Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk through some of the big
Speaker 1: life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
Speaker 1: mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever
Speaker 1: you are in the world, it is so great to
Speaker 1: have you here. Back for another episode as we break
Speaker 1: down the Psychology of our twenties. How is everybody doing?
Speaker 1: What's been on your mind? What have you been thinking
Speaker 1: about recently, stressed about, worried about. Maybe it's money, which
Speaker 1: is me at all times, your bills, how little your
Speaker 1: job is paying you. Maybe it's your current living situation.
Speaker 1: Your lindlord is quite frankly an asshole. Your roommate it's
Speaker 1: irritating you. You can't find a place to rent in
Speaker 1: your city. Maybe it is a breakup, a long term
Speaker 1: relationship breakdown that you know, you really thought you were
Speaker 1: going to be with this person forever. You had all
Speaker 1: these plans for the future, and then suddenly it was over.
Speaker 1: You're facing heartbreak kind of in the same place where
Speaker 1: you fell in love.
Speaker 2: All of these situations, states of minds, experiences seem kind
Speaker 2: of separate. They seem to touch on different facets of
Speaker 2: dissatisfaction in our lives, but they have one thing in common,
Speaker 2: and that is that they all cause us to really
Speaker 2: consider the possibility of moving back home with our parents,
Speaker 2: whether that is to save money because you can't find
Speaker 2: a place to live, you're going through a massive life transition.
Speaker 2: It is becoming a lot more common for twenty something
Speaker 2: year old like you and I to revert back to
Speaker 2: living in their childhood home or sometimes not leaving at
Speaker 2: all until they're in there in late twenties, sometimes even
Speaker 2: early thirties. Our living situation and our relationship with our
Speaker 2: parents are two major points of I would say exploration
Speaker 2: and theory in psychology, especially during this decade that we
Speaker 2: call e merging adulthood, which is between the ages of
Speaker 2: eighteen and twenty nine. Because these factors, these experiences, our
Speaker 2: living situation, our parents, they shape a lot about who
Speaker 2: we are. They shape a lot about what we're experiencing
Speaker 2: in some ways, our entire state of mind and how
Speaker 2: we go about seeing the world. We're seeing a lot
Speaker 2: more research coming out about this, you know, in some
Speaker 2: of the pioneering studies on emerging adulthood. This chapter that
Speaker 2: we're in that was conducted by the psychologist Jeffrey Aren't
Speaker 2: It back in twenty fourteen. He talks about how two
Speaker 2: of the biggest events we go through, or kind of
Speaker 2: battles that we endure on our path to full fledged adulthood,
Speaker 2: are being home and redefining our relationship with our parents.
Speaker 2: It really used to be the case that people would
Speaker 2: move out of their parents' home and never return, you know,
Speaker 2: for women it might not be until they got married.
Speaker 2: For men, when they got a full time paying job,
Speaker 2: as the gender norm goes. But nowadays we're seeing a
Speaker 2: real societal shift whereby we are staying in the family
Speaker 2: home for much longer. About fifty percent of people in
Speaker 2: their twenties right now still live at home with their parents,
Speaker 2: and it's typically women who move out a lot earlier.
Speaker 2: But on average, you know, compared to like forty percent
Speaker 2: of people who are living out of home two decades ago,
Speaker 2: there is this kind of decline in individuals who are
Speaker 2: seeking out independent living during this decade. You know, living
Speaker 2: independently is no longer like a signifier of adulthood as
Speaker 2: it previously was, because a it's occurring later. But b
Speaker 2: we're also boomeranging, right, we're moving out, We're leaving home.
Speaker 2: Were saying my mom and dad, like, I'm flying the nest,
Speaker 2: and like five years later, we're back where we kind
Speaker 2: of started. We're back in our childhood bedrooms. It used
Speaker 2: to be the case that you couldn't even be labeled
Speaker 2: as an established adult until you had moved out of home.
Speaker 2: Like that was the biggest thing that researchers used as
Speaker 2: a signifier to say, Okay, this person has grown up.
Speaker 2: But I think that that label, that kind of factor,
Speaker 2: that category no longer applies because there has been a
Speaker 2: real change in our willingness and our ability to kind
Speaker 2: of leave the nest. So let's talk about it today.
Speaker 2: I really want to firstly speak about why it is
Speaker 2: that a lot of us are delaying moving out, staying
Speaker 2: with our parents, or being forced to move back home. Obviously,
Speaker 2: cost of living is a huge one, but we are
Speaker 2: also getting married later, you know, meaning that we might
Speaker 2: stay at home for longer before potentially meeting someone and
Speaker 2: settling down. We're also seeing that although there has been
Speaker 2: a big growth in education levels, you know, more people
Speaker 2: are going to university that hasn't translated into greater job
Speaker 2: security or financial insecurity. So I asked you guys on Instagram.
Speaker 2: There's almost I think ten thousand of you who answered me.
Speaker 2: And the question I asked is why do you still
Speaker 2: live at home with your parents or why did you
Speaker 2: move back home with your parents? Because about fifty percent
Speaker 2: of you said that they had moved out, you had
Speaker 2: moved out of home, and you had found your way back.
