Listening to the radio on the way to work recently, I heard the morning deejays bring up the topic of so-called "Millennials" (people born between about 1980-2000, depending on who you ask) still living in their parents' homes. The conversation was specifically about older Millennials (those who are between 25-35 years old), an age group which currently is living with their parents at a greater rate than any 25-35 year old group in history, since the U.S. census began collecting data in the late 1800s.
The conversation followed a pretty predictable pattern. The DJs, who themselves are probably just too old to be considered Millennials themselves, lamented the sorry state of such a world. They cited two reasons for the increased number - the economic downturn/increased student debt dilemma, and the fact that people are getting married later - but seemed to think that such reasons were 1) only "excuses," 2) temporary issues that would eventually fix themselves or cease to be problems/influences on young people's life decisions, and/or 3) not "good enough" to justify the "horror" of living at home. One DJ in particular started pulling the "Entitlement Generation" nonsense, citing his younger brother, who lived at home with his parents despite earning a six-figure salary. Clearly, financial problems were not a factor in all cases; you know those entitled Millennials - they never learned to grow up/they just want everyone else to take care of them/they're dependent and whiny and want the world handed to them on a silver platter.
Then - also predictably - came the calls from listeners. Millennial after Millennial who tried to explain their situation to the DJs: Outrageous student loans. Mental illness. Few job prospects. The DJs "sympathized" with them when they called - but their general thesis remained the same: it is a travesty to be living at home after age 25, even if someone has solid reasons for making such a choice. In a perfect world, everyone would go off to college at 18, "find themselves"/become self-confident/self-actualized, become immediately socially, emotionally, and financially independent, and never have to live at home again. They would move into their own place after graduating college, and start their "own" lives. They would be perfectly happy and well-adjusted, even far away from everyone else they've ever known.
I'm sorry, but that's bullshit.
First of all, Millennials are no more entitled than any other generation, and the trope of "this newest generation reaching adulthood is the worst one we've ever seen" is literally repeated every single time the previous generation spawns the next one. For that matter, "Millennials" and generational boundaries in general aren't actually a real thing. They're just societal stereotypes used for click-bait, created to sell books. People between the ages of 25-35 are about as similar to each other as they are to people of any other age group. It's like we're all individuals or something.
Second of all, everyone takes their own path. Some people are more independent and are probably ready to "live on their own" at fifteen; others take a lot longer to feel comfortable being alone, or never get there. Some people get along great with their families and want to stay near them; others may also get along great with their families but yearn for distance from their relatives and the town in which they grew up. Some people are lucky enough to be interested in a field that has lots of job openings and high salaries; others choose to study other subjects, pursue other degrees, or pursue no degrees at all.
One of these paths is not better than the other; they're just different.
To say that there is a "right" way to be living life is not only ridiculous, but insensitive/borderline shaming to the people who choose a different way. Some Millennials live at home because they can't pay rent yet for a place of their own; some because they rely on the social support of their families; and yet others for other reasons. Some probably don't have any reasons at all; having no particular reason to move out, they simply never did.
What's so wrong with that??
Why do we insist on shaming adults who "still" live at home? There is implicit and explicit judgment in that question: it asks, "What went wrong in your life/What did you do wrong, that you would be living in the house you grew up in?"
Why don't we instead ask, to the Millennials who do move out, "What went wrong in your life/What is wrong with you, that you can't get along with your parents, or that you feel entitled to self-confidence or independence or an entire apartment all to yourself? Isn't that wasteful?"
There is a stigma attached to relying on other people; in a different era or a different area of the world there could just as easily be a stigma attached to NOT relying on other people and thinking that one can live life alone. There is nothing inherently wrong with living with your family, no matter what age you are. There just happens to be a social stigma attached to it if you are of a certain age.
Humans are social creatures. It is not a bad thing to want to live with other people, to want to stay close to your family, to rely on others for help, or to stay around to help others.
