Today, 37 percent of men age thirty have never lived away from home

[apples and oranges]

How Clinging to Mommy and Daddy Is Ruining a Generation

As children grow up and venture out into the world, the transition from a bustling household to an empty one can be difficult – so, why not skip it all together? That’s what millions of families are doing, not just in the U.S., but across many developed countries. In Italy, the culture of “mammismo” or mamma’s boys, is widely accepted – today, 37 percent of men age thirty have never lived away from home. In Japan, “parasite singles” are chastised in the media for depending on mom and dad, but having few other options, they do it anyway.

In the U.S. the proportion of people age 30 to 34 living with their parents has grown by 50 percent since the 1970s, and the recession has only made things worse. In 2010, over 5.5 million young adults moved back home with their parents, a 15 percent increase from 2007. The shift is so widespread, parenting guides for this stage of life are even starting to crop up, like the recent How to Raise Your Adult Children. Author Katherine S. Newman explores the effects of this growing phenomenon in The Accordion Family: Boomerang Kids, Anxious Parents, and the Private Toll of Global Competition, and talks with The Fiscal Times about the troubling future consequences of this new family structure.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/02/08/How-Clinging-to-Mommy-and-Daddy-is-Ruining-a-Generation.aspx#page1

[snooper2]

1. Talking about 37% of men in Italy

And if they meant that number Worldwide then the author is a really shitty writer (which may be the case regardless)

[snot]

5. And interesting that someone chose to focus on men.

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. Yes it is.

But there are at least a couple of good reasons.

1) The job market is worst for young men. Male privilege doesn't confer any advantage in the job market.
2) A young woman who lives with her parents is generally seen as helpful, not a "parasite", or at worst a cause for mild worry as in "why hasn't she found a serious boyfriend"?

[Zalatix]

17. Cue another round of "useless males" memes. Might as well sell my TV and

update my internet filters to boot.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. The Italian figure is significantly higher for men than women - about twice as much

Four out of 10 men aged 30 to 34 still live with their parents, as do about 2 out of 10 women of the same age. Moreover, 17.5 percent of men and 9.3 percent of women aged 35 to 39 also live with their parents.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2010/0127/Italy-Over-30-and-still-living-with-mom

[JustAnotherGen]

2. Hi

Marrying a man from Italy!

In Italy, the culture of “mammismo” or mamma’s boys, is widely accepted – today, 37 percent of men age thirty have never lived away from home.

It's not really for the sake of just living at home . . . it's assumed (in the region my Fiance is from) that you have to pay for a wedding, a home, furnishings, etc. etc. That's a good reason to live at home for a few years - to establish yourself. No my fiance he basically never came back home after his mandatory military service and neither did his older brother. Younger brother graduated from University, no jobs, so he went to Germany after living at home for a year. But the Calabrese culture tends to look down upon mammoni's in general . . .


Keep in mind, his younger brother is 37 this this year (not married), older brother married at 36, and my fiance will be turning 43 in May. So marriage for single men tends to happen much later there and has for many years. His mom was 17 when she married his father who was 27.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

37. Hi.... I'm actually Italian

but from northern Italy. Mammismo is a bit more prevalent in southern Italy than in northern Italy, in part thanks to more patriarchal views still held in southern Italy where a man feels entitled to being coddled by women (mom or wife). Mammoni (those men who can't do anything without mommie or wifey) are made fun of regularly.

But the truth is that for both men and women in Italy there is absolutely no shame in living with your parents. Rents are sky high and owning a home is not for everyone. Universities are local (few if any dorms) and people tend to go to school where they live. Many of my friends lived with their folks well into their 30s until they either married or shacked up or got financially secure to move out on their own. I'm not sure about weddings in Calabria, but in Bologna -where I'm from - there is absolutely no expectation to have huge weddings or pay for a home or furniture. Most get married at the mayor's office, and IKEA is wonderful. Then again, Bologna is the Berkeley of Italy so we are all heathens and commies up there.

I remember my mom and dad being horrified by the attitudes of parents when we first came in the U.S. who couldn't wait until their kids turned 18 so they would leave the home. To my parents, that's an alien notion and even sending me and my sister to college was a very weird thing for them (and for us).

To this day, I don't see a problem with a man or woman who chooses (or has) to live with his/her parents.