Speaker 2: So there were three main contributors factors really that stood
Speaker 2: out to me. Firstly, this one I'm going to just
Speaker 2: like put in its own category was COVID. Of course,
Speaker 2: huge life changing medical epidemic event. So I actually moved
Speaker 2: I moved out when I was seventeen, but I moved
Speaker 2: back home with my parents for three months when COVID
Speaker 2: first began at like twenty years old. And I think
Speaker 2: that was a lot of people's experiences, like my mum
Speaker 2: had a total meant will break down about me getting
Speaker 2: sick and dying and having no one around to help
Speaker 2: me because we knew so little about the virus. So
Speaker 2: I lasted about three months before I literally begged for
Speaker 2: them to let me go back to Canberra where I
Speaker 2: was living at the time, and it was so strange
Speaker 2: because I could have left at any point right like
Speaker 2: I was an adult. My residential address was in Canberra,
Speaker 2: so it was like full within the law to travel back,
Speaker 2: but the dynamic of being at home made it feel
Speaker 2: like I had to get their permission. That suddenly all
Speaker 2: of my agency, all of the authority I had over
Speaker 2: my life was kind of gone now that my parents
Speaker 2: were living under the same roof with me. So COVID
Speaker 2: was a big thing for a lot of us. I
Speaker 2: think a lot of us did find ourselves moving back
Speaker 2: home around that time. It really was though I think
Speaker 2: once in a lifetime situation. I don't think that we're
Speaker 2: going to experience that again in our life, if not
Speaker 2: in our twenties, So we're going to count that as
Speaker 2: its own separate category. But the second biggest rea and
Speaker 2: that people you know told me about around why they
Speaker 2: either didn't move out or moved back home, was finances
Speaker 2: and saving money. Oh my goodness, the world that we
Speaker 2: have inherited from our families, from our parents and their
Speaker 2: parents and their parents before them is a broken world.
Speaker 2: There is an insane cost of living crisis going on,
Speaker 2: and I don't think I could name a city that
Speaker 2: isn't experiencing this, or I could name a country that
Speaker 2: isn't experiencing this. So a lot of us aren't able
Speaker 2: to afford rent. I think in Sydney right now, the
Speaker 2: average rent is seven hundred and fifty dollars a week
Speaker 2: when the average income is fourteen hundred dollars, and that
Speaker 2: is including people who are you know, directors and executives
Speaker 2: and at the very high level of their career. I
Speaker 2: don't think the average twenty something year old like you
Speaker 2: and I is making fourteen hundred dollars a week. So
Speaker 2: even if that was the case, almost half of your
Speaker 2: salary is going to just putting a roof over your head.
Speaker 2: So that's not really accessible, is it. I think the
Speaker 2: rule of thumb is like a third or a quarter
Speaker 2: of your income should go towards paying rent. That doesn't
Speaker 2: seem like that. There's a you know, fourteen hundred dollars
Speaker 2: versus seven hundred and fifty dollars that really is just
Speaker 2: taking out a huge chunk of what you're taking home
Speaker 2: each week. So we can't afford rent. We don't want
Speaker 2: to pay rent, you know. I think a lot of
Speaker 2: us are getting fed up of paying off somebody else's
Speaker 2: mortgage whilst you're never going to be able to afford
Speaker 2: a place. And I think that stuck inequality that we
Speaker 2: are observing is creating a huge mental strain on the
Speaker 2: lives and health of young people in this generation, primarily
Speaker 2: through I think an increased prevalence and incidence rate of
Speaker 2: financial anxiety. Constantly being concerned or hyper fixated on your income,
Speaker 2: on job security, on your debts, on your ability to
Speaker 2: afford necessities. I really don't think I can overstate how
Speaker 2: much financial anxiety this generation is experiencing the previous generations
Speaker 2: did not have to experience. Whereby, you know, rent is
Speaker 2: one thing. We can't afford a roof over our head.
Speaker 2: We can't afford that without skimping on essentials like food
Speaker 2: or transport, or healthcare or even a social life. Yes,
Speaker 2: your social life is a necessity, It is essential. Being
Speaker 2: able to positively maintain your relationships is not a luxury.
Speaker 2: So all of this kind of leads to a deep
Speaker 2: sense of unease, which makes it really hard to relax
Speaker 2: in our lives, and moving back home with our parents
Speaker 2: can relieve that by taking away the primary trigger I
Speaker 2: would call it for our worries about money, which is
Speaker 2: rent and bills. It's interesting because I saw this quote
Speaker 2: that said living at home with your parents may be free,
Speaker 2: but you pay with your mental wellbeing. You might not
Speaker 2: be taking on any tangible financial responsibilities, but it does
Speaker 2: sometimes come at the small cost of your emotional health.
Speaker 2: And we're kind of forced into this really difficult trade
Speaker 2: off during this decade. Do we lose our health or
Speaker 2: do we lose our wealth? That's what it comes down to.
Speaker 2: The second biggest factor that people spoke about, which I
Speaker 2: was surprised about and then actually equally not as surprised about,
Speaker 2: was a breakup. I think when you start a life
Speaker 2: with someone in your twenties thinking it will be forever
Speaker 2: and it isn't, that is a significant disruptor to your
Speaker 2: sense of self, to your plans for the future, your
Speaker 2: plans for tomorrow. Even sometimes we need the safety and
Speaker 2: security of our family to heal or to just give
Speaker 2: us a place to stay. I've seen so many friends
Speaker 2: enduring this recently, whereby they've been with someone for like
Speaker 2: years and they've been living together, they're making plans for
Speaker 2: the future, and then all of a sudden, one of
Speaker 2: them turns around and cause it quits. And they forced
Speaker 2: with this like really awful, horrendous reality of having to
Speaker 2: clean out the place you live together, break a lease,
Speaker 2: you know, just push forward, do the daily things you
Speaker 2: used to experience with them by your side. That is
Speaker 2: its own unique form of psychological torture, especially in our twenties,
Speaker 2: when it does kind of feel like a race to
Speaker 2: find the one. As much as I disagree with that,
Speaker 2: you know, there is a societal pressure to like have
Speaker 2: a mate, to have a partner by the end of
Speaker 2: your twenties. So I think they're also battling this sense
Speaker 2: of like, well, now I'm back at square one. I
Speaker 2: have to begin this whole thing again. So that was
Speaker 2: another big factor, is people experiencing a breakup and that
Speaker 2: being a catalyst for moving home. And the final one
Speaker 2: was the beginning or the end of a huge life
Speaker 2: transition that kind of prevents us from having permanent housing.
