College grad now home :(

Parents Forum
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<p>I didn’t read every response, but I thought I would share a little bit about my S. He graduated last year and had no idea what he was going to do, so he came home. He has a very different way of looking at life (what can I say, he got a degree in Philosophy)! It was pretty difficult living with him, especially after he got a job at an office supply chain. He was miserable.</p>

<p>But then he decided that he needed to get more life experience, so he stuck it out at his job. Spent very little money and signed up with a volunteer organization in Ecuador. Yes, he is paying to volunteer, but he’s working hard, living simply, and meeting new people.</p>

<p>I don’t know what the future holds for my S (probably grad school next year), but I know he’ll have more confidence to do what he needs to do in the meantime.</p>

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<p>Northstar–you might want to read the section on emotional healing after job loss. This is the real world. People might be putting on brave faces but inside they are either planning how to kill the guy that fired them or just feeling very sad. </p>

<p>[Diary</a> of a job search: one man’s … - Google Book Search](<a href=“Diary of a Job Search: One Man's Journey from Unemployment to a New Career - Tim Johnston, Laura Lorber, Perri Capell - Google Books”>Diary of a Job Search: One Man's Journey from Unemployment to a New Career - Tim Johnston, Laura Lorber, Perri Capell - Google Books)</p>

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<p>“I think this is an important developmental stage that needs to be honored. There should be some sort of ritual, like they come home and retire to a big tent with others who are going through it (!). I think that kids need to be given whatever time they need to negotiate the loss of college and the demands of work and adulthood, at least, with reasonable limits (a few months?). It needs to be solid.”</p>

<p>I see college as an honor and as a privilege. It’s probably the only time in one’ s life in which one’s world is so centered around oneself. At least this is true for students who lack dependents. </p>

<p>I think that parents who help their kids have that experience have already given their offspring an enormous gift. The coming of age ritual is final exams and graduation and any celebrations connected with graduation.</p>

<p>I don’t see any reason for young adults – who in most of the world would expected to be independent and financially responsible for themselves – to be given an even larger gift of being allowed to have a few months of basically playtime at their parents’ expense.</p>

<p>If the new grads want some time off, they can work a job (any job that they can get), supporting themselves while saving money to have a several month vacation at their own expense. I know plenty of young adults who’ve done this and then have spent time skiing in Colorado or backpacking in Europe. </p>

<p>I agree that doing things like this can be a fine transition from college to adult life. I believe, too, however, that if the new grad wants such an experience, the new grad should fund it themselves. Earning such a wonderful experience is a nice way for them to welcome themselves to full adulthood.</p>

<p>If anyone deserves a break, I think it’s the parents, many of whom could use a vacation or some treats for themselves after cutting back for several years to help their kids through college.</p>

<p>I’m not saying this out of bitterness about sacrifices H and I are making to send S to college. While we’ve had to cut back, we still have a comfortable lifestyle. I went to grad school right after college, working the summer beforehand, and paying for all my expenses.</p>

<p>That one-year grad school experience was covered by a fellowship and savings from my summer job. I took about a month break between grad school and working a job. I visited my grandparents for about 2 weeks, and worked temp jobs while I was there. Then I took the money I’d earned and spent about 5 days in the Bahamas with a friend. Afterward, I started my new job, including moving to a new city and paying my transportation costs. My mom flew with me at her expense to the new city, and she may have paid for the hotel we stayed in. However, I was the one who paid for furniture rental and other things related to my apartment. I got an advance from my job which helped. I felt really proud to be an adult and to be on my own like that.</p>

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<p>"Northstar–you might want to read the section on emotional healing after job loss. This is the real world. People might be putting on brave faces but inside they are either planning how to kill the guy that fired them or just feeling very sad. "</p>

<p>I don’t have to read about it. I’ve experienced job loss in my life, something that’s probably true of most middle aged people except those who have been extraordinarily lucky.</p>

<p>I know the depression and grief that happens. Certainly, it’s normal to feel sad, angry, and to have other painful emotions. However, if one has adult responsibilities, one can’t sit around all day and mope and whine to others. One has to do what one can to get another job to keep a roof over one’s head, food on the table, and to obtain things like health insurance. </p>

<p>Yes, it’s depressing and frustrating for new college grads who haven’t yet found jobs. However, if they’re fortunate enough to be able to live with parents while searching for jobs, they are very lucky. If they also don’t have student loans to pay back or dependents to support, they are even luckier. Being frustrated and depressed doesn’t give them the right to whine all of the time or – for heaven’s sake – to get a Euoropean vacation at parents’ expense to help them feel better.</p>

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<p>I don’t believe that the daughter is ‘constantly venting’ and the OP is the rational mature one. Sounds like a parent who knows how to push the buttons to get a rise out of the daughter.</p>

<p>I know my life is too perfect by far, but if I ever get problems I hope they are of the scale of ‘my daughter eats all my fruit and it costs me $300 a month’ and ‘my son ate my beef stew and I am hopping mad about it’.</p>