I am a 27-year-old Millennial. I don't live in the house I grew up in. But if I didn't have my husband, I probably would. I did not graduate with a job. It took me years to find ways to make any sort of steady income; for a long time I relied on my husband's salary and contributed only sporadically to our finances - as is often the way for those of us devoted to creative fields. Without my husband, there is no way I could afford my own place, let alone the nice house my husband and I live in. I was lucky enough to find the person I wanted to marry while I was still in college. We got engaged before we graduated. We made plans to move in together and start our life together right after college - as many past generations did. If I had not been a statistical anomaly for my generation - getting engaged at 20 and married at 22 - I'd be in the same boat that many Millennials are.
My brother, who is 28, does still live at home with my parents. My 89-year-old grandmother also lives there with them. He struggled for a long time to pay off student loans while he worked night shifts at Kroger, stocking groceries, but finances were not the only reason he stayed behind. He is not very social and has a hard time forging connections with people, so it's nice that he has a built-in social support group in my parents and grandma. Furthermore, he helps out around the house. My dad is turning 62 this year and looking ahead to retirement. He has always had poor eyesight and has never had a driver's license; my grandma also decided to give up driving and sold her car when she moved in with my parents a couple years ago. If my brother weren't living in the house, my mom would be the only driver, and it would fall to her and only her to drive my dad to the bus stop every day so that he could go to work, or to drive my grandmothers (the one who lives with them and the one who lives 2 miles away in an independent senior living facility) to their doctor's appointments, or to drive to the grocery store, or to any other errands that needed doing. It's not like my parents are frustrated that he's still there and begging him to leave. Everyone has fallen into a rhythm, and no one is desperate to disturb it. Even if they're not thrilled, they seem content, or at least content enough. If none of them are upset about it, why does it matter? Why can't my brother just live there forever if that's what he and my parents all want/agree on?
I know so many Millennials who are living at home. They do so because they need to, because they want to, because it just makes sense. Often, these people are not in long term relationships and have no built in support system other than their families; if they didn't live at home they would be so much worse off. In some cases, their families would be worse off, too.
Some case examples:
1) A, now 27 years old, who lived at home and commuted to college for most of his undergraduate degree, because he felt more comfortable doing so than trying out the dorms or an apartment close to campus. As a senior, he finally moved out and shared an apartment with a roommate. For his Master's degree, he moved halfway across the country, prioritizing the prestige of the program he was in over his own comfort. He struggled to be so far from his family and people he knew, and had trouble feeling like he belonged. When he finally finished grad school, he moved back home, severely depressed. For the last few years, he has continued to live at home, fighting depression/anxiety and OCD. It is difficult for him to get a job because of the particular field he is looking in/the economy, but also because of his mental illness(es) that prevent him from feeling confident or capable of holding a full-time job.
2) A's younger brother, now 19, who recently graduated high school and decided not to go to college. He has a part-time minimum-wage type job in the service industry, and lives at home. He obviously cannot afford his own place on his current wages, but at least doesn't have student loans to worry about. He also has a history of anxiety issues, though as far as I know they've been under control for awhile. But he's close with/gets along with his parents and brother, and I'm sure likes still living at home with them.
3) B, now 27. She graduated college at 21 and got a great job in computer programming right out of college - her dream job. She also made pretty good money at it - or at least, it always seemed to me that she did, for a just-out-of-college gig. Still, she lived at home for a few years after graduating, commuting to work from her parent's house. They had two houses because they had moved a few years prior and were never able to sell their old house during the recession. She used her salary to help them pay for those two mortgages they were working on, rather than moving out and putting her money into rent for an apartment. She could've lived in the old house (it was just across town - only adding an extra 10 minutes or so to her commute to work) but she chose to live in the house her parents were living in. She got along great with her family and her brother; when her brother moved out to go to college/etc., and her parents finally sold the old house across town, she did finally move out and get her own apartment. I wonder how much of that is because she wanted to or how much was because she felt shamed/was teased at work for still living with her parents.
4) C, now 24. He has a history of epilepsy, and had several surgeries done. Sometime in college or soon thereafter, he had a mental breakdown with severe depression - to the point of hallucinations and an almost schizophrenic break with reality. He lives with his mother now because he literally can't take care of himself anymore, and is severely dependent on her to help him get through daily life amid the fog of his mental state and the medications he is taking. He is also a suicide risk. He will probably be living at home for the rest of his life - unless he is moved to a care facility, or his situation greatly/miraculously improves.
