Will Your Children Ever Leave the House?

How many of you have children that are 20, that are still at home?

What about age 30, or even 40?

When is the right time for someone to leave home? It used to be, at one time when I was growing up, that you left home as soon as possible. Kids were ready to leave home at the age of 16, because they just could not stand being with their parents, and they desperately needed to leave the nest, like yesterday.

Things have changed since 2007; kids move out of the nest, and then they come back home. I have to admit the thought has crossed my mind a few times. Then I envisioned a life of having money, but not having enough money to do what I want, back in Ohio, and then I thought about what it truly is like to be back home, and I decided to stay here.

Plus I don't think my mother really wanted me to be back in Akron.

I have even heard that leaving the nest is a Western phenomenon; that in various cultures, people stay at home, and never leave the nest.

Should we reevaluate our Judeo-Christian values? Perhaps our need to leave the nest (and our parents desire for us to get out of their house) has more to do with space, physically, physiologically, emotionally, even spiritually.

You want a man to take care of his family, you just do not want that man to take care of his family in your own house.

If he is taking care of his family under your house, chances are you are helping him to take care of that family, and you do not want that responsibility; no one wants the blood on their hands, because that blood should be on the hands of someone else, in an ideal world.

When children finally do leave, we miss them, and want them back. So you want your child to stay with you a month, or the entire summer, or the Holiday season, but you do not want them there 24/7/365.

Is it the responsibility of a parent to provide room and shelter to their kids, regardless of age. Have parents failed in their responsibilities to prepare their children for life as an adult if they are still shelling out money, even if that child is approaching middle age his or herself? Do we have boundaries, or are we simply adapting to a new financial era that has been the norm in other civilizations for years?