<p>It’s really hard to find a job,however, “The Early Bird Catches The Worm.” It doesn’t mean she’s in a hurry to find a job… But I think and as we all think, she’s old enough to stay at home with parents, not to mention she’s taking your privacy of being “empty nesters”!!! LOLs… And instead of venting why don’t she use her anger or frustrations as her inspiration to find a job, y0u say she graduated as cum laude? Being one doesn’t entitle anybody to get a life easily, yet she need to exert effort too, and prove what she have become is real…</p>
<p>OP- you’re both right.</p>
<p>Your D is right that it stinks being home instead of being launched.</p>
<p>You are right that it stinks to be bogged down with a whiny almost-adult invading your space when you thought you’d be mostly done with the hand-to-hand combat phase of child-rearing.</p>
<p>I think most of my fellow posters are missing the point (if I can be so bold as to criticize my fellow posters.) She needs her feelings validated that this is not what she planned to be doing right now. And so do you.</p>
<p>That’s all. I don’t think you need to send her to Europe or buy her a car or make her take a job as a nanny. I don’t think she needs to spend 10 hours a day on laundry, home repairs, and cleaning out your gutters. If everyone just remembers that the situation, while sub-optimal, is a temporary one, I think you can all go back to loving and respecting each other.</p>
<p>For the parents- I know it’s hard, but you are very close to the stage in life where your D gets two weeks vacation and a handful of legal holidays off. Trust me- she won’t be planning on spending those two weeks with you. You’ll get Thanksgiving unless the Significant Other has already claimed that. You may get Xmas but definitely not the whole week. So try to keep that in mind as you trip over $%^& in the living room. Once they move out, they really move out.</p>
<p>I have one kid working in a demanding job with a lot of unpredictable travel. Too busy to take the GRE’s or GMAT’s (even though the company pays for grad school). Crams in visits home when there’s downtime at work (not that often, for which we are all grateful since the economy stinks). Doesn’t want to take the earned vacation time (who disappears in the middle of a recession? Nope, got to keep the nose to the grindstone.)</p>
<p>It’s hard to believe that two years ago I was complaining about the piles of dorm junk in the hallway. Kid is gone; junk is gone. </p>
<p>Another kid is in the middle of a demanding grad program. I had fantasies of a long summer at home-- hah! A good research grant materialized, bye bye kid and bye bye fantasy. So the junk is home (apartment lease is up, kid, being the ever- practical one didn’t want to pay rent on an empty apartment and new cheap lease doesn’t start until August so I’m babysitting the boxes) but the kid is gone.</p>
<p>It will help if you all re-set your expectations a little. Nobody is going to enjoy the whole shebang of the current set up, but you can all find elements of it to enjoy. Take a walk in the evening together? Bike to the nearest ice cream place after dinner? Do a “concert in the park” series?</p>
<p>It will help reduce the grumbling if you all verbalize that the situation stinks but that you love each other and want to make it work. And one day she’ll move out, the stuff will be gone, your grocery bill will go back to normal, and you will be very sad. So enjoy.</p>
<p>“Once they move out, they really move out.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of adults now who seem to be using their parents’ homes as a revolving door, so you never know what will happen…</p>
<p>^^Yup! I remember reading a newspaper article about the problem, and they were talking about 50-something kids moving back in! :eek:</p>
<p><<once they=“” move=“” out,=“” really=“” out=“”>></once></p>
<p>I have a good friend who is 60 yo. His adult son got divorced and moved back in. Then the son got a girl pregnant and they rotate btw his house and her aunt’s house with a baby (this son is 27 and has 2 other children from prior marriage). Older son, 36, got divorced, lived on own, found gf, got her pregnant and a year later she’s had enough of him. NEITHER of these son’s make enough money to support themselves and the families they don’t live with. My friend is going nuts. The boys mom doesn’t want them with her. Oh, my friend’s daughter (age 32) is ‘hanging in there’ with her 10 year marriage. </p>
<p>When I was younger, the ONLY thing I wanted was to be independent.<br>
NOTHING is more liberating that taking care of yourself (and I have done this making 20 cents more than minimum wage at some point).</p>
<p>I think I’ll move to a 1 bedroom condo and if MY adult son wants to move back home, he’ll be on the couch and hopefully not real comfortable :-)</p>
<p>I love the kid, but DON"T want to live with him for the rest of my life!</p>
<p>I know this is a bit off topic but it can go the other way too. Friends have elderly parents who had to downsize from a retirement community to a small apartment and are quickly running out of cash. Next step is to move in with their kids (who are in their 50s). Wow. Maybe we’ll be hearing this story more down the road as I know parents who have drained their bank (and retirement) accounts to pay for fancy colleges. Imagine having whining parents on the couch…complaining about not being able to find jobs.
