Saturday 3 August 2013

The New "Home" Folks

The statistics folks have been busy.  They say that there are 21 million Americans....of adult age....living with their parents.  The perception is that they finished high school....maybe finished college....and success has not be attained yet (meaning: they just don't have a job capable of paying for an apartment, or they really screwed up and got heavily into debt).

Yeah, these are the guys who spent two years at the community college studying acting, and owe $22,000 on tuition.  These are the ladies who spent four years at some private college studying French literature, and owe $72,000.  These are the guys who discovered the best job they could get after four years....was chief of a shift at some car rental place at the airport.  These are the young ladies who drifted around and wasted three years of college, then quit, and now work twenty hours a week at JC Pennys.

It's hard to say if this is such a bad thing or not.  At least the parents are giving them a roof over their heads.  They get two square meals a day.  There's always advice to be given by dad, or cooking instructions by mom.  There's likely a master mechanics garage set up by dad to help with minor car repairs.  And if the toilet is broke....you don't have to argue with landlord.

The news media perception?  It'll be curious.  They probably can only see it as a negative thing....telling of the various woes involved in this.  I'm guessing various experts will appear on CNN to tell of the mess that this creates in life.  Oprah might even dedicate an entire week with folks who fell into this 'pit'.

The funny thing is that this used to be the norm....say fifty to seventy years ago.  We seem to have forgotten that part of the story.