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I was on my way to a wedding shower in Toronto, rehearsing The Conversation in my mind. The most basic of icebreaking questions – Where do you live? – was no longer an easy one for me.
“I’m visiting my family in Ottawa now.”
“I’m staying with my parents for a few months.”
“I just got home from working abroad. Sooo…”
Yep, I’m 27 years old and I’m back with my parents, eating their fancy cheese and crackers, enjoying satellite TV I couldn’t normally afford. I’m George Costanza. I’m Principal Skinner. I’m sleeping in my childhood bedroom.
Why I’m back at home
Fellow travelers may understand. This wasn’t the result of a personal setback. There was no divorce, no layoff, no medical crisis that forced me back with Mom and Dad. The cause, the culprit, is long term travel. Coming and going from under the parental roof has been a pattern of mine for years now.
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I’ve been teaching English overseas, traveling merrily from country to country, contract to contract. In between jobs, I return to Canada to catch up with family and friends. Then, my childhood home becomes the home base for a month or two…. or (gulp) sometimes a bit more.
My parents always seem happy enough with this arrangement. My arrival on their doorstep marks the end of a whole year spent apart, skyping through a calendar of holidays, celebrations conducted in echoing phone calls.
The chance to reconnect
Being home right now is a chance to reconnect and spend time together, to enjoy the simple familial rituals of dinners or afternoon walks. To call it a visit isn’t quite right though. I sleep in. I job-hunt on ESL websites, the computer desk covered in my cold, forgotten mugs of tea. Oh yes, I’ve made myself at home.
The thing is, they don’t seem put off by their grown daughter spending her 9-5 hours in sweatpants. They don’t pester me into staking out more independence, getting married, or buying property. They’re low-pressure, the anti-Costanzas.
In spells of second-guessing, I wonder if I should take that personally. I worry, maybe they just don’t expect that much from me. Maybe they don’t think I’ll ever marry, buy property, pass those hallmarks of adulthood.
“You know, we want you to stay as long as you have to,” they tell me. “Don’t think you’re putting us out.”
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A comfortable routine
And so, I go into servitude overdrive. I set up DVD players, I fix computer problems, I forcefully volunteer myself for errands. I cook and cook, dinners, cakes, multigrain muffins they can take for lunch the next day.
I bustle around trying to demonstrate that despite being temporarily homeless, I’m still a functioning adult with life skills. Most of all, I try to prove that I’m not getting too comfortable.
That’s another thing. It is comfortable. I have friends who can’t stand staying with their families for more than a weekend at a time. I’ve heard stories of adults, forced back home for various reasons, who regress into frustrated, door-slamming teenagers under their parents’ roof.
For me, that’s not a problem. My parents and I swap books, discuss work problems, and (yes, I admit) watch Murder, She Wrote together, all without the bickering power struggles of my teen years. It’s not that I can’t live with them. I just feel that at my age, I shouldn’t.
Between apartments… between jobs
I’ll visit friends for dinner at their apartments, knowing the best hostessing I could offer is a night of hanging out on my parents’ sofa. I bump into old neighbors or classmates and feel my face go red when I tell them I’m staying in the ol’ childhood home.
They ask if I still have a place overseas, and I say, “No, no, I’m between apartments now.” Between apartments sounds like between jobs: a polite term for a shortcoming.
I know I’ll be off my parents’ couch and into the world soon enough, working a new teaching job and unpacking my bags in a new apartment. That’s the beauty of traveling again, of meeting new people and swapping life stories. “I just came from Canada,” I’ll tell them. “I was staying with my family for a bit.”
Other travelers, I think, will understand. 
COMMUNITY CONNECTION
What do you think about adults living at home with their parents? Are you – or have you been – in a similar situation to Anne? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Anne Merritt
Anne Merritt has lived in Canada, Europe, and Asia. She teaches ESL, writes, haggles, hikes, and wears sunscreen fanatically. Her work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, GoOverseas.com, and The Compass. Check out her blog.
