Maybe it’s because my only interactions with americans were on reddit but seems to me they always move out of their parents’ house at like 18, 21 at most, even if it’s for college they end up never moving back. Where I’m from even if you have a job to support yourself there’s no rush to move out so I find it especially scary (and impressive) that so many fresh out of teenagehood do it. Was that ever the case and is it still now, with the inflation?
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It’s circumstantial, I’m 19 still in school and living with my mom but my cousin’s boyfriend got kicked out when he turned 18.
Inflation may be hurting it but generally when you move out at first you’re not truly on your own. Most people that age have roommates and when you have a bunch of people living together costs get amortized through the group.
Another thing not really talked about is the independence goes both ways. I get free from my parents and can live my life, and my parents can live their life free from me. After I moved out both of my parents remarried and have been quite happy since. My mom started a business, my dad was able to be a caregiver for his mom. Its had a positive impact on all of our lives which I don’t think would have been the case had I stayed with them.
Most people going to college isn’t really “moving out” fully. They often go to the family home during breaks, many may live with family after college. Its just many of us do not go to college in our local area and could be several hours or several states away.
Most adults want to move out. They don’t want to live under mom and dad’s rules and if they can afford to, even if it means living with roommates or living in a crappy apartment, they’ll do it.
Honestly in the states, it really really depends on just your family and they’re dynamics. I would say that most parents don’t like forcibly kick out their kids at 18, more like they just encourage them to do something with their life and start to become concerned if you haven’t moved out by like your mid to late 20s. But some parents also don’t mind you staying for longer.
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But then there are a minority of parents who will just straight up kick their kids out of the house at 18. But most parents don’t
I think calling it “pressure” is the wrong term. Most young adults *want* to move out.
Our culture values independence, self-reliance, and sufficiency. Part of this comes from the pioneering nature of how we were founded. We started from mostly nothing. Sure, you can find flaws in that, but it’s just a basic cultural difference between the US and other parts of the world.
We’re equally stumped by how things like dating work when you live in your parents’ home. When I was 20 or 24 and had someone I wanted to, you know, fool around with…I sure didn’t want to parade them past my mother and little sister on the way to the bedroom after a few drinks nor did I want them to have an awkward conversation with mom the next morning. Most of us want some privacy from our families.
It’s very normal to have roommates as a young adult. Many of us can’t afford our own apartment, but it’s a lot more fun to share an apartment with your best friend than it is your dad and little brother.
But yes, this has changed somewhat recently, mostly due to economics. It’s gotten harder for young people be independent.
No one is pressured to move out at 18. Most people want to move out by the time they become adults because they don’t want to live under their parents’ rules.
I would never use reddit as a representation of most Americans.
It depends on the family. My husband lived with his parents for a year or so after college and it was no big deal to any of them or anyone else.
On the other hand, I moved back home for a couple of months after my undergrad and in retrospect, I realize that my parents were uncomfortable with it but didn’t know how to bring up it up. That was our relationship, not general American practice.
At the risk of overgeneralization, there is typically an expectation that an adult kid living with parents should be working or in school, contributing to the household to a degree that’s reasonable to their place in life, and maintaining a positive relationship with the parents, not just using their parents’ resources without helping in return or appreciating their hospitality.
Yeah I’m in my late 30s and can’t remember that ever being a thing. My parents were hard/strict, but I lived at home into my 20s and other siblings lived with them into their 30s. Got to remember that Reddiors are always the main character and hero of their own story.
I don’t think so? I think it’s more expected nowadays that it’s literally unaffordable to move out at 18 or post college
There’s really never been a prevalent culture of being pressured to move out, and I don’t understand why foreigners love to think this? It’s usually voluntary, the 18 year olds *want* to be independent and move out. And that is still common, though less affordable and more difficult these days.
It’s not like you live alone in isolation with no one to help you. Most kids who move out are moving into dorms, shared apartments or other living arrangements with kids who are doing the same thing. You share your resources and transition to adulthood in a group setting. That’s part of what makes it so appealing. You get to socialize and live with like-minded people who are also working to become independent adults. You expand your viewpoints, learn conflict resolution skills, and so much more. Those things don’t happen if you just stay where you’ve always been, with the same family and neighbors. You get to make your own choices about your home, finances, lifestyle, etc. My friends and I were not forced out of our homes. Rather we were raised to embrace independence from a young age, and taught to excitedly embrace the journey of becoming independent. It was something to look forward to. It was an achievement I could be proud of. It gave me the confidence in myself I needed to flee two different abusive relationships, because I was confident I could take care of myself since I’d already done it at a young age. The women I know in my 30s who moved out and stayed independent are fierce and competent in a way that those who stayed dependent just never seem to accomplish on their own.
There’s very little pressure to move out at 18 or 21. People who move out at that age typically do so because they want to. Personally when I hear someone say they moved out at 18, I start to think that they probably had a bad relationship with their parents, or are exceptionally responsible. That being said, there’s no pressure to not move out either. There’s sorta an understanding that each family is different. Some families do want their kids to move out kinda young, some families don’t want their kids to move out at all.
If there is any pressure, either to move out or to stay, its typically from the individual’s family, not from society. At least not until your mid to late 20s, and even then, people understand that many families don’t have any intention of having their kids move out at any age, and our society accepts that without issue.