[JustAnotherGen]

44. Keewl

My fiance is actually from Acri - a bit up the mountain - about an hour away from Cosenza.

With the sky high rents - and even property costs - AND the high unemployment rate - it's just not easy to move out like we do in the U.S.


(Totally teasing you here) - he says the Northern Italians are the 'old fashioned' ones. The Calabrese men are the ones who have rough hands and strong backs!

Coming from the U.S. and living in the North East - but having a father from the deep South . . . I love the tit for tat and back and forth between the Northern and Southern Italians. And don't even get me started on the snotty comments about Sicilians. They crack me up when I'm there.

Now he lived here as a child (The Bronx) from about 1973 to 1981 - then the family went back to Acri (dad was an engineer first on WTC then other buildings). They moved into a sort of cross roads of Italians, Blacks, and South Americans (at that time). It was unusual that his mom worked outside of the home - but there were very few Calabrese families in the neighborhood at the time. In his town that he hails from, women have always had businesses/worked. So his mom brought her dress making/bridal business to the U.S. for a few years.

Within the first hour of meeting her she asked me if I knew how to change the oil in my car. She was pleased that I can do that and change a tire. She then told me quite proudly that her sons can keep a home and her daughters can make a living and that's important to be independent. Eh? Very progressive and forward thinking family though.

[blue neen]

3. Wow. I didn't realize the percentage was that high.

It makes life tough, dealing with children still at home and aging parents at the same time.

On edit, I see that this is the percentage in Italy. I don't doubt that it has increased quite a bit in the U.S. also.

[Snake Alchemist]

6. My Irish cousins never left home before being married in their late 20's, early 30's.

Their mother doted on them constantly. I feel bad for their wives.

[WCGreen]

7. Hell, I moved out at 17....

[FSogol]

26. Same here. n/t

[WI_DEM]

8. each generation of kids seem to get more spoiled than the last

largely due to changing technology in many ways. I remember when I went to college I didn't expect my parents to pay my way thru. I KNEW they couldn't afford to. So it was my responsibility to get good grades so I could get grants and student loans and even work a part time job. I know some kids do that today, too--but it seems like a lot of them expect mommy and daddy to pay for everything.

[Drale]

11. Thats complete and utter bullshit

I didn't ask for my parents to pay for college, its something they decided to do before I was even born. Stop with the "in my day we had to walk 30 miles to get to school, uphill both ways" bullshit.

[lumberjack_jeff]

12. Young adults become independent later with each generation.

My dad (born in 1927) used to think I was spoiled because he lived in hobo camps when he was 11. For all practical purposes, he lived his entire teen years independently.

Born in 1962, I moved out the month I graduated HS and have lived independently ever since.

Kids today don't have the credentials that employers demand (for the same jobs I did as a HS graduate) until they're 22 or 23 at the earliest.

It isn't an issue of "spoiled". It's an issue of the job market. Employers demand arbitrarily high levels of education for all indoor/sitting work because they can.

[XemaSab]

47. When my uncles were 12 and 13

their grandpa came to visit from Minnesota. (He would have been born in the very early 1900s.)

When their mom was at work, he read them the riot act, telling them that they were a burden on their mother and they needed to leave home.

When he was 11, he had immigrated to the US from Sweden with his two adopted sisters and their families. The sisters promptly died, leaving him alone in the New World.

Hardcore stuff, and I'm glad we don't have to go through that today.

[lumberjack_jeff]

54. Enough to stand your hair on end.

Born in 1927, right? By 1940 he was a veteran of "riding the rails". I always thought that this was a euphemism for riding in boxcars. Apparently not. The boxcars of the day had rails suspended underneath them for maintenance purposes. You rode on these rails, because you did not want to be trapped in the boxcars because "the Pinkerton cops" would catch and beat the shit out of you.

He enlisted in 1944 (age 17), but prior to that time he'd worked construction (he could carry a 100# sack of cement on each shoulder up a ladder), was a roustabout at the circus (kangaroos are mean, and more valuable to the circus than the kid forced to defend himself with the feed bucket), coal mining (coal miners had a table for cleaning up their own dead in lieu of an undertaker. Uncle Manuel woke up on that table twice) fended for himself (if you must hunt Arkansas wild boars, apparently a .22 is a suboptimal weapon), lived with hobos (the first time he ever feared for his life was when the hobos gave him a dime and sent him to buy a loaf of bread. The dime got lost through a hole in his pocket on the way to the store), and at a pepsi bottling plant.