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<p>In my day many college grads either got a car or a trip to Europe for graduation so I don’t think it’s a big deal. My parents who only made around 14,000 1971 $$$s gave me a very nice VW Bug Conv which probably cost them $3000 back then. $3000 today would buy an economy trip to Europe more or less. </p>

<p>And few college grads I know have to worry about kids and house payments and all that stuff. They are becoming adults, but they are no there yet by a long shot. You really seem to want a cookie for sending your kids to college. If you are a college educated person with some income that is your job.</p>

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<p>I would say it’s time to think about grad school. Maybe ride out the recession in grad school and try again with an MA? Better than doing nothing.</p>

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<p>I’m just hoping btw that when I come out of law school there will be jobs, and considering the past business cycle took 5 years, I may come out at the bottom again :(</p>

<p>But given that nobody has found the next ponzi scheme yet I doubt the recovery would be that quick.</p>

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<p>Some kids mature faster than others. For others, it takes a while longer to get their butts in gear.</p>

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<p>"In my day many college grads either got a car or a trip to Europe for graduation so I don’t think it’s a big deal. My parents who only made around 14,000 1971 $$$s gave me a very nice VW Bug Conv which probably cost them $3000 back then. $3000 today would buy an economy trip to Europe more or less. </p>

<p>And few college grads I know have to worry about kids and house payments and all that stuff. They are becoming adults, but they are no there yet by a long shot. You really seem to want a cookie for sending your kids to college. If you are a college educated person with some income that is your job."</p>

<p>I wish you’d stop saying the cookie comment because that’s rude.</p>

<p>I was the 4th generation to go to college in my family, and no one got trips or cars for graduating from college. It was the family practice for the college students to help pay for their education (and if necessary to help with siblings’ educations) and to be grateful about whatever support that their parents gave, support that varied depending on the parents’ income.</p>

<p>I don’t see it as my job to send my kids to college nor do I expect “a cookie” for doing so. I do feel that helping pay for my kids’ education is a gift that my husband and I have chosen to give. I expect and hope that my kids are appreciative of what we’re doing just as my husband and I were appreciative of the help that our parents gave us. </p>

<p>Obviously, your world is different than mine is because only one of my friends got a trip after graduation – and that was after she graduated from medical school. I remember only one friend getting a new car at graduation, but that was the exception. My husband’s parents gave him their old car when he got his second masters degree. Since large numbers of middle class students started going to college – something that occurred in our lifetime – it has not been the norm for college students to get cars or European vacations from their parents at graduation. Some students certainly got such things, but most did not.</p>

<p>While most college students lack the wisdom and experiences that older adults have, they are in my opinion adults, and benefit from being treated as adults, not as children to continue to coddle. Unfortunately, there has been a trend in our country for parents to continue coddling their adult children until those adult offspring are in their 30s. Then, the parents wonder why their adult offspring are still acting like children when it comes to supporting themselves and making mature decisions about their lives.</p>

<p>Certainly, there is a transition that is experienced when students graduate from college and go out into the world. However, it is not as difficult as the transitions that occur when one has children, or encounters the various losses of loved ones, abilities and opportunities as one ages. </p>

<p>One doesn’t prepare young adults to develop the strength to cope with the other challenges they’ll inevitably face by acting like they can’t cope with the stress of graduating from college without having a nice long vacation at Mommy and Daddy’s expense.</p>

<p>If parents want to gift their graduates with cars and trips, fine. But I think that the idea that graduates need or are entitled to such a gift belittles the maturity and independence that for many people is an outgrowth of the college experience. </p>

<p>To put it more bluntly, I don’t think that college graduate need “a cookie” because they’ve managed to graduate from college. College is probably the most carefree time of adulthood. It’s a marvelous time that for students without dependents or heavy responsibility for funding their education is a time for them to focus on only themselves and their academic and social interests.</p>

<p>Understandably, entering the real world comes as a jolt to some, but that doesn’t mean that parents owe them a nice vacation to make the transition easier. Nor does it mean that the newly minted college grad is entitled to constantly whine to parents about their miserable post college lives.</p>

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<p>I agree the cookie comment is rude. Frankly, I also graduated in 1971 and my parents earned about $14,000 in a factory. I sure didn’t get a car - they were barely making their own car and mortgage payments along with helping their children with college. They bought used cars for themselves, and would never have been able to come up with $3,000 for me to have a car or a trip to Europe. None of my fellow graduates went to Europe, although we heard stories about others who were packing a backpack and planning on spending the summer hitchhiking, camping and in hostels. If your parents gave you a car, Barron, good for you. I hope you appreciated the fact that it had to have been a sacrifice for them…but none of us know anyone else’s finances. Perhaps you received scholarships so they didn’t have to pay any tuition bills. Perhaps grandparents or others contributed to the cost. Perhaps they won the lottery, or lived in a tent to live more thriftily than my parents were able to do in their WW2 starter house (that they never were able to afford to move out of).</p>