To the OP, hang in there. This too will pass…</p>
<p>I know plenty of people whose parents live with them because the parents’ health is frail or the parents don’t have money to live on their own.</p>
<p>My mother lived with my family for a year in her old age due to frail health.</p>
<p>but in my friends case he is quite healthy and there are no signs that ANY of his kids would be in a situation where they could care for him and/or financially support him were he not. They are a drain on his brain AND his wallet. I’ve told him that he needs to revive the word NO into his vocabulary</p>
<p>I can’t fault the kids for getting divorced or having a kid out of wedlock (been there, done that) but I NEVER was a financial liability to anyone but MYSELF. I really don’t understand these girls who do thru men like they do shoes, in one season, out the next!</p>
<p>My friend’s mom (92 years old) is in a nearby nursing home and he does all the shopping and care she needs that isn’t provided by the home (he does her laundry for her and makes sure she gets out at least once a week)</p>
<p>Absolutely! When I say my (now) adult son’s home is in another state, we here, and he, are all in normal circumstances. I fully expect him to support himself now, and so far he does. If an unexpected catastrophic situation came up, then of course my expectations and his would change.
Slow economy, divorce(if he were married) and the like are considered normal in our household- in the sense that they are not typical, you understand, but certainly not catastrophic. We feel he should be prepared enough to handle those 2 examples. We would not permit our S to move back in here because he got a girl pregnant and was in a money pinch. Man enough to be a Dad is man enough to support oneself. We’ve made that clear to our S when he first started dating.
My opinion expressed earlier here was based on normal circumstances rather than catastrophic.</p>
<p>northstar mom…my friends parents are fine healthwise…but are down to their last few dollars. I’m wondering if I would expect my parents to go back to work if they were in their 70s and healthy. Hmmmm…</p>
<p>OP any news? How about an update?</p>
<p>My MIL lives with us. I’d be happy to send her to Europe for three months. She’s too old to drive.</p>
<p>Hi all…a little update:
Daughter had a bit of a meltdown yesterday, after no responses to many, many app’s.</p>
<p>Today she finally had 2 responses!!! An interview set up next week for a very cool job in her major in our area, and another for a job in her college town. She is THRILLED, and has a completely different outlook already! At least she knows that somebody actually reads the app’s on the other end…she was starting to wonder :)</p>
<p>Great news, congrats. Tell her to prep for her interview full time. My D went through 5 internship interviews last year without getting an offer and she regrouped, prepped hard for the rest and got an offer. Last fall, she started to prepare for her interviews early, spent a lot of time practising and nailed a job offer before Christmas during campus recruiting.</p>
<p>Best of luck to your D with her interviews!</p>
<p>One issue this begs to address is that the career services at many LACs and a good portion of the liberala arts colleges within larger universities do a woeful job of meaningful on campus recruiting. I remember hearing complaints about Grinnell–a school with $$$$–had the approach of handing out the diploma and saying Good Luck.<br>
I rarely hear of parents or prospects putting much emphasis on the career services offices of the schools they are considering.</p>
<p>My D’s college’s career center has already started to send her notices of employment opportunities and she is still in school (going to be a senior). In addition, there is a virtual career center for alumni and lots of networking going on as well.</p>