SMH story

The news story says that more and more people in their 20s are staying in the family home and that "According to one study commissioned by the European Union, a whopping 62 per cent of Italians aged 18 to 35 still live at home."

I was 18 when I moved out but I did return a couple times after travelling until I saved enough money to move on again. (My poor Mum!)


So when did you move out into the big wide world?

I'm still at home, and i suppose i take for granted what i have. Hopefully, i will be out at the end of this year, which is also my last year of school
A few mates and I are thinking of moving out, to be closer to our University.

This prompted me to have a discussion with my mum, and was told that she moved out at 24. She was a single mother with me, and was financially unstable, so that was a huge influence to stay at home!

One week before my 25th birthday. The company I was working for moved me to Jersey where I intended staying for about six months. My mother would have taken it as a personal slight had I moved out to live independently in the same city.

I did mention possibly leaving several years earlier but she had my room redecorated, a form of blackmail so I would feel too guilty to leave! Had I moved at that time my life would have been completely different, I was intending to move to be near to my boyfriend. I met him when he was at college near my home but once he qualified he lived near London (he was a BOAC pilot) and we only saw each other every couple of weeks and, oh well it became a mess and we finished seeing each other. He was the love of my life and I didn't really recover.

I have not tried to influence my children at all, not after my own experience. My son moved out immediately after he graduated when he was 21, I haven't seen him since. After he went to university at 18 I then only saw him during vacations.

My daughter was harder to get rid of! She went off to boarding school at 16 and I assumed that was about it, just vacations and I was really distraught. Come 18 and she decided to take a year out before university so home she came. Then during that year she went off to a small French island but came back after about a month. Then university so I saw her as expected during vacations. After she graduated and came here with her boyfriend in tow, I had the pair of them for a few months. Then they went travelling, after that she moved to Sheffield for a short time, literally a few weeks. The employer she had whilst saving to travel persuaded her to return to Jersey until it was time for her to start her PhD so back she came. By the time she actually moved out she was almost 24, not that she has taken her things, in fact neither of them took all their stuff.

My Mum left me! She got the chance to teach with the British Army in Cyprus just about the time I was going to College. I spent my holidays either out there with her, or friends. I was 18.

I moved out when I was 26. (I think my Scottish heritage was telling me that it was cheaper to stay there!).
The scary thing is, I'm now back there!

I moved out when I went to university, I was 18. Have been living on my own ever since. At the end of the year I'll be moving in with the above poster and his mum though.

OOOH Leau, that's exciting news. I hope you will be very happy.

It's only gonna be for a year initially, Ren. But yes, I hope so too!

Ooooooer, exciting.

Thanks wonderful news Leau, I'm very excited for you.

I moved out when I was just shy of 23. I lived at home throughout university, and for the first year after, when I was only getting short, contract jobs.
After I graduated, my dad did pull me aside and tell me that I didn't have to feel pressured to leave. My mother had died when I was 17 and I had two younger sibs. I know my dad appreciated my help with the cleaning, laundry and such, so I felt really conflicted about the whole staying/leaving thing.
Then I got a job that was out of town, so the decision was made for me. I've never moved back home since.

I moved out as soon as I graduated high school, had just turned 18. Came back for a month or so once or twice (twice I think), just to get my feet under me when moving from another city back to my home city. Last of those was when I was 23.

I left for college at 18, came home for summers, then left for good at 22.

I got married when I was 18 and moved out. My oldest daughter moved out last year at 28, the younger one is still home at 23.

I'm in a different position than everyone else. Early 20's and still at home. But Mum is my main carer, and I can't imagine ever moving out of the home which I've lived in since the late 70s
Abd Congratulations Leau!

I moved out to go to grad school when I was 22.

I moved out for a few months when I was eighteen...it did not work out and I ended up moving back.
I basically worked as much as I could, tried to get up to the level where I could move out again on my own, and never managed. I did extended housesitting things though as everyone trusts me for some odd reason!
(I'm the one people give their handbags to when they want to dance or go to the loo!)
My parents went on trips with the younger sibs and left me with complete confidence in my ability to cope, so I was a little more adept at that type of thing than some young girls might have been. I did all their bills etc.

However, the end of this story is that I was twenty one when I moved out with my future husband.