I think for many family this is a generational rolling expectation. I keep hearing things like ‘my parents made me do XYZ so I’m going to make my kids do it too’. My husband was on his own at age 18 with a Pell Grant to college and expect ours kids to do the same. Me on the other hand lived with my parents while in college and a bit after graduating too. I was either a full time student OR working full time or close to it. I wasn’t sitting in the basement gaming or anything. The expectation was working or full time student only. I was also expected to pay into the household finances such as picking up the groceries for that week.
I’ve meet parents whose parents threw them out at 18 and they swore they would never make their kids do that, and they end up with kids still living at home well into their 20’s with no direction in life or still ‘finding’ themselves. One of my co-workers was just about retire and move to North Carolina and complaining that her 35 year old son was still living at home and not able to keep a job down. The son seriously thought that he would get their house when they moved to N.C. and live there rent free, so seeing it go up for sale was his wake up call. I’ve started hear the same from other co-workers about their adult kids still ‘finding’ themselves, refusing to work jobs they feel are beneath them and riding the free housing and food from their parents, so there is that side of the coin as well.
I wish Americans had a health view of a middle ground between the two. Allowing the kids to stay a bit longer with the expectation they are either in higher education full time or at least working and saving. Then again some households are so abusive, the kids flee or sign up for the military the earliest chance they get.
I was told to leave as soon as I graduated high school (1999), unless I was going to college then I could stay for the summer.
I think many people get confused when they see kids moving out for college. Those kids move right back in during the summer. I lived with my parents till I was 25
I had a good job and moved out to my first apartment at 19. My folks were shocked a bit when I told them I was going to.
Socially there is still a lot of pressure to, but it is more common to live with your parents, people might just not admit to it for fear of being made fun of
Sorta like people where I’m from making fun of people for being on welfare/food stamps even though they ALSO receive them
There’s pressure on young peiple to lay down and die “for the economy.” amd the young should absolutely remember this.
My father told me when he turned 18 (1953), his father said, “Happy birthday, son. You will write, won’t you?” I’m not totally sure whether he was joking.
If anything, the pendulum has swung the other direction. A lot of people are staying home long after they ought to be out of the house (even into their 30s), whether they have a job or not, because it’s nice not having to pay for stuff. Yes, yes, some “can’t afford it,” but they can afford all kinds of other things.
It’s becoming increasingly difficult for young Americans to move out once they’re 18, and most parents know it. It isn’t uncommon for a college graduate to move back in with their folks for a brief period before establishing themselves independently. The cost of living crisis isn’t widely talked about, but it is known.
Not as much as there used to be. Of course, my parents generation it was expected to get married a year or two out of high school. I was born in the late 70’s and even when I went to college, my parents encouraged education before marriage (as did a lot of my peers parents). Nowadays. I believe many parents are wise to how expensive it is and encourage their kids to stay home and save up money for a house while working, or stay home to save $$ during college.
Depends where you from and what race
I saw it with a lot of my friends, my parents are Puerto Rican so they were like stay as long as you want. A lot of my friends though their parents were like get out or pay bills, which really baffled me. Probably depends a lot on the city you live in. Most of my friends were on their own at 18.
Considering rents double what my parents paid and wages haven’t changed I’d say it’s not the same situation anymore, if it keeps going like this you can expect a china situation of family homes being just that.
No, it’s people wanting to move out more thsn it is societal pressure. Times are tough and people pretty much get that
Only if you’re a dude who wants to get laid.
My mom kicked me out at 18. She said she had “done her job” and now I had to “figure it out”.
Dude, when I went of to college my mom took me aside and said.
“Son, some of my friends have had an issue where there kids moved back home after college.”
“I just want you to know, there is NO coming back.”
To emphasize the point, she gutted and remodeled my room in my first semester.
Also, when I was a teen and I made the mistake of saying I was bored to many times.
So.. next thing I know my dad has 5 cord of wood delivered uncut. He then gets me a sledgehammer, axe and sledge and tells me to cut and stack it. No machinery. All by hand.
I NEVER said I was bored ever again.
Not learning my lesson, I made the mistake of asking for money once too often as a teen to take my girlfriend to the movies. Next think I know he gets me a job at an apple orchard making cider, which turned out not to be a bad way to make money in the late 1980s.
My parents were WW II generation. They did not screw around.
A couple layers to this:
A lot of people “move out” for college, but in practice, they’re still mostly being supported by their parents. Often, they’re not even in homes of their own, but in dormitories or school-managed apartments; those are a *lot* more common in the U.S. than going to school in your own locality. A lot of Americans don’t really see that as truly “moving out”, since kids move back home during the summer, and usually for a bit after college too, and of course they are rarely paying for it. In practice, most people move out “for real” in their early twenties.
Beyond that, people on Reddit are more likely to actually talk about *really* moving out – as in, fully supporting themselves as a teenager – in large part *because it is unusual*. It’s a type of self-selection bias; if you spoke to every adult American Redditor, *most of us* probably still lived with family or had living support from them into our early twenties; but most of us just have no reason to mention or talk about that.
As others have said, though, the normative age for moving out and independence is getting pushed further and further back, partially due to cultural shifts but mostly due to economics.