"That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger", I guess.

[spinbaby]

49. We don't let them become independent

When my mother moved here from Europe in the mid 50s, the idea that children need supervision was entirely new to her. She says her parents routinely put the children to bed--including babies--and went out for the evening. My father, at the start of the depression, dropped out of school and traveled Europe on a bicycle by himself. He was 13.

But our culture expects children to be watched at all times, which is definitely safer, but also stifling.

[treestar]

16. Mommy and Daddy usually insist

They want Jr. to go to college.

I guess this just gives you a way to feel superior.

Further, what is spoiled about being stuck at home like that? Most 20s and 30s would prefer their own place.

[Zalatix]

18. You can thank the sending of American jobs overseas for all the stay-at-home sons nowadays.

Their job opportunities have left.

But hey, rejoice, we're destroying America's men to uplift other nations!

[treestar]

32. Is there a limited number of jobs in the world and a number assigned to each country at all times?

Besides, it is happening in other countries. Being a one issue wonder leads you to ridiculous statements like the one you just made.

This is about people not being able to afford housing on their own and staying with their parents as a result, not about outsourcing.

[Zalatix]

35. I have your one-issue wonder right here, buddy. My statements are 100% on the mark.

It's worse in Italy, but it's also happening en mass here in America. Men are staying home because they can't afford housing. They can't afford housing because of one major reason: there's not enough jobs - and the jobs that exist pay very little. That is happening because we're sending jobs out of the country. 100% true.

People who support offshoring are responsible for this, and should be HELD responsible. And your arguments are downright INSANE.

[treestar]

45. There are thousands of factors at work here

Are you honestly claiming offshoring is the only cause of the job shortage in this or any country?

You're attributing every ill to your favorite issue.

[Zalatix]

52. No, I did NOT say that. However, it's by far the BIGGEST factor, by the sheer number of jobs lost.

Look around you, pal, globalization is becoming EVERYONE's favorite peeve.

Let's get to the root cause of the problem of men being unable to move out on their own... JOBS. And specifically, jobs leaving the country.

[MattBaggins]

19. Or perhaps you could take off your angry glasses

and examine the reality and economics of modern life. Society is changing and creating new pressures.

[antigone382]

21. This ignores the reality that a lot of young people are staying home partially to *help.*

And also that there are more and more parents unable to pay their bills who are moving in with their adult children. There are fewer resources to go around, and multi-generation households, in a variety of forms, are becoming more common, just as they are already the norm in cultures where there never has been an incredible abundance of land or resources. It has nothing to do with being spoiled, and college being a privilege of those whose parents could afford to pay is hardly a new phenomenon. College has *always* been for the privileged, with a few opportunities for the poor and middle class to struggle their way through to provide a veneer of universal upward mobility.

[lumberjack_jeff]

31. There's nothing wrong with intergenerational housing

provided you're doing it by choice and not because living independently is impossible.

I think I'd love to live with my kids and grandkids - provided I wasn't dependent on them or vice versa.

[Arugula Latte]

33. Spoiled? College used to be a hell of a lot cheaper.

Could you have afforded to put yourself through school if it cost you the equivalent of $30,000 a year then? ... Yeah, I think not.

[Warren DeMontague]

38. And each generation of old people seems more cranky and crotchety than the last, too.

With an exponentially-increasing level of sensitivity to lawn trespass.

[Kellerfeller]

41. If it helps

I'm with you. I was out within a month of turning 18 and my parents contributed $300 toward my college education.

Sure, I want all of my kids to go to college--if it is right for them. However, I told them when they were young that they would be expected to put themselves through college--preferably through scholarships. I want them to have motivation and an vested interest in doing well. I also told them they can continue to live with us while in college but if they aren't in school, they have 3 months to get out.

So far, the first one, who didn't care much in high school, is working part time, is really applying himself, and did well his first semester (3.8 - electrical engineering). This semester he's carrying 23 credit hours.

It has forced him to really grow up. His friends, who did better or the same in high school, aren't stepping up. They oddly seem more interested in the social life. Granted, their parents are paying for it.....

