Basement-dwellers, Hotel Mama, Mammismo – Society’s negative view on living with your parents and where it comes from

[Altherion]

20 hours ago, Toth said:

I'm not quite sure it is going to go away that way. Stereotypes are hard to kill, especially when it comes to perception of family.

Case in point, one of the reasons I started this thread was an analysis of the latin word 'familia' and its original meaning of a group of households under the lash of the pater familias who had traditionally a lot of rights to interfere in the lives of his children, grandchildren and other relatives of side branches. It was an archaic part of the earliest days of Rome, but over time lawmakers saw it necessary to deconstruct the political rights of the pater familias in order to liberate his children and create more independant actors in Roman core society.

It is possible, but these two examples are categorically different. The idea of the paterfamilias was aligned with socioeconomic reality for millennia and arguably still is even today. In upper class families of many societies, there has traditionally been one person who controls all of the wealth and while they do not always have the legal right to interfere in the lives of the rest, they can use the power of the purse to do so. A disobedient scion finding themselves without any access to the family's fortune is a popular motif in, say, 19th century literature so it certainly transcends antiquity.

On the other hand, the idea of living with one's parents as an adult being a means of evaluating the quality of an individual has only been aligned with the underlying socioeconomic reality for a few generations in a much more limited set of societies. There must be more of these, but they're simply not very memorable. I can think of a few from the last couple of centuries (e.g. temperance), but they're not closely related to this except in that they're moral trends that come and go within a century or so.

[Toth]

6 hours ago, FalagarV2 said:

Hm, what book is this? I don't doubt that was the case for Augustus' decree, but I don't think later emperors followed up on it, or that imperial legislators had the power to bend family structures to their will in most of the empire. The thesis re: competing power structures sounds interesting, but the central power itself needed such micro-structures, so eroding them wouldn't necessarily be in its interest. I've just skimmed through some material on legal developments (Arjava), which suggests that despite some erosion the basic principles of the pater familias remained throughout the sixth century and was still respected by Justinian. Change clearly happened, but I don't think it can be ascribed to imperial legislation. Still, not really my field, so would be interested in taking a look at the book!

Just skimmed through my notes and saw that it was not a book, but just a paper. Sorry for the mistake:

Emilio Biagini: Roman Law and Political Control – From a primitive society to the dawn of the modern world, In: GeoJournal Vol. 33, No. 4, S. 331-340, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, August 1994

I'm definitely reading far too much these days...

[FalagarV2]

I'll check it out (I was thinking of Arjava, "Paternal power in late antiquity" (1998), JRS 88)

9 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Oh, I think there were definitely ways. Look at Augustus re: Ovid or Julia if you want micro-examples of his enforcing familial morality through imperial power.

Yeah, but there's a difference between Augustus' virtue policing of the imperial family and elite in Rome, and a conscious effort from the state to re-shape traditional familial structures on a grand scale across the empire. Granted, the interplay between empire and local traditions certainly caused change (especially in the later empire, with universal citizenship and later Christianity), but I think more often unintentional than not.

14 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

Much the same as the ancient Greek Oikos - father as head of the household and daughter never being her own individual self - always under the rule of a man in her life whether that is father, brother or husband 

Definitely, patriarchal authority/practices were quite widespread beyond the judicial framework of pater familias (doing an exhibition on Palmyra atm and came upon a relief of veiled women, fairly ubiquitous practice in ancient sedentary societies).

[S John]

I feel differently about this now than I used to.  I was out of the house at 18 and have not lived with my parents for more than 2-3 months at a time since then (mostly summers in college and then briefly post-grad school).  I suppose there was a sense of pride in making it outside of the nest, but financial stability has not been an easy road.  Even now, in my early 30's with a respectable combined household income and benefits, we're finding the fact that we were basically unable to save in our 20's (student loans + city rents) means that actual home ownership is still at least a few years of saving away.  

I do often think that financially it would have been much smarter to stay at home longer, go to a local college.  Save money on room + board, maybe tuition too, and then camp out at home for a couple of years building a little nest egg.  Instead. many of us bolt out the door at 18 and the first thing we do is take out a gigantic loan to finance our education.  Of course it's a trade off between sowing your wild oats at a young age vs. making a strategic decision (and one that is stigmatized).  But while I had some great experiences in my early- mid 20's that I would not have had staying at home, if I'm honest, I don't think I really started to become interesting as a person until about the age of 26.  On top of that, I have always felt a little bit bitter towards my undergraduate university experience.  I had a lot of fun, but I do not think the education I got was worth the the money that it cost, even as an in-state student at a state university.  When they send me shit asking for money, I laugh and throw it in the trash - and that will always be so.  