Speaker 2: A really great example of this is that period between
Speaker 2: graduation and starting a full time job, or perhaps not
Speaker 2: having a job lined up, not making any money when
Speaker 2: you return overseas without a lease, you know, that is
Speaker 2: another real big catalyst for moving home. Some of us
Speaker 2: just want to be prepared, you know, to take our
Speaker 2: time until it feels absolutely right to move out, even
Speaker 2: if that means continuing to share a space, a home,
Speaker 2: our privacy with our parents. There is one final factor
Speaker 2: that I actually want to talk about really quickly. A
Speaker 2: lot of you actually talked about how when your parents
Speaker 2: became ill, you felt this real sense of obligation to
Speaker 2: take care of them as they got older, as they
Speaker 2: kind of took care of you when you were younger.
Speaker 2: I think those of us with a real strong sense
Speaker 2: of family values family obligation may feel compelled to kind
Speaker 2: of give up our independent lives in our twenties to
Speaker 2: very selflessly assist our parents. And I'm sure it's not
Speaker 2: the easiest decision, but it definitely feels like the right one.
Speaker 2: So what are the consequences of this? Why does living
Speaker 2: with our parents in our twenties seemingly take such a psychological, emotional, social,
Speaker 2: even sometimes physical toll. And there is a toll, a
Speaker 2: very scientifically observable one. So a recent Australian study published
Speaker 2: last year, one of the first of its kinds in Australia,
Speaker 2: looked at cohabitation between parents and young adults. So parents
Speaker 2: and children living together in the same house, and they
Speaker 2: found that young adults, particularly those in their mid to
Speaker 2: late twenties, living with their parents, had poor mental health
Speaker 2: in those living independently, and those mental health impacts become
Speaker 2: larger the older that we get. So when you're twenty
Speaker 2: one living with your parents, it might still be a struggle.
Speaker 2: It's not that bad compared to if you were twenty
Speaker 2: nine and living with your parents. And the authors attributed
Speaker 2: this to several factors. The first one is a sense
Speaker 2: of feeling stuck or feeling behind, that you haven't yet
Speaker 2: reached a milestone that other people in your life have.
Speaker 2: You just feel like you can't progress your independent life.
Speaker 2: And I think that there's a real cultural element in that,
Speaker 2: especially in Western nations like Australia, like the US, like
Speaker 2: the UK, like Canada, all of those whereby historically and
Speaker 2: psychologically Western societies really value independence and they see a
Speaker 2: dependence on the family home and on family resources as
Speaker 2: a failure, whereby more Eastern cultures are a lot more collective,
Speaker 2: you know, collectivism. That's a big part of their identity
Speaker 2: as a community, which is we help each other out.
Speaker 2: It's not unnormal, unheard of. I guess for people in
Speaker 2: their forties to still be living with their parents or
Speaker 2: to have their parents move in with them. So I
Speaker 2: really think that the impact you're going to feel is
Speaker 2: really dependent on a couple of things. Obviously, culture expectation,
Speaker 2: that's a big one. But I also think the the
Speaker 2: reason that we tend to struggle comes down to the
Speaker 2: innate nature of a parent child relationship and how that
Speaker 2: develops in our twenties, when we are no longer a
Speaker 2: child by age, but we are a child by relationship
Speaker 2: to our parents, living under their roof, feeling like we're
Speaker 2: not fully able to express or practice our freedom, we're
Speaker 2: not fully able to be recognized by them as an adult,
Speaker 2: but rather as the child that they raised, the teenager
Speaker 2: that they scolded, the young adult that they still feel
Speaker 2: a sense of protectiveness or control over. Once again, this
Speaker 2: environment position positions you like relationally, as a child, you
Speaker 2: are still that sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year old version of
Speaker 2: yourself that your parents could control and could send to
Speaker 2: your room and could ground because the environment in which
Speaker 2: that relationship and that dynamic occurred is the same, even
Speaker 2: if you have matured and grown older. Relationship with our parents,
Speaker 2: I think is always going to be hierarchical. They are
Speaker 2: at the top. They have more power because of just
Speaker 2: the nature of the fact that they you know, they
Speaker 2: gave birth to you, they created you, they chose you.
Speaker 2: If you were adopted, you know, there was this there
Speaker 2: was an active choice by them to have you as
Speaker 2: a child, and they got to implant you with their values.
Speaker 2: Your childhood was formed by their choices. They financially supported
Speaker 2: you for many years. And so when you spend that
Speaker 2: first eighteen years of your life having to listen to them,
Speaker 2: perhaps having to conceal parts of you to still seem
Speaker 2: like a child in their mind, arguing with them, needing
Speaker 2: their permission, that doesn't shift overnight. I think that's why
Speaker 2: we see, like at the moment that we're back within
Speaker 2: the orbit of our family, we like regress significantly. We
Speaker 2: become very dependent. We argue like we did when we
Speaker 2: were a braddy teenager. We don't pick up our laundry.
Speaker 2: We just we become this version of ourselves that we
Speaker 2: left behind. But when we come back into the relationship,
Speaker 2: it positions us as being immature, as still being a child.
Speaker 2: In fact, I actually read this really fascinating piece of
Speaker 2: work in which one psychologist noted that it's really common
Speaker 2: for people to regress psychologically, especially when faced with tension
Speaker 2: or conflict within the family. We revert back to the
Speaker 2: old patterns that we know that we have rehearsed and
Speaker 2: remembered from childhood, because this is the only way that
Speaker 2: we've ever related to our parents in these situations. It's
Speaker 2: so interesting because I was having like an argument with
Speaker 2: my mum a couple of months back, and like I
Speaker 2: would say, this is a weird thing. I'm very good
Speaker 2: at arguing, like in a mature way, like with my partner,
Speaker 2: with my friends, with I don't really argue, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. Like it's and when I do, it's
Speaker 2: like safe and it's respectful, and I know when to
Speaker 2: take breaks. With my parents, it's just like I am
Speaker 2: this feral human because it's just like I'm this child
Speaker 2: again who doesn't have emotional regulation, because our relationship allows
Speaker 2: me to fall back into that I always felt really
Speaker 2: embarrassed about. It turns out this regression is actually very universal.