<p>I don’t think it’s a parent’s job to pay college bills, buy cars or give kids trips to Europe. I think it’s a parent’s job to raise healthy, moral children with a good work ethic that will sustain them during bad times and good times. If we choose to pay college bills and for extras, our children should be grateful and understand that those payments are a gift earned by our hard work and given to them with love. A sense of entitlement will get them NOWHERE in life. The day my kids over the age of 18, do not value what I give them and present me with expectations or demands “because I’m their parent,” is the day I stop giving them anything.</p>

<p>And yes, I make my kids do chores and work in the home right alongside of me, because we’re a family. And yes, I made my kids give me some of their job-money when they were in high school to help with family expenses (although I did put it in a savings account for them and give it back to them later). And yes, I expect my kids to be respectful at all times, not to drink to excess, not to use drugs, etc. They have to buy their own textbooks and earn their own spending and gas money. It’s not easy being my kid, but so far each of them are doing just fine, thank you. I am paying undergraduate costs at the expense of my own retirement, and my kids are grateful, I assure you. They don’t expect cars or European trips. (I can’t afford to go to Europe myself, even as a professional working 60+ hour weeks, since I’m paying undergraduate tuition college bills for several kids.)</p>

<p>I agree with Northstarmom 110%.</p>

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<p>Barrons, I bet you wouldn’t get mad if your kids ate your cookies.</p>

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<p>Back to the OP. When I graduated from college I also moved back home and made everyone miserable, myself particularly. It was the year of the movie The Graduate. I related.</p>

<p>What finally broke the inertia for me was an offer from a friend on the other side of the country to move in with her. This was also a time of economic challenge, and we scrambled to make the rent but but we lived in a big apartment with plenty of guests and had a ball. </p>

<p>So I have to ask: What about your daughter’s friends? Isn’t there someone whom she can move in with, share an apartment, mooch off while she gets settled? Could you advance her a few months rent while she looks for a job?</p>

<p>Ideally she should get the job first, then the apartment, but sometimes you just have to pick a place to live and go from there. Having neither an independent living arrangement nor a job sounds to me like compounded trouble. I do understand that income and apartment are related, but I would still recommend getting settled outside your home and then concentrating on finding work.</p>

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<p>barrons wrote:

</p>

<p>Then you know plenty of idle adults who can’t see life six months past the present.</p>

<p>::resisting urge to ask if barrons wants a cookie::</p>

<p>Not a good role model for a recent college grad who is facing the same situation, IMO.</p>

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<p>Ack, this thread is giving me a headache. They’re adults when they get out of college and responsible for themselves. No wonder this country is in trouble.</p>

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<p>Can you front a share in a summer rental why she looks for a job - albiet a waitress?</p>

<p>She has a fun wonderful summer for all of her hard work, yet, she still looks for employment</p>

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<p>Way back in the dark ages when I graduated from college (73), I did go to Europe - in a cargo plane with 21 horses. Landed the job via my mom who just happened to mention she had a horse loving daughter and did the guy buying the horses need someone to shovel manure? Thank goodness Mom was the ultimate networker of her time and didn’t see a job involving manual labor as being beneath her college educated offspring!</p>

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<p>Things have settled down a bit since I originally posted…actually not one complaint, so maybe it was just the initial adjustment period.</p>

<p>As far as jobs, she is really applying for almost anything at this point, both requiring BA’s, and those that don’t (waitressing). As far as us sharing the bill for a summer rental, she would never have us do that. She has a friend who parent’s are paying her rent completely while she gets settled, and she refers to it as “fake” independance. I, too, think that this would be time for grad school, but I think it is too late to even consider for the fall.</p>

<p>As far as trips to Europe and cars for grad presents…I have always thought that her education itself, at a private elite university was enough of a gift in itself. Although she worked throughout college and paid for a portion of it herself, she agrees.</p>

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<p>Two years ago I was working for a large corporation that suddenly closed down my research site - 2500 people out of work instantly and without warning. Talk about your grief and depression: there were people openly weeping in the halls for days after the announcement. Most of my co-workers received very generous severance packages. </p>

<p>However, ALL of my co-workers immediately began searching for new positions within days. No one took any time off to reflect on the future; most people had families and bills that required replacement cash flow. Maybe we were all just obsessive-compulsive scientist drones who needed the structure that employment gives, but I tend to think that we were just pragmatic. I know many people (myself included) who were thrilled to find jobs at half our old salaries… anything to keep our lives going forward. Maybe that sounds soulless and pitiful, but hey, I’m employed!</p>

<p>Mmmm… coookkkiiiieeesssss…</p>

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<p>to the OP - I think one or both of you might be at risk for an Adjustment Disorder. This can be an acute condition and women are more likely to be inflicted with it. It might not be a bad idea to see a counselor to help with mutual coping skills.</p>