While attending college, my adult daughter is living at home. My wife and I get to spend more time with her, and she saves money on rent.
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My daughter is 20 years old, and before my wife and I get a chance to speak with her each morning, she's gone, out the door, on her way to the rest of her life. We wave goodbye as the door shutting still rings in our ears.
This is not an exaggeration. It is our everyday existence. My daughter still lives with us in our basement in Chicago while she is going to school. We mostly see her in passing as she surfaces briefly to grab the car keys and whoosh out the back to go to class, see her friends, or rehearse for a theater gig.
Basically, she's doing all the things a young adult in a big city does, and she's not necessarily focused on her parents even when we shout, "So long!" as she scampers off.
In popular culture and public discussions, the typical, proper thing for young adults to do is to leave home and go off to college. Living in your parent's basement is treated as a joke — a sign that you've failed to launch and are doomed to a sexless, friendless existence of dependency and stale pizza. My own parents insisted I could go to college anywhere except northeastern Pennsylvania, where I grew up. "We want you out of the house!" they said.
The truth, though, is that it's fairly common for young adults to live at home; more than half of people 18 to 24 live with their parents, according to 2023 census data. And this number has risen sharply in the last 20 years, likely in part because of rising housing and college costs.
The incentives here are fairly obvious and ones with which we are very familiar. My daughter saves on rent since she's living with us (no, we don't charge her for her accommodations). We're also saving a lot of money because she's going to a state school nearby rather than a private college farther off. That means lower tuition, not much in the way of travel expenses, and (god willing) no college debt.
There are other upsides as well. My daughter already had contacts in the Chicago theater world, so it made sense for her to stay here to pursue her career. And for us…well, we like our daughter. She is funny and smart. She is cute when she snuggles the cat. She affirms me in my enthusiasm for the new Charli XCX album and death metal (and rolls her eyes when I try to play country or blues).
It's nice to see my daughter regularly, even if "regularly" for us means brief glimpses as she heads out to do her thing. She does have dinner with us a few nights a week, at which point we find out what she's auditioning for and what she's reading ("The Winter's Tale," last we checked — she's a big Shakespeare nerd). Sometimes, she even decides to hang out with us briefly if all her friends are busy and we make a decent offer (like, say, paying for a theater ticket).
Of course, not everything is roses and theater. When our daughter was in Europe for a week, spending the money she'd saved on rent, we were reminded how nice it is to be able to use the car whenever we want without having to worry about whether our daughter has taken it to a party, a show, or just out for a drive.
We also enjoyed briefly knowing that the food we put in the refrigerator would still be there the next time we checked, as 20-year-olds go through snack food like a devouring fire. Also, last week she knocked over a milkshake and then didn't sufficiently clean it up; the floor was slippery, and I fell on my butt, which hurt.
These are minor complaints, though. It's true that when your adult daughter is living at home, there's plenty of opportunity for friction and misery, if you long for it. We don't — and we mostly avoid it by treating said 20-year-old daughter like an adult. Yes, even when she spills a milkshake.
Sure, my wife and I nag her sometimes about cleaning up this or that or remembering appointments — but we nag each other about cleaning up this or that and remembering appointments, too. We don't police her comings and goings, demand she ask for permission before having friends over, check on her grades, or check on when she goes to bed or wakes up.
She's a grown-up; she's living her own life. That life just happens to be happening near us, and we'll be grateful while that lasts. She's our daughter. We like having her around.