5) C's younger brother, 22. He just graduated college and is living at home with C while working a minimum wage job. He is studying for entrance into a program to become a police officer, and is in no financial place to move out at the moment - though perhaps he can also be of some help to his/C's mom, who is juggling a full-time job with taking care of C and their grandparents, who also live with them.
6) D, now 30. She has completed two degrees and is about to start working on her third - a PhD in History. She will be going to school for at least six more years. When she is at school, she lives on her own near campus, but whenever the school is on a break or she is in between degree programs, she moves back home. She is an only child and gets along well with her family. She likes spending time with them, helps them with a lot of chores around the house (her mom has chronic back pain), and has helped her dad get a new business off the ground.
7) E, now 36. She married a man from Columbia and they moved back in with her parents while her husband finished schooling, practiced his English, and took the necessary medical exams to be qualified to practice as a doctor in the U.S. Her parents helped take care of their two young children while she supported her husband and looked into jobs for herself. He applied for residencies all over the country - willing to accept wherever would take him. For a couple years, he found work as a doctor in Mexico and they both temporarily moved there with their son (their daughter wasn't born yet). When he next got an assignment far from her parents - first in New York, then in Puerto Rico - she decided to stay behind with her parents. Now that they had two children, it was just too difficult to keep moving around and adapt to a new city/state/country as a single mother while her husband put in long hours at work/school. Her children are now 8 and 6, and she is still living with her parents, and working as a middle school teacher. They made their long-distance relationship work for awhile, but are now divorced.
8) F, now 23. When F was in college, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and temporarily stalled his college studies to move home for treatment. He has since returned to school, but did, for a time fall into the "Millennials Living At Home" category.
9) G, now 27. She was not married when she got pregnant at 21; because she was still living at home while she pursued job/school options, she simply continued living there while she was pregnant and after the baby was born. As a single mom, it was a huge help to her to have her parents around to help her care for her son while she was at work and battling a custody case with her son's father. The son is now 6, she has a new boyfriend, and they just last week moved out of her parents' house and into a new house with her boyfriend.
And these are just the people whose stories I know.
Sometimes we need help. Sometimes we want company. I don't think it's a Necessarily Bad Thing to live at home as long as it's something you and your parents are comfortable with and genuinely want to do. If you're there only because you feel like you have no other options, and want nothing but to leave as soon as you can - yeah, there can be some resentment there, which doesn't lend well to an ideal living environment. But it still might be the best solution, at least on a temporary basis. And for many Millennials, living at home is a relief, because there is that built-in support system they can't get anywhere else.
It is not the same living with roommates or friends, even if you know each other well. By definition you are trying to live your own lives and explore your options; living together is not seen as a permanent solution or even ideal solution, but a necessary/temporary one. When you fall sick or injured (physically, emotionally, mentally, financially), they are not obligated to help, nor often willing. They have their own jobs, their own relationships, their own lives they are also juggling, and even if they are willing to help with your problems, they may not be able to. Family, on the other hand, do help. Whether by obligation or choice or a little of both, they help. Part of that is because it is often easier (logistically) for them to do so - an employer would easily let someone come into work late to drive her son to chemotherapy treatments; not so much if you have to schlepp your roommate/friend to an appointment. The urgency just isn't there. There would undoubtedly be questions - why is your friend all alone? where is his family? Parents don't stop being parents when their children turn 18; they are, to some extent, expected to help their offspring when they come into trouble, no matter what age their offspring are.
When you get married, your spouse basically becomes an additional parent. You're agreeing to help each other in sickness and health: to drive each other to the hospital when one of you falls sick, to hold the brunt of financial obligations for a time if your partner is unable to contribute, to be there - physically, emotionally - if someone is going through a hard time and needs support overcoming/enduring depression or anxiety.
But if you aren't married or in a long-term relationship, who do you have to rely on in times of distress other than your family? Your parents, your siblings. This is your support system. And it is perfectly okay to rely on them, or go to them for help. There should not be so much stigma attached to asking for help. It is not a sign of admitting defeat. It is a sign of strength. It is not always easy. But sometimes it has to be done.
