If this is being published in the Wall Street Journal, you can rewrite the headline in your head this way:
“To extract increasing returns from real estate, property prices and rent must be priced out of reach for people whose parents read the Wall Street Journal. Here’s an article you can quote to your friends at cocktail parties to feel good about yourself when your kid moves home.”
Sometimes you just hit impossible life scenarios like a pretax clawback in a hostile workplace which drains your liquid savings and leaves you broke, or breakup with a partner which forces you out the home, or learning that the landlord you split your duplex with is a charged criminal of some pretty awful crimes.
You can’t fail sometimes, even if you thought it were failure
Sure but the point is that these scenarios must be far more common now than in past decades, if they are to account with the big increase in adult children living with parents.
Yes, I absolutely know some. At the same time, many weren’t out of financial necessity but maybe financial convenience. I know a few who had a remote job or worked in their hometown even though they had savings and weren’t spending a lot.
They then would move out to a bigger more expensive city and feel more financially comfortable than they would have. This was in first generation immigrant families, which as the article notes, is where this practice is more common.
You assume the goal is to move out, but it might not be. Extended families have lived together in many parts of the world throughout history. Expectations of living alone are relatively new.
That's true, but there were also no stories of adult children getting married and living with their spouse/children with their elderly parents. There weren't even any mentions of adult children (or their parents) who sought such an arrangement.
> Have any of these adult children successfully moved out after saving up money while living with their parents?
Even if they do, it still means they failed to save up that money without having to live with their parents.
This is just the WSJ-reading "haves" justifying the increasing stratification of society by reframing a clear regression[0] as a "responsible individual choice" which that crowd LOVES.
(EDIT: it's also cope for the parents of those kids for the not-quite-THAT-elite WSJ reader crowd who doesn't want to believe either their kids are failing or their economy is faltering.)
[0] Even if you see the everyone-moves-out vs multigenerational-housing trend as a negative overall, the broadening loss of the ability to make that choice is a clear symptom of overall economic weakening.
Yes. Or they stayed put. I had a friend who lived at home and drove a Jaguar. He helped his mom occasionally, but it was a financially great deal that allowed him to live large.
our wages are frankly astronomical compared to my parents’, and we’re DINKs and only one of my parents even worked. Guess which one of us owns a house.
archive.is is caching error messages for this page. Is WSJ now immune to paywall bypasses? As fun as it is to have discussions entirely based on headlines, it threatens to turn HN into yet another low information high emotion discussion forum.
If this is being published in the Wall Street Journal, you can rewrite the headline in your head this way:
“To extract increasing returns from real estate, property prices and rent must be priced out of reach for people whose parents read the Wall Street Journal. Here’s an article you can quote to your friends at cocktail parties to feel good about yourself when your kid moves home.”
Sometimes you just hit impossible life scenarios like a pretax clawback in a hostile workplace which drains your liquid savings and leaves you broke, or breakup with a partner which forces you out the home, or learning that the landlord you split your duplex with is a charged criminal of some pretty awful crimes.
You can’t fail sometimes, even if you thought it were failure
Sure but the point is that these scenarios must be far more common now than in past decades, if they are to account with the big increase in adult children living with parents.
So what changed?
I agree with some of the commenters who note that the author tries hard to portray this as "financial savvy" but without a whole lot of evidence.
Have any of these adult children successfully moved out after saving up money while living with their parents?
> > Have any of these adult children successfully moved out after saving up money while living with their parents?
Most people in my circle who bought a home in California before the age of 30 did exactly this.
Yes, I absolutely know some. At the same time, many weren’t out of financial necessity but maybe financial convenience. I know a few who had a remote job or worked in their hometown even though they had savings and weren’t spending a lot.
They then would move out to a bigger more expensive city and feel more financially comfortable than they would have. This was in first generation immigrant families, which as the article notes, is where this practice is more common.
You assume the goal is to move out, but it might not be. Extended families have lived together in many parts of the world throughout history. Expectations of living alone are relatively new.
That's true, but there were also no stories of adult children getting married and living with their spouse/children with their elderly parents. There weren't even any mentions of adult children (or their parents) who sought such an arrangement.
> there were also no stories of adult children getting married and living with their spouse/children with their elderly parents
That used to be common arrangement.
Like, fun fact, Rosa Parks has such arrangement. On darker side, John Brown sons with families lived with him, were totally ruled by him.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife
> Have any of these adult children successfully moved out after saving up money while living with their parents?
Even if they do, it still means they failed to save up that money without having to live with their parents.
This is just the WSJ-reading "haves" justifying the increasing stratification of society by reframing a clear regression[0] as a "responsible individual choice" which that crowd LOVES.
(EDIT: it's also cope for the parents of those kids for the not-quite-THAT-elite WSJ reader crowd who doesn't want to believe either their kids are failing or their economy is faltering.)
[0] Even if you see the everyone-moves-out vs multigenerational-housing trend as a negative overall, the broadening loss of the ability to make that choice is a clear symptom of overall economic weakening.
> This is just the WSJ-reading "haves" justifying
The WSJ has had a string of such apologetics lately. I know because family members keep sending them to me.
Another example:
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/european-soccer-fans-marvel-at-t...
> Even if they do, it still means they failed to save up that money without having to live with their parents.
So? This practice of moving out for no particular reason is very US-centric.
To me the "normal" obverved in most peer households of my youth is that people live with their parents until they get married, often late 20s.
You are correct.
The US is coming to resemble economically stagnant Europe more and more.
Yes. Or they stayed put. I had a friend who lived at home and drove a Jaguar. He helped his mom occasionally, but it was a financially great deal that allowed him to live large.
well, it's a sign of societal failure to provide more + better wages / housing, etc.
Mainly housing.
our wages are frankly astronomical compared to my parents’, and we’re DINKs and only one of my parents even worked. Guess which one of us owns a house.
archive.is is caching error messages for this page. Is WSJ now immune to paywall bypasses? As fun as it is to have discussions entirely based on headlines, it threatens to turn HN into yet another low information high emotion discussion forum.
Yes I see people accusing the article of sanitizing the reality of capitalistic excesses, but can’t access the article text to evaluate for myself.
shame "home" for me is manhattan, and moving there would be financial ruin