They're back - or they never left. Many young adults like living with the folks - and movies, TV are taking notice.

They're back - or they never left. Many young adults like living with
the folks - and movies, TV are taking notice.
By Alison apRoberts -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Saturday, March 18, 2006
Story appeared in Scene section, Page K1

Forget Generation X and Y; the spotlight is trained now on Generation
Yo-Yo, young adults in their 20s and 30s who live with their parents.
They may be moving up in the world; they're just not moving out.

You can find evidence on screens large and small as art imitates
demographics - in the new romantic comedy film "Failure To Launch" and
in the new Fox sitcom "Free Ride." You also can track the trend on
bookshelves, with titles such as "Boomerang Nation: How To Survive
Living With Your Parents ... the Second Time Around" and "Mom, Can I
Move Back In With You? A Survival Guide for Parents of
Twentysomethings."

In "Failure To Launch," Sarah Jessica Parker's character has made a
career out of being hired by desperate parents to coax adult sons to
move out of the family home. She meets her match when she is hired to
light a fire under a 35-year-old hunk played by Matthew McConaughey.

In "Free Ride," Nate Stahlings plays a new college graduate who moves
back in with the folks (who have meanwhile turned his bedroom into a
home gym). He tells a friend: "They take care of me, do the dishes,
cook me food. It's like having servants."

The jokes rely on audience recognition of the increasingly commonplace
reality of adult children, especially men, living with their parents.

More than 18 million American adults from 18 to 34 live in their
parents' homes.

Their parents weren't as likely to do so. In 2004, 56.5 percent of
American men and 46.5 percent of women ages 18 to 24 were living in
parents' homes (this includes students living in dorms at college),
according to the Census Bureau. That is up 2.2 percentage points for
men and 15.2 percentage points for women since 1970.

For those ages 25 to 34, 13.9 percent of men and 8 percent of women
were still at home, compared to 9.5 percent of men and 6.6 percent of
women in 1970.

Whatever the reasons behind the trend, plenty of families are living
it. We caught up with a few of them who talked about the ups and downs
of their domestic arrangement and the pleasure of seeing the lights of
a U-Haul at the end of the tunnel.

Dinner and debt
Christine Moellenberndt moved in with her mom in Rancho Cordova "for a
few weeks" when she was 21.

"That was eight years ago and here I am," Moellenberndt says.

She hasn't been idle; she works and she moved out for a couple of
years to finish a bachelor's degree at the University of California,
Santa Cruz.

Between school loans of about $18,000 and about $3,000 in credit card
debt, Moellenberndt figured being at home was the best way to get on
her feet financially so that she can go to graduate school in cultural
anthropology. This spring, she's waiting to hear if she has been
accepted. When she is, she'll move out.

"I love my mom, but lately, I've been, 'I really need to go,' "
Moellenberndt says.

Her mother, Vanessa Nelson, 56, says that when she left home at 18 and
went to college she was able to pay her way working part time in
retail.

"When I first went out on my own, the salary wasn't great, but you
could live on it; you can't work part time anymore and live on your
own," Nelson says. "I feel like I'm doing what parents should do,
which is helping their kids."

This mother and daughter clearly enjoy each other's company and
usually eat dinner together. But it isn't always easy.

When Moellenberndt first moved in, her mother felt unsure about her
role.

"I remember thinking, 'Do I set curfews?' I had to go through this
whole mind-set because she was an adult," Nelson says.

"I do still at times feel like a kid," Moellenberndt says. "Sometimes,
she'll look at my room and give that exasperated sigh."

Mother and daughter say they'll welcome moving-out day.

Moellenberndt looks forward to having her own place where friends will
want to hang out: "They're more uptight than me about the
mom-in-the-house thing."

Nelson looks forward to having more time to see her father and for
volunteer work.

"I do enjoy living on my own, and I think it would be good for her and
for me," she says.

When she goes, Nelson will miss her daughter's help with all things
digital. ("She's my computer consultant.") Moellenberndt will miss
home-cooked meals.

"She's the mom; she cooks," she says, and then laughs.

Itching to move on
"If you're 29 and living at home with your parents, you're in
trouble," says Colin Jeppesen, who is 20 and living with his mother in
Rancho Cordova while going to Cosumnes River College.

"I want to be on my own by the time I'm 21," he says. "But I probably
wouldn't have been able to do it at 18."

His mother agrees.

"He's matured a lot in the past year," says Georgette Jeppesen, 54. "I
think he's ready to live on his own now, just not financially ready."

Colin has become a more considerate roommate and no longer stays out
late without calling home.

"Now, I'm like, 'She'll worry about me,' so I call," he says.

His mother looks forward to being on her own and perhaps moving closer
to her work in Fairfield. "My life is kind of on hold," she says.

