known for being subtle. I moved.
A few years after that, I got into it with one of my bosses at the ammo plant. Things got heated and he fired me. I wasn't worried - I knew he was wrong, he knew he was wrong and upper management would know he was wrong when they came in at 7 AM, so I figured to get a call before long telling me to come back to work. For that reason, I didn't load my toolboxes up, just told the guards I'd be back for them sometime in the next few days. Then there was the fact that I needed to get the fuck out of there before upper management showed up at 7 so I'd at least have the rest of the day off. My biggest concern at the moment was trying to figure out how I could spin it to where I was at least partially wrong so I could get a lightweight suspension with some time off.
Anyways, as I was rolling out the gate at 6:30 that morning, Mom was pulling in to drop off Dad. She waved me down and asked why I was leaving, so I told her I got fired. No sense in lying about it, the old man was going to hear about it before he even walked the 50 yards to the machine shop.
Her reaction? She gritted her teeth, leaned out her window and hollered "Well, you're not moving back in with us! Don't even think about asking!"
Love you too, Mom.
My oldest daughter just got her first job out of college as an RN. She's making $85k a year and started to seriously look at housing and automobile prices. She got her first paycheck and just stared at it. She couldn't believe the taxes that were taken.
ReplyDeleteShe now realizes that she'll need a roommate to do the things she thought she could herself..
She's also a bit of a lefty. Maybe this will help... I hope!
Came home from Nam Dec 5th. Spent about every penny I had on nice xmas presents for my family. I was all excited to be home and with family. Xmas morn I found my brother and sisters no longer came to the house. They had xmas at their homes. So, mother, father and ten year old kid sister. I had one big gift. I thought the whole family musta chipped in and got me something nice. I opened it and it was a fucking suit case. Hint taken. I left and moved about 600 miles away. I never asked those assholes for one thin dime. Times were mighty rough on occasion and my wife and I drank water at meals so our daughter had milk. Some how we squeezed by. I'd a died afore I'd asked those assholes or anyone for the time of day.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear that happened to ya. That was really ignorant of them. I could tell you stories of the assholes in my family. I finally had enough and didn't contact any of them for many years. My then wife and now ex got me involved with them for her own purposes. Every time I think I'm out they pull me back in. I'm in my 60's now and never again. I think it's the good ones that they do that sorta stuff to for whatever reason -sammy
DeleteReally tough love.....
ReplyDeleteNah, I didn't see it that way, it was just the way things were back then. Once I turned 18, I was my own problem, not my parent's.
DeleteEven if it sounds harsh, it certainly turned out better for you than if she'd begged you to keep living at home. Truly, pushing you out of the nest turns out better than being chained to it.
ReplyDelete--nines
Oh hell, it didn't bother me. She was of that generation where kids got married at 17-18 years old and made it on their own, and she raised me to think the same.
DeleteBesides, I liked living with my mother as much as she liked living with me. I think since I moved out, I've spent maybe 3 nights under her roof.
Your mom sound's like my last wife. -sammy
ReplyDeleteThe first routine on this very funny Jeff Allen video is about a "boomerang" son back from the Army. It is the M:om who is anxious to get him out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEkgTv3LEAc
ReplyDeletei was homeless for two years in my late teens. i could have moved in with my mom but it was easier to live on the street and dumpster dive for a living than have to listen to the bullshit.
ReplyDeletePops was changing the water pump out on my beater car and lost the nut on the inside of the timing chain cover. Bent some valves in the head. He came in the house and ask Mom, "Now what?" She pointed out the choices were he fix the head on the car or I would have to come live with them. He fixed my car and it took months for me to pay him back for the added repairs on my car. Not living with your parents is sometimes in everyone's best interests.
ReplyDeleteOur daughter was one of the lucky ones to have her senior year destroyed by the Plandemic. She moved back in with us the final quarter of her senior year of 2020. With the Plandemic fucking the job market in 2020, she got a job at a brand new, local high end restaurant, starting at the bottom of the totem pole. She's worked her ass off and is now making good money as a bartender, even though she has a 4-year degree in management. Even if she took a management job, thrre is no way in Hades she could afford to rent or own on her own in FL, at this point in time.
ReplyDeleteWe're so flooded with Leftards and "vibrants" fleeing their shitholes that FLO-GROWNS can't afford to live here.
It's really nice driving around and seeing "vibrants" enjoying themselves whike the rest of us "deplorables" are working to fill their EBT cards.
My Mom was just like that. I was the last out of the chicken coop, but I was pretty much out of the house the Summer before my last year of HS. I think she was that way because she was an orphan and had a fear of starving. She was a case and a half!
ReplyDeleteAside from a brief stay with the USMC, I've been living with my parents all my life. I was originally going to build a tiny house on the back end of the farm but the bare structure flooded out twice and I'm not about to put more money into it. I have since converted it into a gym and there are too many wood rats to keep anything nice down there.
ReplyDeleteMultiple attempts at self-employment later and I have something that works but it's not enough to live on so now it's time to use my GI benefits and go to college. I'll still be living with them but the added BHA of around $1700/month fix a lot of stuff around here, possibly boost my business to a level that I can live on, and maybe build a new tiny house on higher ground. Going for chemistry; probably polymers, emulsions, or biochem, something used in industry so I can get that $75,000/yr out the door. Gota review my education though first, it's been ~14 years since I graduated.
There is nothing wrong with multi-generational households as long as people are pulling their weight and contributing. I usually keep around 6-8 acres mowed, fences serviced, worst of the potholes filled, and some trees pruned.
I can't blame anyone for moving back in. Rent keeps going up and slave wages won't budge; pretty much why Americans are unionizing across the country, they are tired of the abuse. People have to room together or sub-rent to squeeze by and it's only going to get worse.
- Arc
Ain't no way I was ever moving back in with my parents. Exactly why I re-enlisted in the USAF, in the early 1970's. Ended up making a career out of it, and seeing the world. 13 years overseas out of 20. Stateside sucked. Cleve
ReplyDeleteYeah, once I got a taste of nobody looking over my shoulder, there was no way in hell I'd live with my parents again. Given a choice between that and re-upping, I'd have gone back to the army in a heartbeat.
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