Speaker 2: It's reflecting our longest relationship, the one that we've had
Speaker 2: with our caregivers, and with that a very deeply embedded
Speaker 2: pattern of behavior, and it's very very hard to break,
Speaker 2: especially if you continue to live at home and you
Speaker 2: haven't yet separated from the family unit, because that would
Speaker 2: give you kind of a former way of psychological separation
Speaker 2: in which you would have the space to form your
Speaker 2: own values, to form your own beliefs, to form your
Speaker 2: own attitudes beyond the family unit. That need to separate socially, physically,
Speaker 2: psychologically gets stronger and stronger the older we get, because
Speaker 2: that part of us that wants to be an established adult,
Speaker 2: who wants independence, who wants to decide they have to dinner,
Speaker 2: who wants to decide whether they're going to leave a
Speaker 2: mess or not, that gets harder to ignore, even if
Speaker 2: we know that we are saving on rent, even if
Speaker 2: there is a practical consideration there. So this is what
Speaker 2: the very famous psychologist Eric Erickson calls the battle between
Speaker 2: identity versus confusion, whereby we start to really push back
Speaker 2: against our childhood childhood identity and discover who we are
Speaker 2: beyond the wants and beliefs of our parents, and we
Speaker 2: need to overcome this conflict between identity and confusion in
Speaker 2: order to progress in our lives. This used to occur
Speaker 2: when we are about eighteen. But the fact is is
Speaker 2: that adulthood is being delayed for a lot of us
Speaker 2: because the milestones that normally defined our twenties are shifting.
Speaker 2: So we're feeling this conflict and this urge for separation
Speaker 2: later on, perhaps, but more intensely. That's the argument that's
Speaker 2: been made in recent years. And I think the luxury
Speaker 2: of having our own, say o, our environment, which we
Speaker 2: didn't get as children, it becomes a necessity the older
Speaker 2: we get, and having our own space becomes very psychologically
Speaker 2: important because your own space is an expression of our
Speaker 2: emerging identity. Having our own space allows for the expansion
Speaker 2: of our personal boundaries onto our external environment. So it's
Speaker 2: not just about how you want your parents to treat you,
Speaker 2: it's how you want you like the control you have
Speaker 2: over your space, the control you have over your furniture,
Speaker 2: over your mess. I think having private and personal space
Speaker 2: is one thing, but having enough of it is another thing.
Speaker 2: You know, like, you may still have that sense of
Speaker 2: control over your bedroom that's at your home, but you
Speaker 2: need more space than that as you get older, because
Speaker 2: a private life cannot be lived in one bedroom alone,
Speaker 2: especially when someone can easily walk in or can maybe
Speaker 2: here through the walls. Especially when that bedroom is one
Speaker 2: that your parents essentially own, you just don't have room
Speaker 2: to expand you don't feel as if you have the
Speaker 2: ability to actually be you, and I think that can
Speaker 2: lead us to feeling very claustrophobic, alienated, maybe stuck. It's
Speaker 2: really interesting because there was this study done on this
Speaker 2: that estimates that we need at least fifteen square meters
Speaker 2: of personal space minimum as we got, so that's about
Speaker 2: the size of one and a half school buses. You're
Speaker 2: probably not getting that with your parents living in your
Speaker 2: childhood bedroom. Privacy is another thing I want to focus
Speaker 2: on within that. So privacy is a really interesting concept
Speaker 2: because it is quite literally defined as a fundamental human right,
Speaker 2: meaning that there are major bodies across the world, from
Speaker 2: the UN to major psychological societies to the human rights
Speaker 2: commissions of the world that see it as essential for
Speaker 2: well being, essential for human safety, human security, but finally
Speaker 2: human fulfillment. And it's not that our parents are deliberately
Speaker 2: worthholding our privacy in most cases at least, just that
Speaker 2: there is not much privacy to be had by nature
Speaker 2: of living at home, by nature of sharing living spaces.
Speaker 2: And I think that we feel that, especially when it
Speaker 2: comes to our relationships, both romantic and platonic. I think
Speaker 2: inviting friends over becomes a lot harder because you can't
Speaker 2: use the space exactly how you'd like. Your parents may
Speaker 2: kind of always be lingering in the corner. You can't
Speaker 2: necessarily talk openly about whatever you want. You can't behave
Speaker 2: however you want. There is still an illusion you want
Speaker 2: to maintain with your parents that you are a child.
Speaker 2: There is still a way that you are kind of
Speaker 2: expected implicitly to act. This is not the place to
Speaker 2: be uninhibited. This is the place to be cautious. Additionally,
Speaker 2: unless our friends are particularly close with our parents, because
Speaker 2: I know that does happen. Sometimes you can feel quite
Speaker 2: on edge when you visit a friend's house and their
Speaker 2: mum like opens the door, or their dad is like
Speaker 2: sitting on the couch whilst you're cooking dinner, or like
Speaker 2: he's like, I don't know, go into the bathroom whilst
Speaker 2: you're like trying to catch up over a glass of wine.
Speaker 2: You always have a sense that you're not just speaking
Speaker 2: to your friend. There are other ears that are tuned in,
Speaker 2: so it's hard to really get to that level of
Speaker 2: depth where vulnerability exists, things might feel strained. Now, Romantic
Speaker 2: relationships are a whole other bag of I don't know,
Speaker 2: a bag of buttons, bag of bones. And I think
Speaker 2: that living at home can really change the whole trajectory
Speaker 2: of what happens between us and someone that we're dating.