My firstborn moved out last year to go to college...stayed in the dorms and hated it as it was overcrowded and for people who had no experience fixing their own food or managing things and she had had plenty...and she's finally out in an apt with two friends. She's 19.
The first month, her friends were staying at their parents, and she had a job over the break, so, it was her first experience at having her own place. It's lovely...impeccably clean and cute and decorated with colors she likes.

I left for college at age 17, came home for summers, got married and left for good at 21.


Edited to add that after re-reading these I noticed that my post is almost (not quite) word for word of stuhistoryguy's post.

I can relate to that study, each world culture is different and when I was a child people were far more likely to live with their parents until they got married. But Italian families still have no problem with this as I have a couple of friends with Italisn parents around 40 who are either still at home or just moved out. I see no reason not to personally as the standard of living with parents is 1000 times better than your own place and you can then save up a lot longer for a home in the future.

I moved out in stages, I was 28 when I bought a flat, came and went for a while until I got a job to pay the bills, and then spent a few months there until I was made redundant and offered a better job back in London. Then I bought a series of properties until my father wanted to move and we swapped houses for a year until he could sell his house, and that was when I was 32. A year later his house sold and I was both on my own and also in my own place.
I thought tenants would be good company (besides the money) but after many of them realised it's friends, partners, family or nothing. So I'm still on my own (besides Lucy, but cats can't really join in conversations) and hope it won't be forever...

I still live with my parents, I'm currently 20. I have no plans to move out just yet, as I'll be starting a Vet Nurse course in September so wont be able to afford to move out, and the college isn't far away so no need to move into halls or anything like that.

Good luck, Leau & Dalgleish! (I can't be the only daughter-in-law that shuddered when they read that. )

I moved out for a year when I was twenty. My mother said it was silly to find an apartment in the same city, so I moved across the country.

Moved back for 6 months after I got engaged to save money and that was almost 40 years ago.

I'm glad I did it, because I did a lot of growing up in that year

As soon as I turned 18, I moved out of my dad and grandmother's house and right into my then boyfriend's(now husband) apartment. I was pregnant and about to start college.

The funny thing is now my dad has moved in with me.

I entered boarding school at 14 and returned afterwards only for holiday and summer breaks. The last summer I spent at home was the one between my sophomore and junior years of college, so it can fairly be said that I "left home" at 20.

Today, young people seem to expect a more luxurious existence than a starting salary out of high school or college can realistically support. And, of course, salaries have not kept pace with real estate prices and rents. My first apartment was miniscule and ugly, and I could barely afford it -- but I loved having my own place.

Back then, in the early 80's, I didn't expect to have a car, a personal computer, a cell phone, an IPod, a Blackberry, etc,. because they did not exist. I was thrilled to own a secondhand reconditioned IBM Selectric Typewriter and to be able to pay for an ordinary landline telephone.

If I had a child now, I would want him or her to enjoy a rather less straitened existence than I did -- but I still wouldn't buy that child a car or any of the high-tech gadgets that teenagers think they require, beyond a laptop for college. And my kid wouldn't be getting any designer clothes out of me. "You want them? Then get a job to pay for them, just the way I did!"

Both of my sister's kids still live at home, one is 37, the other 35. Now granted, there is some cultural justification for this, from their father's side, but still, to me this is crazy. Everyone in that house is very unhappy, they all fight all the time, the kids (!) treat it like a hotel - this is NOT going to happen with my children, I tell you that. They say "Oh, I couldn't afford a nice place on what I make...." - to me, what is the point of a nice place if you are not happy? (anyway, it's not THAT nice, we're not talking a mansion in the mountains, just your basic suburban house). There were times after I moved out when money was tight, but I didn't need to live with my parents, I just needed them to spot me 50 bucks. Better living on ramen and seeing the odd cockroach than having your mother commenting on your sex life, to my mind.

That's just what happened to me! When I turned 18, my mum left me to move in with her fiance. They got married five years later and celebrated their Silver Anniversary 3 months before he passed away. It was nice of her though to leave me the apartment as it was rent controlled so I could afford to live there while going through nurse's training.

On the other hand, my kids still live at "Hotel Mum" at the ages of 24 and 20.