The untold benefits of being a young adult living at home

It was perhaps when my parents – who also happen to be my housemates – left to go travelling for a couple months recently that it dawned on me why I had not yet left the family home.

It wasn’t that I relied on them for logistical reasons, or to keep my life in order, or to ease the chaos of the home. These days, I rely on them for their company.

I missed coming home and talking about my day at work, I missed being able to read their faces and sense how their day was. I missed having unique insight into the minutiae of their days, or being privy to the mundane, tiny details that make a life.

While the conversation about young adults staying longer at home is saturated by talk of laziness, of dependence, of an inability for young people to pull themselves together, rarely do we talk of the way, in my case at least, my relationship with my parents has undoubtedly strengthened the longer we have lived together.

Over the years the power dynamic has changed and is no longer defined by one being the giver and another, the taker.

According to census data from last year, the proportion of 20 to 24-year-olds living with their parents grew from 41.4 per cent to 43.4 per cent between 2011 and 2016. If property prices or hefty HECS debts fail to disappear, then neither will the young adults.

So, what does this say for our relationships within the family home?

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According to psychologist Sabina Read, there are “some very positive possible outcomes when adult children share the family home”, noting the “parent-child relationship may indeed strengthen and mature” in the process.

But, she notes, a strong bond doesn’t simply come with time.

“The many changing factors of the relationship need to be acknowledged, rather than hoping that the mere passage of time will magically connect parents to their adult children. It’s important to acknowledge that the relationship parameters have changed to avoid falling back into patterns from the teen years.

“As always, open and reciprocal communication is necessary for both parties to feel respected, valued, loved and heard. Draw a line in the sand to mark the beginning of this new stage in the relationship, and express current needs (practical, financial, privacy, and communicative) which may well look different to those expressed in years gone by.”

And while we rarely talk of the positives of adult-family relationships bound by four walls, Read says the good undoubtedly exists.

“Some adults may find their relationship with adult children a welcome respite from the challenges of a retiring spouse or their own relationship woes. Ideally, this new living scenario can help young adults see their parents as individuals rather than just disciplinary, walk-in ATMs; and help parents view their children as independent and capable adults.”

It’s not to say that the longer young adults stay at home with their parents, the more likely they are to live in a Pollyanna-like existence full of light and blind adoration.

But in a world that tells Millennials there’s intrinsic shame in staying at home longer, it’s worth talking about the ways our lives can be richer for it. A strengthened bond with our oldest companions being just the beginning.