Adult Children Living with Parents

Christos_NIKA

Christos_NIKA

Orthodox
Heritage
Saw this on X and thought it was an interesting subject for discussion. I'm sure most of us know about the famous Italian men who live with mamma until 40+ years of age (don't get me started). Honestly I was surprised it's even more prevalent in Croatia. It's certainly a "southern European thing", but why is that? Is it solely economic? Is it social? Is it wholesome, beneficial to society, or a burden and inability to grow up and contribute?

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I think culture is more of a factor than you think. In my culture you're not supposed to leave the house until you're married, I personally bucked the trend on that as I moved out for college and never went back which was unheard of when I did it. It's actually considered shameful to do so, youre not supposed to leave your family until you go to start your own is the reasoning for it. It's also shameful to kick your kids out of the house.

Also in my culture if your mother is widowed you don't leave her to live alone, she lives with one of her children's families. Two of my aunts live with their sons families and my grandmother God rest her soul lived with my aunts family, her daughter.


I don't know if it's bad or good I could argue both sides, it's just tradition.
 
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margieinitaly.com

Mammoni and Mammismo - An Italian Lifestyle - Margie in Italy

Six years ago I wrote a post about an Italian lifestyle titled Mammoni – Mamma’s Boys in Italy and today it ranks as my most popular post. Mammoni, a term applied to single Italian men who live at home with their … Continued
margieinitaly.com margieinitaly.com

www.telegraph.co.uk

What's the opposite of 'Mammismo'?

The Catholic Church has decreed that Italian men are too close to their mothers, but British men are too far to the other extreme, says Jake Wallis Simons
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk
 
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FrancisK said:
I think culture is more of a factor than you think. In my culture you're not supposed to leave the house until you're married, I personally bucked the trend on that as I moved out for college and never went back which was unheard of when I did it. It's actually considered shameful to do so, youre not supposed to leave your family until you go to start your own is the reasoning for it. It's also shameful to kick your kids out of the house.

Also in my culture if your mother is widowed you don't leave her to live alone, she lives with one of her children's families. Two of my aunts live with their sons families and my grandmother God rest her soul lived with my aunts family, her daughter.


I don't know if it's bad or good I could argue both sides, it's just tradition.
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I wonder why northern Europeans don't do this. Are they just cold-hearted, selfish, godless? I'm not sure, because there are outliers, like Lithuania, which is Catholic, but also has a very low percentage. Meanwhile Latvia and Hungary are much higher, although they are not known for being religious. Then there is France, which I consider to be mainly Mediterranean but it has a very low percentage. Just wondering how much religion plays into it vs. pure economics or something old ingrained in the cultures...and why.
 
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I think it's just perception, economics and priorities.

In Croatia, Serbia, Italy etc. even if you have a job, it isn't well paid. Therefore, the kids could move out, but would sacrifice all of their social life and vacations, because they wouldn't have money to spend on anything but rent and food. Mind you, they don't have high standards regarding vacations. They'll just spend some time at the nearest beach or lake.

In addition, there isn't such a negative perception or pressure. If you're a 28 year old guy in Germany courting a woman and she finds out you live with your mom, it's pretty much over at that point. On the other hand, I know guys in their late 20s in Spain who still share their bedroom with their siblings and having their girlfriends over is not an issue at all.

As for the religious aspect, there's definitely a strong focus on family in places like Southern Italy and ex-YU. However, as soon as they have enough money to leave the house and live comfortably, they usually do.
 
I think the whole single guy living alone thing is a modern anomaly. I imagine it probably did happen in the past but would have been rarer. The general rule would have been: live with your parents, get married young, then live with your wife. So in some sense the single guys living at home isn't what is wrong. The issue is that these guys aren't getting married, presumably.

I think the whole batchelor living alone thing is unnatural IMO. It is the result of breaking down of family values and marriage.
 
Christos_NIKA said:
I wonder why northern Europeans don't do this. Are they just cold-hearted, selfish, godless?
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I'm Heritage American. By that I mean mostly British ancestry, with ancestors who were in the US long before the American Revolution. The rest of my ancestry is mostly Scandinavian. I would say yes, to your question. We (Heritage Americans) are essentially a Northern European people and many of us can't wait to kick our children out of the house as soon as they turn 18.

I don't get it myself. My wife is from Latin America, where it works more or less like Southern Europe, where you have multiple generations living together under one roof. I'm fine with that and my wife and are in no hurry at all for our children to leave and would be fine with them staying with us until they get married. Come to think of it, I think a lot of this is our having a marriage and family life that's based in Christ and, therefore, happier and easier than the typical Anglo-Saxon family with a feminist wife and a henpecked, weak husband who both believe in a lot of Globohomo nonsense.
 
Roosh had a really good article arguing against living alone as a bachelor and in favor of staying with your parents. His main points, if I remember correctly, were that living alone makes commiting sexual sins far easier, and that living alone makes you weird, because when you live alone you start doing things like talking to yourself, and you slowly become socially uncalibrated.