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I moved in with my parents after I graduated, but they had moved to Hong Kong while I was in college. I comfort myself with the fact that I’m not “really” moving home. Now it’s just like I’m roommates (in a very small apartment) with my parents.
As I read this, I can’t help but laugh at myself, because I am 27 years old, staying with my family as I’ve just returned from a long term stay in Israel, and still in my pyjamas having had a long sleep in. Guilty pleasures indeed. I don’t even have the luxury of staying in my old room as my brother moved in there following his divorce. No no, I have the pleasure of sharing a room and a big queen-sized bed with my little sister. It’s not all bad, lucky for me, my cousins have offered a healthy stint of house sitting. And soon enough (4 more months!) I’ll be back in MY room in MY apartment. Cooking for myself…doing my own washing…sigh.
Well, in other countries and cultures it is quite common to live with your parents as an adult. I find it funny to see such a taboo surrounding it on North America and the UK.
I’m abut to turn 27. I do not live at home, by choice. After a long time travelling, I realised that I needed to be more independent. Going back home made me regress, not into fighting like a teenager (I get along very well with my parents, although we do fight occasionally, we also spend time cuddling in the sofa watching t.v. together), but into the confort of having other people do things for me.
But my parents are still overprotctive and I need to call them everyday, so they know that I’m ok. When I mentioned that to an American friend, she couldn’t believe it. But I think that is absolutely normal.
I’m the one who can’t believe it, when I see American movies or series where families only get together at Thanksgiving, and only as an obligation. Yes, I know that’s an exxageration, but still… it’s such a different culture! That’s why some American and British commedies about foreign people (Greeks, Italians, Latin Americans, Portuguese…) make fun of families who stay close, or live in the same house (“My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and “Love Actually” come to mind, but also the natural way this was portayed in the series “Ugly Betty”).
When I tell people, here, that I don’t live with my parents, they usually say things like ”oh, so you had to go to a different city to study/work?” or “why not? Do you not get along with your family?”
This article strikes home – literally. I am 27 and sitting on my mother’s couch while between gigs teaching in Asia. I don’t necessarily feel insecure, but I do feel a bit like a burden, despite doing all my own chores, cooking, shopping, etc. My mom on the other hand is thrilled I’m here, as my little sister just moved out to go to college. It’s not bad here as we get along just fine, but I still can’t wait to get back to Korea and have my own space and privacy.
Mostly because I’m highly independent by nature and it’s difficult sharing a space and having other people do things for me.I do feel a little odd as most of my old co-workers and friends have cars, children, and “normal” lives, but no one has given me grief about my choices. The opposite in fact! Most of them are extremely supportive and interested. They think I’m brave
and there’s no shortage of free lunches when I come back home in exchange for tales.How much you grow abroad cannot be measured on the same scale because it’s apples and oranges.
Also 27 years old, crashing on my moms couch trying to pay off student loans after an extended study abroad experience in Europe. The way I look at it, its the experiences in life that really matter the most. Having worldly experiences are much more valuable in life than material things. Most of my friends are married, have launched careers, have kids and houses, etc. However, you can rest assured that your experiences are something that you will never lose.
ah, empathy…
I’m glad I read this. I’m also 27 and went back home to my parents after a long stay abroad. My family is always there for me but at some point they are just overprotective. I should be happy we are together, but it just doesn’t feel right to be in the same house anymore. And plus factor, in Asia I’m already old enough to have 2 kids by now. I’m single and people (especially relatives) keeps telling me to get married already. Another perk is when I went back home, I don’t have a friend or know anyone anymore, since most of the people I knew moved out some place else. Well, travelling is my calling. I need to respond to it I guess.
When I was 32, I walked out of an awful job and moved in with my dad. That was incredibly difficult for many reasons, including he lived in an apartment in Queens, no storage so all my stuff was in boxes in his back room for 14 months, and he and I don’t see eye-to-eye on anything. Things would’ve been completely different had it been my mom. I could live with her for the rest of my life, we’re a lot more alike and easier to get along with, but my dad is very controlling. As grateful as I am to have a good dad, I hated living with him, everything was a problem.