The New York Tiimes notes the trend for young adults to bunk with their parents.
Tamar Lewin writes (excerpt):
The Research Network on Adult Transitions, a team of social scientists directed by Professor Furstenberg and financed by the MacArthur Foundation, has for years been gathering data on 18- to 34-year-olds: when they reach the traditional markers (later, throughout the Western world), what they think constitutes adulthood (self-sufficiency, a full-time job and an independent household, but not necessarily marriage or children), when they feel most adult (at work), how much support they get from their parents (on average, $38,000, or $2,200 a year from 18 to 34).
The return to the nest of children in their 20’s and 30’s can be a jolt for parents. Several parents with newly returned children, who would not be quoted by name for fear of hurting their children’s feelings, agreed that despite the pleasures of having their offspring close at hand, their return had been stressful and, in some cases, disruptive of their plans to sell a large home, retire or move.
Suddenly, they say, everything is up for grabs: Who will be home for dinner? Who will cook dinner? If a parent is wakened at 2 a.m. by the smell of cooking, and rises in the morning to find no milk for breakfast, dirty dishes in the sink and a house full of sleeping 20-somethings, what is the right response?
Many parents face not one departure and one return, but a revolving door, as one after another of their offspring leaves for college, returns, leaves for graduate school, returns, moves for a job and returns again.