Speaker 2: Particularly when we start courting someone, start feeling them out,
Speaker 2: start sleeping with them. It's kind of awkward to be like,
Speaker 2: do we want to take this back home? Do we
Speaker 2: want to extend this date in a place where more
Speaker 2: comfortable by the way I live with my parents, you know,
Speaker 2: let's be real, dating people casually it usually means you're
Speaker 2: sleeping together or you're doing something intimate. In that sense,
Speaker 2: you can't really like invite them back to your place
Speaker 2: without like fully introducing them to your parents on like
Speaker 2: date three or five, and that completely once again speeds
Speaker 2: up the intensity of the relationship in an instant whereby
Speaker 2: people who live alone or with roommates, you know, you
Speaker 2: have time to like feel this person out, You have
Speaker 2: time to date them before they meet the parents, you know,
Speaker 2: Whereas if you're living at home, especially when it comes
Speaker 2: to sex, you know, like they might be meeting them
Speaker 2: pretty soon, And it's also a bit of like a
Speaker 2: weird thing to like have sex in your parents' house,
Speaker 2: thinking that like they might be able to hear what's
Speaker 2: going on. You kind of want to maintain this like
Speaker 2: facade that you're not a sexual creature, almost for their
Speaker 2: peace of mind, and that makes it harder. It makes
Speaker 2: it like a lot harder to do the deed. So
Speaker 2: I remember when I moved back with my parents, not
Speaker 2: for very long, it was like probably only three weeks.
Speaker 2: Over the summer after I finished my degree, I was
Speaker 2: dating this guy whose parents also lived in Melbourne, and
Speaker 2: so of course we're both in Melbourne at the same time.
Speaker 2: We keep seeing each other over the holidays, but because
Speaker 2: both of our parents were always home, we could like
Speaker 2: we couldn't have sex. And then one night I snuck
Speaker 2: him in through the side gate to this literal shed
Speaker 2: like this shed like studio thing we have in our backyard,
Speaker 2: and he slept overnight on this blow up mattress. And
Speaker 2: the next morning, for some reason, because literally no one
Speaker 2: ever goes into this room, my mom like walks in
Speaker 2: and there is me and the sky like naked on
Speaker 2: a camping mattress, and it was so funny because my
Speaker 2: mum always had this rule that her and my dad
Speaker 2: needed to meet anyone who stayed over, so like boyfriends
Speaker 2: and such. I guess she did kind of meet him
Speaker 2: in a strange way, but yeah, it was embarrassing and
Speaker 2: it felt like this weird curtain that you have around
Speaker 2: your private life is like pulled aside, and it's kind
Speaker 2: of ghastly. And it can also lead to some intrusive questions,
Speaker 2: which I think is just sometimes our parents attempting to
Speaker 2: connect with us, but it feels really awkward and embarrassing,
Speaker 2: and there can also be judgment within that. If your
Speaker 2: parent's attitude to dating is also different to yours, which
Speaker 2: I think generationally is bound to happen, they might not
Speaker 2: understand more modern dating practices like cooking up like situationships
Speaker 2: like one night stands, friends with benefits, or maybe they
Speaker 2: do understand it, and that's the problem. They know that
Speaker 2: what might be taking place is transactional and it's an
Speaker 2: uncomfortable mutual acknowledgment at that stage. All of this comes
Speaker 2: down to, once again the innate child parent relationship dynamic.
Speaker 2: That's what's playing out in this situation as we seek
Speaker 2: opportunities to redefine ourselves, to expand our personal lives through
Speaker 2: our relationships, to make our lives our own, to kind
Speaker 2: of create new values for ourselves, new environments. Whatever it is,
Speaker 2: our childhood environment remains the same, and it remains the
Speaker 2: environment that we're in. So I think that is a
Speaker 2: big adjustment, especially if you've moved back home after independent living.
Speaker 2: It's a bit like a yoyo right, like you've gone
Speaker 2: the full length of independence. You've reached the full limit
Speaker 2: of what it means to live independently, right to the
Speaker 2: end of the string. You've adjusted to the sense of
Speaker 2: liberation and freedom and choice, and then you're kind of
Speaker 2: pulled or you'oyed back, And that reverse adjustment is a
Speaker 2: lot harder because you know what's out there, you know
Speaker 2: the grass is actually greener, and you live with this
Speaker 2: realistic comparison between living I don't want to say living alone.
Speaker 2: You could be living with roommates, but living independently and
Speaker 2: living with family. I think, whatever your situation, co habiting
Speaker 2: with your parents is obviously a scale. Some people I
Speaker 2: spoke to loved it. We're going to talk about that
Speaker 2: in a minute. But the main factor that seemed to
Speaker 2: determine enjoyment versus dissatisfaction is the type of parents that
Speaker 2: you have and your relationship with them. Parents who were
Speaker 2: strict or controlling in childhood, who are so called helicops
Speaker 2: to parents, are probably not going to grow out of
Speaker 2: that because I think a part of their makeup is
Speaker 2: this sense of neurosis, this sense of needing control and
Speaker 2: authority and to be in charge, and that part of
Speaker 2: who they are, that part of their personality does not
Speaker 2: disappear as their children get older. That makes it especially
Speaker 2: hard to seek out freedom in a cohabitation situation with
Speaker 2: your parents, or to even have a fruitful conversation about
Speaker 2: what needs to change to ensure you guys have a
Speaker 2: positive relationship, because they're not really open to discussion, right,
Speaker 2: And that may have been the case always. Perhaps they
Speaker 2: just never really got you. They didn't respect your identity,
Speaker 2: they didn't really respect what you were doing, what you
Speaker 2: wanted to do in your life, your decisions. So that
Speaker 2: creates attention, and it creates conflict that is heightened in
Speaker 2: close quarters whereby each of you is trying to enforce
Speaker 2: your view and stand your ground and no one's willing
Speaker 2: to shift. And I think that that doesn't happen when
Speaker 2: you don't live with them. It might happen to some extent,
Speaker 2: but they don't know everything that's going on. They don't
Speaker 2: have as many opportunities for contact to say what they think,
Speaker 2: even if it's not what you want to hear. They
Speaker 2: don't have as many opportunities to be intrusive. So I
Speaker 2: think that that's a really common thing that happens, whereby
Speaker 2: it feels oppressive almost to have their constant not a judgment,
Speaker 2: but their constant opinion. And they may also kind of
Speaker 2: engage in a bit of guilt tripping. They made lord
Speaker 2: things over you. That's a really common thing when we
Speaker 2: live at home. You know you need to do this
Speaker 2: for me because you live under my roof. I paid
Speaker 2: for this, so you should show this house and respect.
Speaker 2: You should do this. You should come home before twelve.
