How millennials made living at home with parents a good thing
It was one of those things we heard about growing up-that in America you leave home at 18.
In fact, if I remember correctly, it was a story told to us here as a gentle reminder that we had it easy in India, and that we shouldn't take it for granted or fritter away the benefits.
There was also an insinuation of heartlessness. What strange people, those Americans - you bring your child up only to kick her out as soon as she reaches adulthood.
This went hand-in-hand with the cultural differences and the cultural stereotypes regarding old age. The Americans not only throw you out of the house when you're 18, but the 18-year-olds, once they grow up, also throw their ageing parents into an old people's home.
Both these facts never cease to make us feel a little superior - the heartless American as opposed to the emotional and respectful Indian. It's the truth about cultures - every culture wants to feel that it is better than the other.
The millenials, a phrase that refers to those who reached adulthood around the year 2000, seem to be changing this perception.
More young Americans are living with their parents than at any other time in history. A recent Gallup poll suggests that more than half of under-25s in the US are living with their parents.
A couple of reasons for this: a sluggish economy, and more young adults (or "emerging adults" as Americans call it) choosing to pursue higher education and delaying marriage: at least one-fourth of millenials will never get married.
Living at home is of course a practical decision. It makes financial sense. We Indians have never really questioned the economic soundness of it.
You stay under one roof, you save on rent, and one well-run kitchen takes care of the food. When you can have a single efficiently-run housing unit, then why create more?
Privacy is one big reason to break away and live on one's own. Over the last decade, at least in the big cities in India, there has been a trend of young single people renting their own rooms or apartments, even though their parents live in the same city.
It has its benefits - the lack of interference, the freedom to take decisions and make mistakes, the precarious pleasure of learning to stand on one's own two feet.
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| More young Americans are living with their parents than at any other time in history. |
But it's also a kind of designer independence. Your parents are only a short ride away; when you come down with viral fever, you generally go running home for doctors, money and home-cooked meals. Ditto for financial emergencies.
In America though there is a substantive change when it comes to what young people want, and that is changing relationships between parents and children.
The generation gap is less than ever before. In the '60s the young and old were often at odds with each other. That is not the case anymore.
For example, in 1986, half the parents surveyed said they spoke to their children once a week. Today, more than half say they speak to their kids every day.
With the milennials, it's more about doing what you want - the freedom to pursue what you really want to do. What really enables this creative opportunity is the solid economic backing of your parents.
It's the parents who created this context. With many parents today, the thinking is that we could have this money for our own fun, but my kid needs it more to realise her dreams so let me write the cheque for her.
Aside from the financial aspect, there is also an increased emotional connect between parents and children. With more millenials delaying marriage or not marrying at all, the relationship with parents is the single most important emotional connect that young people have nowadays.
This means that the earlier distance between parents and their wards has shrunk. Your parents are your best friends, in many cases the closest friends that you'll ever have.
This is different from helicopter parenting. It's more about parents feeling more and more involved with the lives of their children - but as friends.
One might say that the Indian joint family system always nurtured these values and relationships. But there are differences. The joint family system can be oppressive because it stifles the individual and the choices she makes.
In the millennial spin to this, the individuals retain their individuality while, at the same time, forging deeper emotional bonds. The individual's freedom and life plan is paramount.
More importantly, it's a choice you make - to live with your parents. It's not something foisted on you by society.
Most young adults can afford to live on their own if they wanted to but they choose to live with their parents. Just that - the option to opt out, makes the choice less stifling.
This leads us to the question of over-involvement in each other's lives. Do families really need to know every little thing about each other?
Sometimes, one feels that it wasn't so bad in the earlier days. There is something to be said for distance and detachment - it makes you less dependent, less worried about worry - the constant fretfulness that accompanies parents and children who live on in a protracted adolescence.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)