(Neither is the solution just to "get married," by the way. Not only is "finding someone" easier said than done; it's often impossible when you're already juggling low-paying jobs, financial stress, debt, and/or mental illness - not to mention an entire society of people getting married later in life to influence your decisions. Furthermore, to have someone to dump all your problems on is probably NOT a good reason to get married; the being-able-to-dump-your-problems-on-them comes at the cost of you also having to help them with their problems. And further furthermore, a lot of people don't actually want to get married - nor should they have to want to. Just because you are single, whether by choice or circumstance, does not mean your worth is diminished, that it's "your fault" for not having another support system, that you don't need support systems, or that you don't deserve them.)
One last point: It is often a relief to get help - but that does not mean that someone feels entitled to a stress-free existence and is living at home just to be taken care of. They're living at home so that they have a support system while they learn how to take care of themselves - unless it is a case (like person C, above), where they literally can't take care of themselves and do have to perpetually rely on other people. I don't know any Millennials who are living at home because they love Mom and Dad cooking them dinner and doing their laundry; even if their parents do cook them dinner and do their laundry, that is NOT the reason they are home.
And often their parents are cooking them dinner and doing their laundry in the first place because the Millennials are helping out with other chores around the house (much like how egalitarian spouses divvy up household chores so that everyone chips in for one area or another), or because the Millennials are struggling with too many other things. If you knew someone was going through a shitty time and that bringing them a dish of lasagna or a plate of cookies might make them feel better and a little less stressed - wouldn't you bring them a freaking lasagna? This is what we do for other people when we don't know what else to do. We bring recent widows food, we bring cancer patients (or those caring for cancer patients) food; we offer to run errands for them, etc. We don't know how to solve their cancer, or their anxiety, or their OCD, or their depression; we don't know how to find them a job or help them gain self-confidence. But we can help them with their everyday tasks at least, so we do.
You don't know what people are going through. Depression is often invisible; it doesn't look the same in everyone, and often doesn't look like the gloomy people in Zoloft commercials on TV. Growing up is hard; figuring out life post-graduation is hard; doing these things in a sucky economy with a pile of student debt is even harder. There is more than just financial stress going on here. According to the National Alliance on Mental Health, more than 25% of college students have a diagnosable mental illness and have been treated in the past year. And what about all the ones who haven't been treated? Or the ones who crumble after graduation?
So can we stop shaming people already?
We don't all live the same life trajectory, nor should we.
The conversation followed a pretty predictable pattern. The DJs, who themselves are probably just too old to be considered Millennials themselves, lamented the sorry state of such a world. They cited two reasons for the increased number - the economic downturn/increased student debt dilemma, and the fact that people are getting married later - but seemed to think that such reasons were 1) only "excuses," 2) temporary issues that would eventually fix themselves or cease to be problems/influences on young people's life decisions, and/or 3) not "good enough" to justify the "horror" of living at home. One DJ in particular started pulling the "Entitlement Generation" nonsense, citing his younger brother, who lived at home with his parents despite earning a six-figure salary. Clearly, financial problems were not a factor in all cases; you know those entitled Millennials - they never learned to grow up/they just want everyone else to take care of them/they're dependent and whiny and want the world handed to them on a silver platter.
Then - also predictably - came the calls from listeners. Millennial after Millennial who tried to explain their situation to the DJs: Outrageous student loans. Mental illness. Few job prospects. The DJs "sympathized" with them when they called - but their general thesis remained the same: it is a travesty to be living at home after age 25, even if someone has solid reasons for making such a choice. In a perfect world, everyone would go off to college at 18, "find themselves"/become self-confident/self-actualized, become immediately socially, emotionally, and financially independent, and never have to live at home again. They would move into their own place after graduating college, and start their "own" lives. They would be perfectly happy and well-adjusted, even far away from everyone else they've ever known.
I'm sorry, but that's bullshit.
First of all, Millennials are no more entitled than any other generation, and the trope of "this newest generation reaching adulthood is the worst one we've ever seen" is literally repeated every single time the previous generation spawns the next one. For that matter, "Millennials" and generational boundaries in general aren't actually a real thing. They're just societal stereotypes used for click-bait, created to sell books. People between the ages of 25-35 are about as similar to each other as they are to people of any other age group. It's like we're all individuals or something.