Speaker 2: They have the power because they own the home, and
Speaker 2: this kind of guilt tripping is a form of manipulation,
Speaker 2: even if it's implicit, even if they don't understand that's
Speaker 2: what they're doing. Maybe because you, your parents don't have
Speaker 2: the skills or the language to assertively communicate their feelings,
Speaker 2: and so they resort to implicitly controlling your actions through guilt,
Speaker 2: and it leaves both people feeling terrible. It leaves you
Speaker 2: feeling terrible, It leaves them actually not saying what they mean.
Speaker 2: And they've looked into this. There was a study done
Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen, a study done in twenty fourteen that
Speaker 2: confirmed the initial findings that when guilt tripping happens frequently
Speaker 2: in a parent child relationship, it leads to resentment, and
Speaker 2: it leads to a loss of closeness and intimacy, and
Speaker 2: it leads you feeling like you need to get away,
Speaker 2: that you don't want to come back. There can also
Speaker 2: just be this elevated sense of conflict, right like we
Speaker 2: were talking about with them giving out their opinion. You
Speaker 2: feel very stuck because you don't have the distance that
Speaker 2: people who live out of home have. And I think
Speaker 2: that sometimes it can be very revealing of a lot
Speaker 2: of repressed childhood trauma or missteps or resentment that is
Speaker 2: bound to come up in such close quarters. It's just
Speaker 2: that now you have the adult understanding of your experiences
Speaker 2: and the adult rationality to note that, like your parents
Speaker 2: probably may have been in the wrong to see what
Speaker 2: occurred that could have could have been done better, and
Speaker 2: your parents are not going to see it the same way.
Speaker 2: So it's just this like it can often promote, like
Speaker 2: this rehashing of negative, difficult behavioral patterns between you and
Speaker 2: your mum and your dad and your caregiver. That there
Speaker 2: has been no circuit breaker, there has been no psychological
Speaker 2: separation to stop this from occurring. Again. I just think
Speaker 2: this goes to show how your relationship with your parents
Speaker 2: can become strained when you live under the same roof.
Speaker 2: Because we're not able to assert or practice our independence.
Speaker 2: We still feel childlike, we still feel duck. Our relationships
Speaker 2: may suffer, but sometimes maybe it's worth it to you
Speaker 2: to save some money, to not drown in debt, to
Speaker 2: have housing stability. And one part of it that we
Speaker 2: haven't discussed is that there are benefits. Some people just
Speaker 2: really like living with their parents, and I think that
Speaker 2: that is also just a completely valid perspective that I'm
Speaker 2: going to talk about after this shortbreak. We're also going
Speaker 2: to talk about some tips to cope, how to assert boundaries,
Speaker 2: how to get the most out of this situation. We
Speaker 2: will be back shortly. If fifty of twenty something year
Speaker 2: olds are living at home, I don't think all fifty
Speaker 2: percent are struggling, because there are definitely some perks beyond
Speaker 2: just lessening, you know, our financial anxiety or for temporary housing.
Speaker 2: There are people who I know, who I'm friends with,
Speaker 2: who actively choose this lifestyle and living arrangement, even if
Speaker 2: they can afford to do otherwise, even if they have
Speaker 2: all available opportunities to live out of home again. I
Speaker 2: wanted to hear from you, guys the listeners, about your
Speaker 2: experience with this, and you came through. You provided some
Speaker 2: really fascinating insights. A big benefit that was spoken about
Speaker 2: is knowing that you're always going to have a support
Speaker 2: system and someone to turn to for comfort. That is
Speaker 2: something a lot of us lack in our twenties when
Speaker 2: we do feel especially disconnected and lonely. Having someone who
Speaker 2: is always around is a blessing is really special, especially
Speaker 2: if you're struggling mentally after a breakup or because of
Speaker 2: a mental health condition, or if you're chronically ill or sick.
Speaker 2: I do think that that is a massive pro of
Speaker 2: living with your parents in your twenties, And honestly, I
Speaker 2: love being baby by my mum. Sometimes when she comes
Speaker 2: to town, it feels really good to kind of switch
Speaker 2: off a part of my brain that is adult, because
Speaker 2: I suddenly have like my protector here, I have someone else,
Speaker 2: I have someone wiser, someone who's definitely going to pay
Speaker 2: for dinner. Some of you people also said that you
Speaker 2: are actually really good friends with your parents, which actually
Speaker 2: tends to occur more the older we get. So there's
Speaker 2: been some research on this that shows that our level
Speaker 2: of contact and connection with our parents tends to dip
Speaker 2: around twenty to twenty five, but then steadily rises thereafter
Speaker 2: that dip, and they do say sometimes begins much earlier,
Speaker 2: around seventeen, but seventeen to twenty five is like when
Speaker 2: we most likely see it. It's a large range, but
Speaker 2: most of us will fall into it. That dip is
Speaker 2: probably attributable to the need for distance in early adulthood
Speaker 2: to form an identity that is separate from our caregivers.
Speaker 2: But I think we do truly appreciate how valuable family
Speaker 2: is as we get older, how helpful they are. Living
Speaker 2: with our parents can be quite special because we do
Speaker 2: have a deep connection that we can nourish and which
Speaker 2: can bring us a lot of comfort, especially as they're
Speaker 2: getting older. I think there is a sense of like
Speaker 2: I don't want to miss out on this time because
Speaker 2: we become more acutely aware that we're not going to
Speaker 2: have them forever. If you have kids as well, there's
Speaker 2: such a great help heard from a few people who
Speaker 2: were single mothers, and honestly, I admire you guys so much.
Speaker 2: I'm sure parents are a really great help, a godsend
Speaker 2: at times. And it just comes down to the sharing
Speaker 2: of responsibilities, you know, living in a house by yourself,
Speaker 2: even with other people. I don't think we kind of
Speaker 2: appreciate how much work. It is, Like I really was
Speaker 2: not grateful enough for what my parents did for me
Speaker 2: back then, in terms of paying bills, keeping on top
Speaker 2: of cleaning, keeping on top of maintenance, keeping on top
Speaker 2: of laundry, keeping on top of just like the most
Speaker 2: randomst things, locking the door, Like, there is a lot
Speaker 2: to be done, and I think that when we share
Speaker 2: that responsibility there is obviously less of a burden on us.
