Hands up if this is you: your mum tells you to make your bed, your dad knows the time you got into it and your siblings regularly raid your wardrobe in search of your most treasured possessions and 'bestest things'.
Maybe you’ve spent most of your 20s studying, working, trying to build a career and save enough money to get the fuck out of your family home, but despite squirrelling away the pennies - which in 2016 are at the closest they've ever come to being actual peanuts - you’re approaching 30 way faster than you’re making progress with your savings. As a result you’re feeling particularly shit about your lack of independence.
Sound familiar? Then you may well be part of the record breaking 3.3million 20-34-year-olds still living at home in the UK; a growing number of individuals who know all too well what it’s like to simultaneously hate their circumstances and feel super grateful for them – because, as everyone else is at great pains to tell you, you’re very lucky to have a home to have or go back to at all.
What jars in well-meaning chats is when people talk about how it's ‘easier,’ ‘responsibility free’ and basically ‘the best thing ever’ to not have moved out, is the assumption that life at home with parents is less stressful than life with full financial responsibilities and the associated freedoms that brings. Telling graduates who are leaving uni with debts accruing as much as £50,000 in interest alone that they 'don’t know how lucky they are' to not have to pay a mortgage really just rubs salt in the wound. We're forced to live at home because the traditional ‘graduate, get job, make money, buy house’ life plan that isn’t working out well for everyone. It wasn't supposed to be like this. We want to be independent, in our own homes not back at home with our parents. This is not a good thing, it's a serious socio-economic and political problem.
And then there’s another side of the story that isn’t always considered – the fact that some parents aren’t as understanding or easy to live with, and actually make really shitty housemates too and, more than this, that some people don't actually have homes to go back to.
As a 29-year-old freelancer living at home, I admit I clash with my parents over plenty of things, including my mum’s insistence on sneaking pork into my meals (I don’t eat the stuff but she’s convinced that ‘I’m just being silly’), or her habit of using my boyfriend as an instant delivery service (since she doesn’t drive). So far, so normal, right? But what about when the traditional parent-child boundaries disappear completely, and you find yourself trapped in what is basically a nightmare houseshare – with no way out.
For Emma, who managed to move out last year, aged 27, there was a variety reasons her dad was difficult to live with – not necessarily all to do with food but somehow partially to do with porking. A standout is the time he woke her up by having a noisy threesome in the room next door: ‘imagine your parents have recently split up and your dad’s finding himself again as a sexual being; you’re living at home, you’re in the midst of that chapter of his life, being woken up to the sex cries of two female, Welsh bikers he’d met at a track day… Eventually I had to knock on the door and tell them to keep it down. In the morning, he found it all hilarious and boasted about it to my boyfriend. It was awkward.’
Can’t imagine having to ‘share’ your parents’ sexual encounters? Well what about having a parent housemate who pries into your personal finances? Matt, 27 explains how until he moved in with his fiancée last year, he would have to justify his purchases, despite paying his parents rent. ‘It could kind of feel like they were in charge of my finances. They’d ask how much I’d saved each month and my dad would try to get me to write down my outgoings every month too, which was annoying. If I bought something, I’d keep it as quiet as I could, else they’d ask me ‘can you afford it?’ I’d have to justify every thing I bought.’ In Nicola’s case, it was returning home to open bank statements – a pretty major violation of her privacy. ‘I remember coming home from a couple of months working abroad, and finding my bank letters open. My dad had opened them and claimed he’d thought they were his – like he’d misread “Miss Nicola…” for “Mr…” I didn’t believe him as he was always asking me how much money I had but I couldn’t say anything because he was already angry and defensive that I’d even [questioned] it.’
On the subject of money and obeying orders, doing stuff for your parents in exchange for little or no rent is, for the most part, a small price to pay (as I type this, my mum’s appraisal for work is in front of me – she needs it to be written up before her meeting tomorrow and, it turns out, because I live at home that’s my job).
When you’re working full time and trying to live a semblance of normal adult life, tensions over house rules can become near impossible to deal with. For Emma this was a sore spot as well, she says ‘living at home with my parents was difficult because generally they feel like in any situation, because it’s their house, any objections you have can be overruled. I paid rent from about the age of 19 […] and I’d contribute my own food. It also felt as though since they’ve fed you your whole life, they are entitled to help themselves to what you’ve bought. Like if they want to eat your food, they will – even if you’ve got name tags on the shelf, you’ll still find your food goes missing. You don’t have any tennant’s rights when you live with your parents. There’d be threats to “get out” constantly, during any disagreements.’
Particularly difficult situations can also mean that the 'Get Out Of My House' card is pulled, a card that only a parent can legitimately pull because, after all, it is their house. Unlike dealing with an errant housemate in a flatshare, this makes dealing with tricky situations even harder. ‘I’d do the housework every other day,’ explains Nicola, ‘and not that I needed a ‘thank you’, but those things would go unnoticed, then become important points used against me in arguments. Say if my dad came home in a bad mood, the first thing he’d say is “you done the hovering?” If it happened to be one of the 3 days a week I didn’t do the hovering he’d flip at me, telling me to "get out".'
As Emma explained, ‘you become like the emotional punching bag, somebody that has to listen to all of their stresses. I think in general, in this day in age, people are more unhappy in their environments - your parents as people, too. Because now people are working longer, they have their own stresses and pressures.'
In cases like Nicola’s, where her rent became an income stream for her father, things can get even murkier and relationships become even more strained. ‘I was paying about £500, which was quite high in my area (Essex) compared to my friends who were living at home and saving money. But my dad would still come to me, asking to borrow funds. He was gambling; he’d just say “can I talk to you about something” and I knew straight away it was about money. When he upped my rent to £600, I couldn’t afford it - my wages going on rent, food shopping, my phone bill, and travel, so there was nothing left to save. My brother was also at home, paying the same rent at the time, but he moved out before I did because he was being pressured for more money too.’
Nicola’s living arrangement ended when a row over rent became heated and turned violent. She opted to rent outside of the family home. But, despite her story being difficult to read at times, having a family home to go to at all still – perversely – makes her one of the lucky ones.
For Natasha, homelessness was something she had to face when her parents suddenly split and the family home was repossessed. ‘My dad basically left my mum with loads of debt. She had to find a place to live but could only afford a place for herself and my younger sister. I had nowhere to go. Eventually I got a place through the council – a housing association apartment, but for a while I was sleeping on people’s sofas... It was horrible. Those who are living at home with parents or have them to go back to in a crisis are incredibly lucky', she says.
So...your mum likes your bed made and your dad knows what time last night you got into it? And what?!? Until better solutions are reached to provide more affordable houses for first time buyers (the best the Government have got right now is telling grandparents to give their grandchildren money and houses which, obviously, isn't an available option for many people) or the cost of renting is lowered, living with your parents might not be ideal, but it’s an option you’re priviledged to have. As much as my mum’s mood swings and questionable cooking might drive me mad, I’ve come to realise that there are far worse flatmates out there and worse situations to endure. Sure, living at home can be its own special kind of torture at times but, TBH, I’m feeling pretty lucky for the opportunity.
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Follow Cindy on Twitter @riledbystyle
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.