All that said, I was pretty fortunate in that I graduated college in 2006.  I got into the workforce immediately and already had work experience when 2008 arrived and really made things difficult for people in the age-group just below me.  My sister, 6 years younger than me, HAD to stay at home for a few years after college because opportunities were really sparse.  So if I had my way now, I'd build a god damn family compound.  Would not mind at all having the support and expense sharing of living with family, as long as we had enough space to avoid stepping on one another's toes.  

[Datepalm]

John, I think you've just always shown an inclination to things that can be described as 'compounds'.

I don't know that there's any getting out of the financial hole of the lost 20s these days though, unless you're astonishingly lucky - I mean, I paid pennies for university by American standards, mostly didn't pay rent, and worked full time or close to it since I got out of the army at 22. Aaand...now at 30 I have no debt and enough to cover emergencies and the ocassional semi-major expense (like a conference trip or a PhD application round) without it messing up my finances, but that's about it. I'm really nowhere towards the kind of savings - or with any realistic prospects of the kind of job in the next few years that would lead to those kind of saving - that would suddenly make buying a home in any way sane. It's not something I particularly want (and It might help that i've been studying housing policy for most of those lost 20s, so I've had a long time to sort of become sociologically comfortable with the idea of being a perennial renter) so I'm not terribly stressed about it, but I really feel bad for people around me who are getting married and having kids and the like and still in the same student-y situations in terms of housing prospects or financial stability. It's just not going to happen. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I lived with my Mother during Law school.  She was kind enough to allow me to do so, rent free, for three years.  

[Theda Baratheon]

My parents don't charge me rent as I'm only part time (buy all my own stuff tho and very, VERY rarely have ever borrowed money from them) and I'm eternally grateful lol 

[S John]

46 minutes ago, Datepalm said:

John, I think you've just always shown an inclination to things that can be described as 'compounds'.

 

Hahaha, good point.

[KiDisaster]

I left my parents house at 17 because I came to the US for college. I spent a year in dorms and then lived with my grandparents for about four years. At 22 I got an apartment with two of my friends and I've been mostly independent since then, and fully independent for the last two years. Apart from the fact that my disposable income took a nosedive since paying my own bills it's a good feeling. Not having to rely on anyone else for financial support feels like an accomplishment. 

I'm now in kind of an interesting situation. My dad's been talking for years about potentially buying a house here in Florida because he wants to move here when he retires (which he wants to do sometime in the next 5 or so years) and he's suggested the idea that my brothers (who are my current roommates) and I live there and pay part of the mortgage. We'd eventually each own a piece of the house, which is pretty huge really, no longer paying rent that essentially disappears. My "rent" payments would become an investment. 

But for some reason I feel weird about it because I can't shake the stupid notion that it's a "step backwards" to living in my father's house. Obviously it's the wrong way to look at it, the right way being that my father, my brothers and I are buying a house together. And it's not like I'd be living with my parents again (not that there's anything wrong with that) since they'll still be living in Jamaica for at least the next few years. Still feels weird to me though, even knowing that. 

So I guess this stigma has become ingrained in me. 

[Buckwheat]

In Slovenia, moving into a dorm or a shared flat for university is considered to be neccessity if you cannot reasonably commute from your parents' home to the place you study at every day. I know people that rather commuted a quite long way every day than lived in a dorm.

Likewise, even for those that "move out" it is considered normal that they travel back to their family home every weekend with a bag of dirty laundry. So they live in two places, where they study during the week and their parents during the weekend. I can think of a few reasons for this, primarily the lacking privacy of dorms and shared rooms and the smallness of the country which makes this possible being the most important. It would not be possible if you went to university to a more distant place.

So it is important to distinguish between "moving out" just during the week while you still spend time with the family every weekend and the whole actual "buying my own flat and changing all my documents for the new address" thing.

Obviously, the stigma against those who live with their parents is mostly inexistent. Many people with big houses are also thrilled if their adult children establish their new household in the old family home, have their spouse move in and raise children there, with grandparents wholly or partly taking over the role of the kindergarten for the grandchildren.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

While the primary reason Americans are living with their parents for longer is primarily economic and financial, I don't think that was the primary reason it culture looks down on it.

The first example in my mind of someone in popular culture derided for living with his parents is Seymour Skinner from the Simpsons. He's fairly successful financially, being a school principal, and could probably live on his own if he wanted. In many senses, his catchphrase, "I don't live with my mother, she lives with me" is true, but he's mocked as man with a co-dependent relationship with his mother, who at the age of 40+ still lets her make all of his major decisions and is still a virgin.

Or Howard from Big Bang Theory. He's an MIT graduated engineer, and could easily support himself if he'd wanted to, but is depicted in much the same way as Skinner is with regard to this mother.