Speaker 2: And just like a sense of community and belonging that
Speaker 2: we don't, you know, we tend to stray from in
Speaker 2: our early twenties. It's like an unconditional love that money
Speaker 2: really can't buy. So what do we do to make
Speaker 2: this experience more pros than cons. What are some of
Speaker 2: the behavioral, psychological, emotional strategies for getting the most out
Speaker 2: of this time. Even if this is not your first
Speaker 2: choice for a living situation, you can make it better.
Speaker 2: And I want to talk about six tips to help
Speaker 2: you manage. So. The first one is to actually keep
Speaker 2: your parents updated on your life. I do believe that
Speaker 2: a lot of like the inquisitiveness, the curiosity, what feels
Speaker 2: like intrusiveness, comes down to them just wanting to know you,
Speaker 2: and so make it so that they are not surprised.
Speaker 2: I think that creates tension when they're used to having, like,
Speaker 2: you know, they plan to have this house by themselves
Speaker 2: once they were past a certain age for their children
Speaker 2: to leave the nest. I guess it is like the
Speaker 2: best way to put it. And so you still being
Speaker 2: there makes them feel like they still have some kind
Speaker 2: of right to know what's going on. So invite them
Speaker 2: in so they don't feel like they have to force
Speaker 2: themselves in through opinion and judgment. Whether that is telling
Speaker 2: them about your dating life in not as much detail
Speaker 2: but in some detail, or about your friends, or about
Speaker 2: how work is going. I think that that just creates
Speaker 2: open channels for communication, and it stops them from feeling like, Oh,
Speaker 2: you're just they're eating my food, you're ungrateful, You're not
Speaker 2: coming to me for the emotional support that I think
Speaker 2: they do kind of want to offer. The other thing
Speaker 2: is to articulate boundaries. I feel like everyone knows this,
Speaker 2: but sometimes we're not great at knowing when to set
Speaker 2: a boundary and about what right, Like, we know we
Speaker 2: feel uncomfortable, but we're not sure what kind of behavior
Speaker 2: would prevent that level of uncomfortableness and distress from happening.
Speaker 2: The best way to tell when a boundary needs to
Speaker 2: be set is by noticing your feelings and when something
Speaker 2: You can feel something in your body when you feel uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: that is your brain telling you that something needs to
Speaker 2: be fixed or rectified. That is your best alarm system there. So,
Speaker 2: what about that moment the words said the situation made
Speaker 2: you feel upset, made you feel angry, made you feel frustrated.
Speaker 2: Was it because they crossed a line in terms of
Speaker 2: like asking about your personal life? Was it because they
Speaker 2: guilt tripped you? Was it because they asked you to
Speaker 2: do something that you didn't want to do. Once you
Speaker 2: can articulate what it is that made you uncomfortable. Then
Speaker 2: you can set a boundary, not before you have to
Speaker 2: actually know what it was that was frustrating, what it
Speaker 2: was that made you angry. You need to express that
Speaker 2: boundary before it can have effect. It might be like, Hey,
Speaker 2: I don't want you to speak to me like that.
Speaker 2: I'm not a child anymore, so when we're having conversations,
Speaker 2: please speak to me as you would speak to one
Speaker 2: of your friends, or to you know, my dad, or
Speaker 2: to my mum. Or it might be hey, like, actually,
Speaker 2: I understand that I'm living under your rooth, but I'm
Speaker 2: still an adult and I don't need to curve for you.
Speaker 2: I don't need you to tell me what to do.
Speaker 2: Can we have some respect around me to live independently?
Speaker 2: I think it takes courage to do that, but it
Speaker 2: will improve your life. And just even speaking about what
Speaker 2: it is that's upset you does allow you to come
Speaker 2: back and reference that and say like, Hey, we talked
Speaker 2: about this, and we spoke about the consequences of what
Speaker 2: would happen if this wasn't fixed. Which outcome would you? Like? Here,
Speaker 2: do you want the outcome where I move out and
Speaker 2: we don't speak anymore, or where our relationship is incredibly tense,
Speaker 2: or do you want the outcome where we do have
Speaker 2: open channels of communication and we can speak about this
Speaker 2: like adults rather than like I'm still a child. This
Speaker 2: also leads me to my next tip. When you fight,
Speaker 2: don't go down and stay high. I understand as we
Speaker 2: spoke about it's very easy to regress and become quite
Speaker 2: childlike in conflict with our parents. This is your reminder
Speaker 2: to be calm, to take a break, take a step back,
Speaker 2: go for a walk, and to not let your parents
Speaker 2: put you in the position where you feel like you
Speaker 2: need to be emotionally immature. They might be very high.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel like sometimes parents can be
Speaker 2: very much like up on their high horse, very much like, oh,
Speaker 2: you don't understand, dismissive. That's really freaking angry when you
Speaker 2: feel like you are still an independent person. So don't
Speaker 2: let them put you into a place where you confirm
Speaker 2: that you are still a child, where you confirm that
Speaker 2: you are not able to have constructive conversations with them.
Speaker 2: So these next two I think are really practical. The
Speaker 2: first one is to take on some adult responsibilities in
Speaker 2: the house, so you don't feel like you've lost control
Speaker 2: over your environment, that you're not doing something, not acting
Speaker 2: to maintain a home and pay some rent, so that
Speaker 2: you still feel like you have some rightful ownership over
Speaker 2: your space and that you're contributing. Now, obviously a big
Speaker 2: factor that we spoke about was that we move in
Speaker 2: with our parents. We stay home with our parents because
Speaker 2: we can't afford to move out. So how can we
Speaker 2: afford to pay rent? I'm not saying pay the seven
Speaker 2: fifty that's the average weekly rent in Sydney or whatever.