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. it simply cost a lot more money to move out and get a place of your own -and proportionally housing

takes a much bigger chunk of one's budget than it did when I was young. I mean I arrived in California in 1977 with no more than $600 to my name and I was able to start a whole new life. In those days scraping a few bucks together was all it took. Things are very different now.

I think living longer with one's parents is a reflection of the relative cost of the necessities of housing and other expenditures - not a new desire to cling to one's mommy. In fact clinging to one's family is the norm in most of the developing world and part of how the most of the whole world once lived - it was part of the clan system of life and it was once a necessity for survival even in the western world.

[hunter]

13. Here in America we house our surplus males in prisons.

U.S.A. #1 !!!

[MattBaggins]

23. It's really sad that you comment is actually true

[Mr Dixon]

29. IMO

The young men now days have no room for errors one slips and your on the road to prison, and once you get in there is no getting out. You maybe be released but there is a real high rate of return, the system works to keep the prisons full Trust in That.

[Zalatix]

55. "Surplus males" - there's the problem right there.

But no one wants to talk about that.

[treestar]

15. Housing availability

In some countries, married couples live with parents, due to cultural memes and due to housing shortages. it does not mean clinging or anything negative - it is about economics.

Families stick together - whose interest is it to make that a bad thing?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. While the job market is certainly a factor--I had to move in with my parents for a while

many years ago--I think my generation found the whole thing undesirable. If you did it, you felt like a failure and were embarrassed, and your friends felt sorry for you.

I was overjoyed when I was finally able to take my furniture out of storage and live independently.

Even as college students, we couldn't wait to move out of our parents' house, and some of my friends even lived four people in a two-bedroom apartment to accomplish this.

There certainly wasn't a lot of this phenomenon high school and college-age youth constantly in touch with their parents by cell phone and texting. (Yes, we didn't have cell phones, but we did have land lines, and if either a parent or child phoned constantly, we thought there was something wrong with them.) Some parents seem to have taken "attachment parenting" too far.

[antigone382]

24. I don't necessarily see it as a negative that family-members stay in close contact after separating.

In a lot of cultures it has always been the case that the children (at least the male children) stay in the home of their parents after marriage. Family relationships are structured in all kinds of ways, with varying degrees of lifelong closeness or alienation. As long as everyone is doing their part and there are structures to guarantee respectful treatment in place, I see no reason to fear changes in family relationships.

[NNN0LHI]

22. My wife and I lived in our own apartment and I was working in a factory at 18

That is what most of the kids I grew up with were doing in the early 1970's.

What I am reading here is like something from another planet.

Don

[originalpckelly]

30. Well, that was 40 years ago.

This is what happens when you need a college degree to do most well paying jobs and the local Wal-Mart pays only minimum wage.

[Arugula Latte]

34. And the factory jobs now are where, exactly?

[and ur bird can sing]

50. Yes. And even I worked in a factory for a day back in 1984.

It was when the trend was going towards temp work. Ronnie Raygun began the breaking apart of unions and changing it to contract work. Now undocumented people are the primary workers for whatever is left in the assembly temp work.

But that was a lonnnng time ago. I know someone who was in high school in the '70s and he said if you needed a job really quickly, you could go to a factory and get hired.

[FarCenter]

25. The US has been different due to WW II and high internal migration

The US has a history of internal migration, initially the westward movement as land was "acquired", but later when there were large numbers of people moving to work in war industries and in the military during WW II.

Pre-WW II immigrant communities were often closely knit with extended families living together.

The idea that people in their early twenties should mary, move away, and form a new nuclear family unit really began with higher social mobility after WW II.

[Swede]

28. Wages have stagnated since 1980. Mystery solved.

nt

[Jennicut]

36. I moved out at 24 and this was pretty average among my friends.

I came of age in the mid 90's. I went to college, worked when I got out and lived at home for two years. I saved my money, moved in with my boyfriend into his apartment and then we got married about a year later. I don't know if I could have stayed at home any longer then that (I missed my privacy) but moving out at 18 is not really a norm anymore. At least, not for younger Gen Xers and Gen Y. Most people in their 20's and 30's went to college longer then their parents did.