Frankly, there's just no need to move out if you're single. It's a large waste of money. Despite that, if you feel that you need to do it in order to prove to yourself that you're an adult, then that's perfectly fair and you should probably go for it, at least for a year or two. Especially if you live in a culture that stigmatizes living with your parents, I think it can function as a rite of passage of sorts and make you more comfortable with yourself, seeing with your own two eyes that you are perfectly capable of providing a roof for yourself and doing everything yourself.
 
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I think there is something to be said for the dangers of extending your adolescence way too long, which is definitely something I have done. But equally, in Britain it seems as though if you haven’t moved out by 21 then you’re a loser, which is also really weird. Perhaps shaped by the huge onus on University as the answer to all life’s problems in recent decades.

I think it’s a combination of economic factors, and cultural nihilism and hedonism which produces dysfunctional and disenfranchised people suddenly coming to the crushing realisation, aged 32, that you can’t just smoke weed and play video games until the heat-death of the universe.

The west is so individualised and atomised and the family is so eroded. I think I was reading Dimitry Orlov who commented on this, saying that in other cultures it was normal for a couple to pass the home on to their eldest when he married and started a family, and they would downsize to an apartment or something smaller.

In Britain you have boomers living in a five bedroom house now worth £9 billion, which they purchased for £4.67 in 1963 and going on three holidays a year while their children scrape by renting a bedsit, or house sharing with four other depressed thirty-somethings.
 
Elephant in the room is that most US families are too pathological/neurotic/dysfunctional for their children to want to continue living with them... my understanding is that most of European countries like Spain, Greece, or Italy have more healthy family units, or am I wrong? And not sure how divorce rates fit in here but more impoverished countries like Serbia surely have much lower divorce rates due to economic pressures. Generally the more economic "independance" and government enforced "equally" women have, the more likely they will be unsatisfied and poison drip their husbands, which leads to both parents passing that neuroticism onto their children.

I would have lived with my family until I was in my late 20s if they were not seperated and otherwise pleasant to live with. I would consider anyone in the US who even has the option of living with a healthy, functional family to be a blessing, and shaming people for doing who exercises that option is retarded to me and is definitely a cultural thing.
 
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Unending Powerhouse Match said:
Roosh had a really good article arguing against living alone as a bachelor and in favor of staying with your parents. His main points, if I remember correctly, were that living alone makes commiting sexual sins far easier, and that living alone makes you weird, because when you live alone you start doing things like talking to yourself, and you slowly become socially uncalibrated.

Frankly, there's just no need to move out if you're single. It's a large waste of money. Despite that, if you feel that you need to do it in order to prove to yourself that you're an adult, then that's perfectly fair and you should probably go for it, at least for a year or two. Especially if you live in a culture that stigmatizes living with your parents, I think it can function as a rite of passage of sorts and make you more comfortable with yourself, seeing with your own two eyes that you are perfectly capable of providing a roof for yourself and doing everything yourself.
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Living by yourself is definitely a difficult thing. For example, you can for the most part curtail any social interaction that you don't actively want to participate in ourside of work. You don't have to deal with someone else's guests, or someone else's expectations and so forth. If you don't want to see anyone for 5 weeks in a row, its quite achievable these days, especially with working from home and self service checkouts etc.

It breeds selfishness. We come to expect convinience and thus become completely out of joint over the slightest inconvenience. It also leads to curating a life of indulgence. You eat what you want. Invite whoever you want over. Sleep with whoever. Make as much mess as you like etc. It all feeds into a culture of selfishness.
 
Normal here in Georgia for people to live with parents until they get married, unless they get married late.

I lived with my parents again for a couple years in my twenties to save as much money as possible before moving.

The only reason it's mocked in the west is because it makes it harder to sleep around, the true meaning of life in the west, people make fun of people that live at home because it implies they're not sleeping with whores.

Here people will make fun of you for renting, it's considered incredibly stupid.
 
I only moved out at 24 and it was to get married and to get a house with my wife, I think a person should move out to get married but if you not married I think its wise to stay with your parents but at the same time pay your parents rent and contribute towards the expenses and help around the house.

I know if I had moved out without being married I would have drank more and committed more fornication, when you stay with your parents it also prevents a girl from wanting to move in with you.

I dont think its very healthy to live with your parents for too long though so its difficult to say what to do since each case is different.
 
Rodion said:
I think there is something to be said for the dangers of extending your adolescence way too long, which is definitely something I have done. But equally, in Britain it seems as though if you haven’t moved out by 21 then you’re a loser, which is also really weird. Perhaps shaped by the huge onus on University as the answer to all life’s problems in recent decades.

I think it’s a combination of economic factors, and cultural nihilism and hedonism which produces dysfunctional and disenfranchised people suddenly coming to the crushing realisation, aged 32, that you can’t just smoke weed and play video games until the heat-death of the universe.

