During one of my 30-minute morning Instagram scrolls recently I came across a clip from This Morning, a British daytime show, which reported that 3.6 million people aged 18 to 34 still live at home.1 The presenters then labelled these people “adult children” with smug grins and added that these “adult children” cost households an extra £3668 a year. Thankfully a guest reminds everyone of the current state of affairs in the UK: we are severely lacking in social and affordable housing and house prices are nine times the amount of the average wage. They don’t cite their source but according to the Office of National Statistics “In 2023, there were 3.6 million young people aged 20 to 34 years living at home with their parent(s).”2 As someone who is a part of these statistics, I was disgusted by the host’s judgmental attitude. It clearly showed how out of touch and privileged they are not to know the basic facts that many of us are dealing with. Which are that rent is extortionate and owning a home is harder than ever before. In the case of a lot of working-class young adults owning a home is a complete pipe dream. Being an “adult child” who lives at home and has often felt ashamed to reveal this I felt it necessary to share my perspective to show that our reasons for not flying the nest are plentiful and complex.
I always assumed that as soon as I could move out of my parent’s home I would. Most of my siblings did although their departures all happened whilst I was either still in nappies or learning that x is for xylophone. Such is the nature of our 12 to 20-year age gap. However, there were times in which my siblings returned and I found myself sharing a bed with my Mum whilst my Dad was banished to the sofa to free up room. I always felt a little out of place at home, preferring quiet compared to the extroversion my family all seemed to share so I often dreamed about when I would be old enough to become a famous actress and move away. This did not happen.
Instead, my late teens were taken up with the loss of my Dad, mental illness and financial hardship. When I turned 18 I was not in a fit state to move out mentally or financially. It was 2013 which was only a few years after the Great Recession and I had begun self-harming to cope with life, school and work. I also didn’t get into Drama school so my plans felt like they were falling apart. The thought of moving out felt ridiculous even if I was working full-time on top of school.
I spent the next few years starting a degree, dropping said degree, changing jobs and studying an additional A-level. I continued to struggle mentally and existentially. I don’t know if I made all the right choices during this time but I know sometimes it felt like surviving the day was enough. My job at this time was zero hours which meant money was sporadic which made saving hard. Any attempts at saving seemed impossible and were sabotaged by events out of my control but I’m proud to say I’ve worked since I was 16 often at hard jobs where I learnt a lot. I can’t say I always made the best financial decisions but what young adult does?
Eventually, I decided that I needed to try living outside of London to see if I could be independent and if a slower pace of life would help calm my overwhelming anxiety. I applied to a handful of Universities outside of London and eventually ended up in Bath.
I was lucky enough to live the full three years in student accommodation due to my mental health issues which I was so grateful for as during my first year on hearing the cost of a deposit, fees and rent for private housing I was terrified. I was a working-class disabled student who was often sending money home to my Mum and couldn’t comprehend how I was meant to afford the cost of even looking into private housing. So I would like to say a huge thank you to my University for accommodating me.
I loved living in Student Accommodation, I was paying to live in what felt like a smaller version of the flat I called home in London. I took cues from my Mum and spent Sunday doing all my “housework”, making sure to get up early to catch the laundry room empty. It wasn’t much different from being at home, to be honest.
Growing up my Mum worked hard long hours as a childminder and although she was also an attentive homemaker at the same time, as most Working-class women have been through history, I still became highly independent from a young age. The preparation of my food had been taken into my own hands as a teenager due to my picky eating and I’d been cleaning up after myself for years ever since I’d developed a taste for a clean and orderly space. In fact, at home, I was known to live in my room, barely venturing out unless to prepare food, go to the toilet or shower. So living in my own contained room at University was almost exactly how I’d lived at home. This is all to say that I know I’m independent enough to live alone, in fact, I enjoyed living alone but life didn’t stay this way.
Unfortunately, my third year was cut short in April 2020 when we were all asked to leave our University accommodation due to a global pandemic. I hadn’t thought too much about my post-University plans due to well, fear. I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to handle leaving education again especially as my time at University had been fraught with mental health issues but COVID meant any planning was useless as I now had to finish my degree back in London at home with my Mum and Dog.
COVID was hard as it was for everyone. I was unemployed for some time and my Mum had also lost her jobs Nannying and Dog Sitting. As soon as I got a job I was quick to take as much financial strain from my Mum as possible especially as it became clear that her arthritis and age would probably prevent her from returning to work ever again. I’d contributed to bills and the household whenever I had been working in the past but now I was the only one working in my house which consisted of me, my Mum, my dog and sometimes my Brother.
There were times I thought about moving out mostly due to the strain of being an adult living with a parent and having a generally chaotic family but I’m now someone who’s relied on at home financially and physically. Plus from the small searches I’d done, it just isn’t possible financially.
Finances have been the top reason I haven’t moved out and due to my mental illness and periods of unemployment, I can’t see that if I had moved out at 18 I wouldn’t have ended up exactly where I am now, sitting in bed in the flat I spent my teen years. It’s frustrating for someone from a lower economic background to read articles about people living at home with their parents which only highlight the young people able to save on rent and work at building a house deposit. You never see stories like mine and other working-class young people who contribute and often support their families as they are affected by the echos of austerity and the cost of living crisis. We are invisible to the mainstream media perhaps due to the tragedy of the circumstances or the inability to be a boomer punching bag when we have found ourselves caring for our boomer parents as their years of hard labour catch up to them and they struggle financially due to a system they’ve paid into their whole lives leaving them destitute.
In some ways, I’m very fortunate to be able to live at home. Not everyone can do this or feel safe in their parent’s homes. Although it can be mentally draining being in my family hub and I’d love to move out to feel more like an adult I know it’s not possible right now. Right now I’m trying to work at not feeling ashamed for my circumstances. I remind myself that I give just as much as I take within my household. I also remember that the rush to leave the family home as a young single person is a very Western and possibly modern idea. My Mum for instance only left home once she was married and many cultures around the world still follow this tradition. Alternatively, it is normal for married couples to still live with multiple generations of one of their families in some parts of the world.
Ultimately, I think it’s time we rethink the stigma around being an “adult child” still living at home. There are plenty of worse things to be in this world than an adult who lives at home. We need to begin changing our expectations to match the current housing and financial situation. I would love to have the option to move out but unless I get a job that pays very well all of a sudden or the country changes for the better I am happy to be able to live at home where I am safe, housed and can support my Mum. I don’t think I should be ashamed of that in the slightest.
Sources:
NancyLostinLife 
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