Second of all, everyone takes their own path. Some people are more independent and are probably ready to "live on their own" at fifteen; others take a lot longer to feel comfortable being alone, or never get there. Some people get along great with their families and want to stay near them; others may also get along great with their families but yearn for distance from their relatives and the town in which they grew up. Some people are lucky enough to be interested in a field that has lots of job openings and high salaries; others choose to study other subjects, pursue other degrees, or pursue no degrees at all.
One of these paths is not better than the other; they're just different.
To say that there is a "right" way to be living life is not only ridiculous, but insensitive/borderline shaming to the people who choose a different way. Some Millennials live at home because they can't pay rent yet for a place of their own; some because they rely on the social support of their families; and yet others for other reasons. Some probably don't have any reasons at all; having no particular reason to move out, they simply never did.
What's so wrong with that??
Why do we insist on shaming adults who "still" live at home? There is implicit and explicit judgment in that question: it asks, "What went wrong in your life/What did you do wrong, that you would be living in the house you grew up in?"
Why don't we instead ask, to the Millennials who do move out, "What went wrong in your life/What is wrong with you, that you can't get along with your parents, or that you feel entitled to self-confidence or independence or an entire apartment all to yourself? Isn't that wasteful?"
There is a stigma attached to relying on other people; in a different era or a different area of the world there could just as easily be a stigma attached to NOT relying on other people and thinking that one can live life alone. There is nothing inherently wrong with living with your family, no matter what age you are. There just happens to be a social stigma attached to it if you are of a certain age.
Humans are social creatures. It is not a bad thing to want to live with other people, to want to stay close to your family, to rely on others for help, or to stay around to help others.
I am a 27-year-old Millennial. I don't live in the house I grew up in. But if I didn't have my husband, I probably would. I did not graduate with a job. It took me years to find ways to make any sort of steady income; for a long time I relied on my husband's salary and contributed only sporadically to our finances - as is often the way for those of us devoted to creative fields. Without my husband, there is no way I could afford my own place, let alone the nice house my husband and I live in. I was lucky enough to find the person I wanted to marry while I was still in college. We got engaged before we graduated. We made plans to move in together and start our life together right after college - as many past generations did. If I had not been a statistical anomaly for my generation - getting engaged at 20 and married at 22 - I'd be in the same boat that many Millennials are.
My brother, who is 28, does still live at home with my parents. My 89-year-old grandmother also lives there with them. He struggled for a long time to pay off student loans while he worked night shifts at Kroger, stocking groceries, but finances were not the only reason he stayed behind. He is not very social and has a hard time forging connections with people, so it's nice that he has a built-in social support group in my parents and grandma. Furthermore, he helps out around the house. My dad is turning 62 this year and looking ahead to retirement. He has always had poor eyesight and has never had a driver's license; my grandma also decided to give up driving and sold her car when she moved in with my parents a couple years ago. If my brother weren't living in the house, my mom would be the only driver, and it would fall to her and only her to drive my dad to the bus stop every day so that he could go to work, or to drive my grandmothers (the one who lives with them and the one who lives 2 miles away in an independent senior living facility) to their doctor's appointments, or to drive to the grocery store, or to any other errands that needed doing. It's not like my parents are frustrated that he's still there and begging him to leave. Everyone has fallen into a rhythm, and no one is desperate to disturb it. Even if they're not thrilled, they seem content, or at least content enough. If none of them are upset about it, why does it matter? Why can't my brother just live there forever if that's what he and my parents all want/agree on?
I know so many Millennials who are living at home. They do so because they need to, because they want to, because it just makes sense. Often, these people are not in long term relationships and have no built in support system other than their families; if they didn't live at home they would be so much worse off. In some cases, their families would be worse off, too.
Some case examples:
1) A, now 27 years old, who lived at home and commuted to college for most of his undergraduate degree, because he felt more comfortable doing so than trying out the dorms or an apartment close to campus. As a senior, he finally moved out and shared an apartment with a roommate. For his Master's degree, he moved halfway across the country, prioritizing the prestige of the program he was in over his own comfort. He struggled to be so far from his family and people he knew, and had trouble feeling like he belonged. When he finally finished grad school, he moved back home, severely depressed. For the last few years, he has continued to live at home, fighting depression/anxiety and OCD. It is difficult for him to get a job because of the particular field he is looking in/the economy, but also because of his mental illness(es) that prevent him from feeling confident or capable of holding a full-time job.