Speaker 2: Pay like fifty bucks or put like twenty dollars where
Speaker 2: you buy twenty dollars doesn't buy them any groceries anymore,
Speaker 2: And no one hundred bucks where you buy all the
Speaker 2: groceries for the week, So that you still feel like
Speaker 2: there is a level of entitlement you have over this
Speaker 2: space because you are making some kind of financial commitment
Speaker 2: contribution that increases a sense of ownership for you, so
Speaker 2: that this is you your space. You don't own it,
Speaker 2: but you're contributing to it, you have an investment in it.
Speaker 2: Do things outside of the home. This one is probably
Speaker 2: the most important of all of them. Don't let your
Speaker 2: identity get tied up with being an adult who still
Speaker 2: lives in your parents' house. Like, I know, sometimes it
Speaker 2: can feel kind of strange, maybe shameful, you know, maybe
Speaker 2: not what you wanted. But that doesn't mean that you
Speaker 2: can't still get the most out of your twenties, right
Speaker 2: you should join a social club, a book club, late
Speaker 2: night sport, volunteering, rock climbing. I think that these activities
Speaker 2: allow you to feel like you still have a sense
Speaker 2: of self outside of the home, that you can still
Speaker 2: be free, you can still be your own person, you
Speaker 2: can still be you know, in this phase and this
Speaker 2: chapter of exploration and like journeying into adulthood beyond the
Speaker 2: orbit of the family. That's really really valuable to keep
Speaker 2: up a sense of, like keep up a sense of
Speaker 2: like not independence, but a sense of engagement maybe with
Speaker 2: the life that's going on around you and with other
Speaker 2: people who are maybe living out at home, maybe aren't
Speaker 2: just other people like our age. Put a lock on
Speaker 2: your door, someone actually send this in. That's just like
Speaker 2: a small assertion of privacy, right, Like, sometimes it's nice
Speaker 2: to just know that Mum isn't going to like go
Speaker 2: through your like naughty draw like when you're when you're
Speaker 2: not at home. I understand if it's a rental property,
Speaker 2: that might be harder, but you can get a removable
Speaker 2: lock that you can take off before the lease expires.
Speaker 2: Just some way to assert that, like this is my space.
Speaker 2: Like we said, personal space is a vital a cycle,
Speaker 2: logically very vital the older we get, so that's really
Speaker 2: valuable to like assert that, like this is my oasis,
Speaker 2: this is sacred to me. I can use this space
Speaker 2: as my own and finally have some productive check ins
Speaker 2: with your parents, with your family, the same way you
Speaker 2: would have check ins with roommates. Right, living under one
Speaker 2: roof people cohabitating is a melting pot is a like
Speaker 2: a kindling for conflict, Like something is going to go
Speaker 2: wrong because everyone has different preferences, different ways of expressing
Speaker 2: their emotions, expressing their needs, different stress is going on
Speaker 2: in their life that might be triggered or you know,
Speaker 2: kind of broken by someone else's just doing something small. Right,
Speaker 2: it's the straw that breaks the camels back, as the
Speaker 2: saying goes, So you do actually need to still be
Speaker 2: actively communicating about what's going on in each other's lives,
Speaker 2: what needs to be done, around the house so that
Speaker 2: there isn't a level of resentment that builds up up
Speaker 2: and spills over what people are dissatisfied about. Should there
Speaker 2: be a cleaning roster, not to turn it into a sharehouse.
Speaker 2: But I think the secret to any good relationship is
Speaker 2: really just having the guts to just be like, this
Speaker 2: is uncomfortable, but we're going to talk about it anyways.
Speaker 2: Because it's like a really painful massage. You know you're
Speaker 2: going to feel better. You know that the future outcome
Speaker 2: is going to be a lot more enjoyable. I think
Speaker 2: living at home with your parents in your twenties takes
Speaker 2: a bit of courage. It definitely takes a lot of
Speaker 2: emotional regulation, and it takes effort. It takes effort to
Speaker 2: still feel like you are independent and free and living
Speaker 2: your best life. So I really hope that you enjoyed
Speaker 2: this episode. I really enjoyed exploring this because I do
Speaker 2: believe that our living situation and our relationship with our
Speaker 2: parents are two of the most significant contributors to our
Speaker 2: mental wellbeing and early or emerging adulthood, especially when they intertwine,
Speaker 2: especially when they interact. I want to hear more about
Speaker 2: your experiences if there's something we've missed, please reach out.
Speaker 2: This is such a fascinating area of research, especially as
Speaker 2: we're seeing cohabitation rise, we're seeing young adults move back
Speaker 2: more frequently. I think it all points to a broader
Speaker 2: societal shift in which it's hard for twenty somethings to
Speaker 2: be as independent as our parents were. And that's not
Speaker 2: to say that we don't want to be right. It's
Speaker 2: because of a whole range of factors like finances, like
Speaker 2: cost of living that interact with our personhood and interact
Speaker 2: with the decisions that we are able to make. So
Speaker 2: I really hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope that
Speaker 2: you learned something. I hope that it improves your living situation,
Speaker 2: it helps you redefine your relationship with your parents, whatever
Speaker 2: it may be. As always, if there is someone who
Speaker 2: you think needs to hear this episode, maybe not your parents,
Speaker 2: maybe your friend or someone like that, please feel free
Speaker 2: to share it with them. That is the main way
Speaker 2: that this show grows and reaches more people. Make sure
Speaker 2: you're following. You never know when a new episode might
Speaker 2: be one that you really need to hear, and it
Speaker 2: pops up on your feed and I don't know, it
Speaker 2: becomes part of your day, So hit the follow button
Speaker 2: if you're on Spotify and subscribe I think. If you're
Speaker 2: on Apple, I really need to brush up on my
Speaker 2: podcasting app knowledge. And if you have an episode suggestion,
Speaker 2: if you want to contribute more to this conversation, of
Speaker 2: course I would love to hear from you. You can
Speaker 2: reach out to us at that Psychology Podcast on Instagram
Speaker 2: and as always, we will be back next week. Stay
Speaker 2: safe and be kind to yourself until then.