Colin Jeppesen looks forward to not having to explain his living
arrangement to women.

"You go out and meet a girl and you want her to come to your house,
and it's kind of awkward," he says. "There were times I would neglect
to tell them I lived at home, 'cause it's embarrassing. They'd call
and my mom would pick up and I'd have to explain it."

Hindsight and advice
Elina Furman has been there, done that and even written a book about
it, "Boomerang Nation: How To Survive Living With Your Parents ... the
Second Time Around."

She moved out of her mother's home in Manhattan when she was 29. She's
32 now.

"There has been this huge stigma and embarrassment about this," she
says by phone from her apartment in Manhattan.

It was leaving home that got Furman thinking about writing a book.

"My mom majorly had this empty nest syndrome and I was doing research
to help her," Furman says. "I stumbled across this term 'boomerang
kids' and I thought I should write this book; these are my people."

Pushing or pulling?
But do you want Furman's people to be your kids?

Some parents do, according to Dr. Charles Sophy, a psychiatrist who
has a private practice in Beverly Hills. Families with grown kids at
home show up regularly in his office.

"Usually it's the child that comes in; sometimes they're depressed and
it ends up being tied back to the fact that they're still living at
home," he says. The difficulty in moving out is often not theirs.

"Oftentimes, parents can't let kids go," Sophy says. "It can really
entrap a child. It takes a really independent child to be able to say,
'I love you and I need to leave.' "

He advises parents who want to help adult kids move out to come up
with a transition plan for independence.

"The worst thing to say is, 'You can always come home.' You're
sabotaging them," Sophy says.

The psychiatrist, 45, has a 4-year-old son, who is living at home. For
now.

"I drop him off at school," Sophy says. "I foster his independence as
much as I can because that's what's going to make him successful."

Where art and reality meet
Tom Dey, the director of "Failure To Launch," has not lived his
movie's screenplay himself, as child or parent. He's 40 and expecting
his first child, and he left home at 17 for good.

"I think it was programmed in me, not by my parents but I think by
society, that if I were to move back in with my parents that it would
somehow be a step backwards or a defeat," he says.

He realized this was a peculiarly American notion after living in
Europe, where many families live multigenerationally.

"It's accepted as a way of life there," Dey says. "I don't know if
this movie will make any sense to Europeans."

But he knows it's an issue Americans can relate to.

"I like the fact that it is so universal," he says. "Everyone knows
someone or has a friend of a friend who is living at home too late."

And whether the trend is fleeting or not, it served its artistic
purpose.

"I don't know how real an epidemic or a trend it is, but it was good
material," he says. "It's hard to find new excuses for a romantic
comedy."

The still-full nest
More than 18 million Americans ages 18 to 34 live in their parents'
home. Here's a closer look at who they are. (College students who are
unmarried and living in a dorm are counted as living in their parents'
homes.)

Sticking around

* 56.5 percent of American men ages 18 to 24 were living at home in
2004; that's 8.01 million men

* 46.5 percent of American women ages 18 to 24 were living at home in
2004; that's 6.33 million women

The comeback kids

* 60 percent of 2005 college graduates planned to move home after
school.

Those who linger

* 13.9 percent of American men ages 25 to 34 were living at home;
that's 2.72 million men

* 8 percent of American women ages 24 to 34 were living at home;
that's 1.56 million women

Contributing factors

* The average graduating senior with student loans owed $17,600 in
2004. Close to two-thirds of students at public four-year colleges or
universities have student loans. The rate of student loan debt is 85
percent higher among recent graduates than it was a decade ago.

* The pay for entry-level and low-wage jobs has not kept pace with
inflation in recent years.

Sources: MonsterTRAK 2005 College Graduation Survey; U.S. Census
Bureau; Center for Economic and Policy Research

Read up
* "Boomerang Nation: How To Survive Living With Your Parents ... the
Second Time Around" (Fireside Original/Simon & Schuster; $14; 213
pages). Author Elina Furman offers advice on how to live at home
without feeling as though you're back in kindergarten (one tip:
redecorate your bedroom, and get rid of the soccer trophies of
yesteryear). Furman also has a Web site: www.boomerangnation.com.

* "Mom, Can I Move Back In With You? A Survival Guide for Parents of
Twentysomethings" by Linda Perlman Gordon and Susan Morris Shaffer
(Tarcher/Penguin; 272 pages; $13.95). Gordon, a clinical social worker
and trained mediator, and Shaffer, an educator and parenting expert,
offer advice on helping adult kids to become independent.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifest...15054058c.html

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"Work like you don't need the money, Love like you've never been hurt, Dance like nobody's watching..."
-- Richard Leigh
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