Balancing the traditions of my immigrant culture with the American way of doing things has made parenting hard for me. While parental concern and active involvement—well into adulthood—is seen as loving, right, and good in my Iraqi subculture, Americans see it as intrusive, a curb on freedom, and a stunting of maturity. Take, for example, the way many pundits view the rising number, and duration, of young adults living with their parents.
Pew Research indicates that economic concerns are the primary driver behind the trend of adult children living at home, especially for those without a college education. The factors they list are, “success in the labor market, the cost of living independently, and their debt obligations.” Delayed marriage is yet another factor. In another Pew study, we see a rise in shared living. Shared living is any situation where adults are living together in a nonromantic relationship; this could be unrelated adults, siblings, adult children living with parents, parents living with adult children, or any kind of non-romantic roommate situation. In 2017, 31.9% of the adult population in America was living this way.
Read the rest at the Institute for Family Studies