[taught_me_patience]

39. After I graduated from college my mother gave me six months to find a job and get out

I moved back temporarily after living in dorms and apartments all througout my college life. I was out of there before her deadline. I hated living at home... freedom was worth any cost. It was a huge cost because I was unable to save anything for the first five years of my working career because I was paying rent.

I actually find it sad when young adults waste their prime fun years living at home because they want to save money for a house or drive a nice car.

[Snake Alchemist]

42. Did we have the same mom? Are we siblings? nt

[Tikki]

40. Our 36 year old lived away from home for..

5 months back when he was nearing 30 years old. He has always been here before that and since.

Unless he chooses to go to University near here (he may), he'll be somewhere else in a year or so.


The Tikkis

[rainbow4321]

43. I've always told my kids that I would be their safety net

if they started having any money problems.
My college grad 24 yr old moved back in with me this past summer after getting tired of having multiple short term jobs on the East Coast. So she came back home, lived with me and my other child who is still in college. She stayed about 5 months, worked full time in the service industry, saved up money since she made like $500/week and didn't have bills to pay, and then moved out.
The safety net decision is not for every one, but it is one I can do (and will always do) for my kids.

[Kellerfeller]

56. I'm a big "get out on your own" fan

But I would have no problem with the situation you described.

If they left, had trouble, but came back with a better game plan, I could do what you did.

Helping but not enabling. That's good mentoring/parenting.

[Initech]

46. I'm 31 and never been able to afford an apartment.

Rent is outrageous in California - I mean the cheapest I could do is $750 a month but I'd barely get a single room for that. $12 an hour sucks.

[treestar]

48. The person interviewed in that article

has very limited knowledge of the history of families and of the way families live in other parts of the world. To her it is a disaster if the 1980s US model in not in force in all places at all times.

She also makes facile assumptions about people who live with their parents - that they won't take care of their own clothes, cooking, etc.

The article uses an unattractive fat guy to illustrate.

She admits that jobs are short - so what are we to do, make them homeless? The whole business calling it "clinging to mommy and daddy" is just to make these people look bad, when admittedly, it is tough to get a job.

She also assumes it will lower the birth rate! While admitting that we have plenty of immigrants so that we don't have to worry about that:

In the U.S., we don’t have a serious fertility problem because we have a significant immigrant population, which tend to have larger families. But if you subtracted the immigrants we wouldn’t look all that different from countries that are now suffering the consequences of very very low fertility, which usually means lower productivity. There are parts of this country where you can see very similar outcomes to what’s happening in Japan. There are a gazillion ways these demographic dynamics change the social landscape.

Starting to smell like right wing propaganda, here.

Apparently, they won't date because they are at home and therefore won't find mates! I guess teenagers don't date either - after all, they live clinging to mommy and daddy.

[MineralMan]

51. Aside from landing in Rome on my way to Istanbul,

I've never really been in Italy, so I'm not sure why that is true. You did know it was about Italy, right?

[MineralMan]

53. It's telling that the author didn't bother to actually say

what the statistic was in the USA. "Grown by 50%" does not tell me. Maybe it was 10% and is now 15%. We don't know, because the author left that number out. When that happens, I know someone's fudging data. Here's how the thinking goes for the writer:

Aww...geez...I have this great idea for a story about how men are living with their parents, but the US numbers aren't that alarming. Whatever shall I do. Google! Come to my rescue! Oh, OK, in Italy its 37% for men under 30. Cool. I'll lead with that. Then, to disguise the fact that only 15% of US men under 30 are living at home with their parents, I'll use the old "has risen by 50% since the 70s" gambit. People will remember the 37% and the 50% and won't ask that question. Let's see, I'll also leave out that the percentage drops sharply after the age of 22, so I'll leave that out, too. Cool beans!

[dixiegrrrrl]

57. Here down south it is more common for adult children to live with parents.

A very high emphasis on family cohesion exists here.
Add to that a high unemployment rate.
Extended families are quite common.
In the case where families have some land, they often build a house for their male child, close to the family home.
I know lots of families who are sharing acreage in two or more houses, out of a desire to be close, and partly to help with expenses, babysitting, other needs.

[and ur bird can sing]

58. Something to think about

For the first time, women students exceeded males as new medical students. When I was at my university, I had way more women in each class. I do think young men are being de-balled by their parents and society itself.