The west is so individualised and atomised and the family is so eroded. I think I was reading Dimitry Orlov who commented on this, saying that in other cultures it was normal for a couple to pass the home on to their eldest when he married and started a family, and they would downsize to an apartment or something smaller.

In Britain you have boomers living in a five bedroom house now worth £9 billion, which they purchased for £4.67 in 1963 and going on three holidays a year while their children scrape by renting a bedsit, or house sharing with four other depressed thirty-somethings.
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From what I know in the UK property and rentals are really expensive and the people who rent land up sharing a house with strangers because they cant affort to pay the rent all on their own, that doesnt sound like an ideal situation, how is that better than sharing a house with your own flesh and blood family?
 
Christos_NIKA said:
I wonder why northern Europeans don't do this.
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I always knew that about the Italians, but that you have Scandinavia at the other extreme with Netherlands and Germany close behind is interesting but not surprising from what I have seen and experienced there.
Christos_NIKA said:
Are they just cold-hearted, selfish, godless?
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It's not that, but they do relate to each other in a different way to Italians.

Scandinavians and Germans have more formality between each other and for Scandinavians I would almost say a kind of 'distance'. Not necessarily to be denigrated as 'cold' however.

Remember in the pseudopandemic, the Italians were said to be spreading the 'virus' much more between each other as they are always hugging each other and kissing on the cheek.

A sociologist could say a lot more about the Scandinavians and the Germans, would be interesting to read it. Can't define exactly what it is but it definitely makes perfect sense.

Correlated is that the "stay with parents" end of the list are mainly Catholic countries whereas the "move out" end are Protestant and Orthodox. Also explains why Ireland is where it is on the list.
religion-in-europe.webp
 
Unending Powerhouse Match said:
Roosh had a really good article arguing against living alone as a bachelor and in favor of staying with your parents. His main points, if I remember correctly, were that living alone makes commiting sexual sins far easier, and that living alone makes you weird, because when you live alone you start doing things like talking to yourself, and you slowly become socially uncalibrated.

Frankly, there's just no need to move out if you're single. It's a large waste of money. Despite that, if you feel that you need to do it in order to prove to yourself that you're an adult, then that's perfectly fair and you should probably go for it, at least for a year or two. Especially if you live in a culture that stigmatizes living with your parents, I think it can function as a rite of passage of sorts and make you more comfortable with yourself, seeing with your own two eyes that you are perfectly capable of providing a roof for yourself and doing everything yourself.
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I’ve lived alone for quite a while and I partly agree with this. Both parts are true, if I could go back I’d just stay at home and hope to get married. I’d probably be semi-retired at this point with all the extra money I would have saved and invested too. The catch to all that is 99% of American woman consider any guy who lives with their parents over say age 25 a loser, so prospects are slim. This is just another in their long list of demands.

This wouldn’t be a problem if you were seeing a woman you were going to marry and then move out with.

The sexual sin is trickier and also insidious because you have nobody watching you.

Over time, you do become a bit weirder if you’re not actively socializing too.

The bottom line is you need to be part of a strong community and as I’ve gotten older, I now see clearly why the church recommends religious life or marriage. Being single, living alone left to your own devices it’s almost impossible to live for God. Even monastic communities are not complete hermits (well most anyway)

Joining a monastic order or becoming a priest is preferential to just being a single guy. If you’re not married single men should go this route.
 
I know some people who live with their parents and do not even pay rent. At the end of the day, it's the parents right to set the policy but I don't think that's good either. It is not good to teach your children to be freeloaders. When you kick them out right away, the ridiculous amount of rent that they will be paying to a (((landlord))) would have been better if it was kept within the family.
 
Lawrence87 said:
Living by yourself is definitely a difficult thing. For example, you can for the most part curtail any social interaction that you don't actively want to participate in ourside of work. You don't have to deal with someone else's guests, or someone else's expectations and so forth. If you don't want to see anyone for 5 weeks in a row, its quite achievable these days, especially with working from home and self service checkouts etc.

It breeds selfishness. We come to expect convinience and thus become completely out of joint over the slightest inconvenience. It also leads to curating a life of indulgence. You eat what you want. Invite whoever you want over. Sleep with whoever. Make as much mess as you like etc. It all feeds into a culture of selfishness.
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As opposed to what? Living with randos who act passive aggressive and leave messes everywhere/don't contribute to taking care of the place? Or living with friends and potentially ruining the friendship?

Some people really have no other choice. Not everyone has an intact, healthy family they can live with they can live with.

In my own case, I'm extremely introverted, and require temps to be set at 60F to sleep (which 99% of people find intolerable), so living alone is kind of a non negotiable. However I would have certainly with my parents in my 20s, even now for short periods, if it wasn't unbearable - I'd sooner live in public housing. I certainly do think that living alone can breed self-absorption and comfort-seeking though.
 
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