[Theda Baratheon]

I moved out at 18 into dorms,  then for the next two years in my own flat with a friend in the city where I was studying then couldn't afford that any more and moved in with my grandmother for just under a year and then back with my parents who I've been with for about a year - eventually would love to get back to the city but this time with a decent job and not just student loans and a part time wage lmao 

[Theda Baratheon]

I do love living with my dog again though and he's so old now I really love hanging out with him and looking after him when my parents can't 

[baxus]

12 hours ago, Buckwheat said:

Obviously, the stigma against those who live with their parents is mostly inexistent. Many people with big houses are also thrilled if their adult children establish their new household in the old family home, have their spouse move in and raise children there, with grandparents wholly or partly taking over the role of the kindergarten for the grandchildren.

My mother was shocked when I informed her I'll be moving in with my girlfriend at the tender age of 28.  She even tried to pull the "she can come live with us, we have enough space" trick, but the only thing that succeeded in was making me laugh. It took her some 6 months to realize me moving out was a good thing for everyone. At this point, I must point out I never had any major issues or problems with my parents but that I considered it normal to move out when I could afford it, and let's be honest and say that at 28 it was way overdue.

I can think of only one of my friends my age still living with his parents and that was mainly because of his sick grandmother than any financial reasons. Some of them do use their parents as kindergarten for their kids, but most don't and are very adamant about it.

[Datepalm]

My mother called me an idiot for moving out every time she saw me, at 25. Then, when I moved back in and then back out at 26, again. Then at 28, then at 29. Actually this time at 30 she seems to be, well, quieter about it, at least. We'll see how it goes.

[Isalie]

I moved out at 18 and never looked back, but now that I think about it, I would kind of like it if the kids stuck around for longer than me at least, and though I doubt it, I really hope they stay in the same city.

[Theda Baratheon]

I guess I still need to not be so judgemental about it - my uncle who is 38 still lives with my Nan but he's an opiate addict with a seriously codependent relationship with my Nan who has never really been in a serious relationship with anyone else or moved out for any significant period of time and I can feel myself getting nasty and judgemental about this already when I guess it works for both of them (except it doesnt) even though loads of his bills are still in my nans name...and she has to drive him to work every day even at midnight even tho she has parkinsons...he makes me think of Buster from Arrested Development and I guess that codependent stereotype is pretty pervasive and mean spirited...if they're both happier for it then it can't be all that bad ...but he really is like a child and doesn't do anything around the house and my nan still makes him dinner and makes his hot chocolates for him...I dunno that whole situation kind of annoys me ...

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

I moved out when I was 26, so about a decade ago. I can say that my living with my parents at that age filled me with nothing but depression and loathing. Even though I think it was becoming more and more acceptable back then it was still seen as being associated with being a Nerd or a loser.

The problem is that the world was moving on at that time and the culture hadn't quite understood what was happening. I mean that almost around the world housing costs have skyrocketed to silly levels in cities, while at the same time wages have stagnated. Its worse for the young because getting that first job means living on slave wages or doing work for free to just a foot in the door for a lot of people.
When I was at home I was working my way up in my career but prices in London meant I couldn't rent and didn't come from a rich enough family that I could buy somewhere to live.

I will say that most of embarassment at living at home with my folks was not shared by my friends, they didn;t see much wrong with it, and even now I know people in their 30's who are still at home. Its become a financial reality for some. Why throw away all your money on rent when you can save it all and buy somewhere, which gives you a massive advantage over other people. 

[HexMachina]

Personally, I don't have a negative opinion of other people who live with their parents (perhaps because my uncle never moved out of my grandparents house, although that was in part due to his having to care for them because of illnesses). But when it comes to my own situation the idea of having to move back home after university puts me down. I feel like if I don't get myself a job where I can support myself immediately I've wasted the last 3 years of my life and tens of thousands of pound for nothing. Part of me realises this is unreasonable of me but I can't help it. I don't think it helps that I come from a household where no one has gone to university before. My family are incredibly proud of me for taking this route but I (again irrationally) feel like I will be affirming to them that university isn't for people like us.

I also hate my home town and many of the people who live there, and it's full of unpleasant memories for me. I really dread the thought of having to go back

[Leofric]

Technically, I lived with my parents until I was 25, though most of that time I was going to school out-of-state so I spent the majority of the time living in dorms and apartments on campus, but still spent the summers at home.   I took a year break in the middle of college and lived at home full time and worked full time, at which point my mother started charging me rent, but that ended once I went back to school.   I got a job in California (3,000 miles away) a few months after I graduated and so moved out for good. 

If I had gotten a job closer to home, I might have ended up staying at home a bit longer to save up some money, but I was ready to move out after spending so much time on my own during the school year.