2) A's younger brother, now 19, who recently graduated high school and decided not to go to college. He has a part-time minimum-wage type job in the service industry, and lives at home. He obviously cannot afford his own place on his current wages, but at least doesn't have student loans to worry about. He also has a history of anxiety issues, though as far as I know they've been under control for awhile. But he's close with/gets along with his parents and brother, and I'm sure likes still living at home with them.
3) B, now 27. She graduated college at 21 and got a great job in computer programming right out of college - her dream job. She also made pretty good money at it - or at least, it always seemed to me that she did, for a just-out-of-college gig. Still, she lived at home for a few years after graduating, commuting to work from her parent's house. They had two houses because they had moved a few years prior and were never able to sell their old house during the recession. She used her salary to help them pay for those two mortgages they were working on, rather than moving out and putting her money into rent for an apartment. She could've lived in the old house (it was just across town - only adding an extra 10 minutes or so to her commute to work) but she chose to live in the house her parents were living in. She got along great with her family and her brother; when her brother moved out to go to college/etc., and her parents finally sold the old house across town, she did finally move out and get her own apartment. I wonder how much of that is because she wanted to or how much was because she felt shamed/was teased at work for still living with her parents.
4) C, now 24. He has a history of epilepsy, and had several surgeries done. Sometime in college or soon thereafter, he had a mental breakdown with severe depression - to the point of hallucinations and an almost schizophrenic break with reality. He lives with his mother now because he literally can't take care of himself anymore, and is severely dependent on her to help him get through daily life amid the fog of his mental state and the medications he is taking. He is also a suicide risk. He will probably be living at home for the rest of his life - unless he is moved to a care facility, or his situation greatly/miraculously improves.
5) C's younger brother, 22. He just graduated college and is living at home with C while working a minimum wage job. He is studying for entrance into a program to become a police officer, and is in no financial place to move out at the moment - though perhaps he can also be of some help to his/C's mom, who is juggling a full-time job with taking care of C and their grandparents, who also live with them.
6) D, now 30. She has completed two degrees and is about to start working on her third - a PhD in History. She will be going to school for at least six more years. When she is at school, she lives on her own near campus, but whenever the school is on a break or she is in between degree programs, she moves back home. She is an only child and gets along well with her family. She likes spending time with them, helps them with a lot of chores around the house (her mom has chronic back pain), and has helped her dad get a new business off the ground.
7) E, now 36. She married a man from Columbia and they moved back in with her parents while her husband finished schooling, practiced his English, and took the necessary medical exams to be qualified to practice as a doctor in the U.S. Her parents helped take care of their two young children while she supported her husband and looked into jobs for herself. He applied for residencies all over the country - willing to accept wherever would take him. For a couple years, he found work as a doctor in Mexico and they both temporarily moved there with their son (their daughter wasn't born yet). When he next got an assignment far from her parents - first in New York, then in Puerto Rico - she decided to stay behind with her parents. Now that they had two children, it was just too difficult to keep moving around and adapt to a new city/state/country as a single mother while her husband put in long hours at work/school. Her children are now 8 and 6, and she is still living with her parents, and working as a middle school teacher. They made their long-distance relationship work for awhile, but are now divorced.
8) F, now 23. When F was in college, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and temporarily stalled his college studies to move home for treatment. He has since returned to school, but did, for a time fall into the "Millennials Living At Home" category.
9) G, now 27. She was not married when she got pregnant at 21; because she was still living at home while she pursued job/school options, she simply continued living there while she was pregnant and after the baby was born. As a single mom, it was a huge help to her to have her parents around to help her care for her son while she was at work and battling a custody case with her son's father. The son is now 6, she has a new boyfriend, and they just last week moved out of her parents' house and into a new house with her boyfriend.
And these are just the people whose stories I know.
Sometimes we need help. Sometimes we want company. I don't think it's a Necessarily Bad Thing to live at home as long as it's something you and your parents are comfortable with and genuinely want to do. If you're there only because you feel like you have no other options, and want nothing but to leave as soon as you can - yeah, there can be some resentment there, which doesn't lend well to an ideal living environment. But it still might be the best solution, at least on a temporary basis. And for many Millennials, living at home is a relief, because there is that built-in support system they can't get anywhere else.
It is not the same living with roommates or friends, even if you know each other well. By definition you are trying to live your own lives and explore your options; living together is not seen as a permanent solution or even ideal solution, but a necessary/temporary one. When you fall sick or injured (physically, emotionally, mentally, financially), they are not obligated to help, nor often willing. They have their own jobs, their own relationships, their own lives they are also juggling, and even if they are willing to help with your problems, they may not be able to. Family, on the other hand, do help. Whether by obligation or choice or a little of both, they help. Part of that is because it is often easier (logistically) for them to do so - an employer would easily let someone come into work late to drive her son to chemotherapy treatments; not so much if you have to schlepp your roommate/friend to an appointment. The urgency just isn't there. There would undoubtedly be questions - why is your friend all alone? where is his family? Parents don't stop being parents when their children turn 18; they are, to some extent, expected to help their offspring when they come into trouble, no matter what age their offspring are.
When you get married, your spouse basically becomes an additional parent. You're agreeing to help each other in sickness and health: to drive each other to the hospital when one of you falls sick, to hold the brunt of financial obligations for a time if your partner is unable to contribute, to be there - physically, emotionally - if someone is going through a hard time and needs support overcoming/enduring depression or anxiety.
But if you aren't married or in a long-term relationship, who do you have to rely on in times of distress other than your family? Your parents, your siblings. This is your support system. And it is perfectly okay to rely on them, or go to them for help. There should not be so much stigma attached to asking for help. It is not a sign of admitting defeat. It is a sign of strength. It is not always easy. But sometimes it has to be done.
(Neither is the solution just to "get married," by the way. Not only is "finding someone" easier said than done; it's often impossible when you're already juggling low-paying jobs, financial stress, debt, and/or mental illness - not to mention an entire society of people getting married later in life to influence your decisions. Furthermore, to have someone to dump all your problems on is probably NOT a good reason to get married; the being-able-to-dump-your-problems-on-them comes at the cost of you also having to help them with their problems. And further furthermore, a lot of people don't actually want to get married - nor should they have to want to. Just because you are single, whether by choice or circumstance, does not mean your worth is diminished, that it's "your fault" for not having another support system, that you don't need support systems, or that you don't deserve them.)
One last point: It is often a relief to get help - but that does not mean that someone feels entitled to a stress-free existence and is living at home just to be taken care of. They're living at home so that they have a support system while they learn how to take care of themselves - unless it is a case (like person C, above), where they literally can't take care of themselves and do have to perpetually rely on other people. I don't know any Millennials who are living at home because they love Mom and Dad cooking them dinner and doing their laundry; even if their parents do cook them dinner and do their laundry, that is NOT the reason they are home.
And often their parents are cooking them dinner and doing their laundry in the first place because the Millennials are helping out with other chores around the house (much like how egalitarian spouses divvy up household chores so that everyone chips in for one area or another), or because the Millennials are struggling with too many other things. If you knew someone was going through a shitty time and that bringing them a dish of lasagna or a plate of cookies might make them feel better and a little less stressed - wouldn't you bring them a freaking lasagna? This is what we do for other people when we don't know what else to do. We bring recent widows food, we bring cancer patients (or those caring for cancer patients) food; we offer to run errands for them, etc. We don't know how to solve their cancer, or their anxiety, or their OCD, or their depression; we don't know how to find them a job or help them gain self-confidence. But we can help them with their everyday tasks at least, so we do.
You don't know what people are going through. Depression is often invisible; it doesn't look the same in everyone, and often doesn't look like the gloomy people in Zoloft commercials on TV. Growing up is hard; figuring out life post-graduation is hard; doing these things in a sucky economy with a pile of student debt is even harder. There is more than just financial stress going on here. According to the National Alliance on Mental Health, more than 25% of college students have a diagnosable mental illness and have been treated in the past year. And what about all the ones who haven't been treated? Or the ones who crumble after graduation?
So can we stop shaming people already?
We don't all live the same life trajectory, nor should we.
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