| |
Parents of adult children, it’s time we took a stand. You know the problem. We raise the kids. We do the time. We spend the money. They grow up. Then what happens? Nothing. They don’t leave home. According to the Census Bureau, today in the USA, 18.6 million 18 to 34 year olds live at home with their parents!!!!!
Now here is the problem. Once they reach 21, they can legally drink, vote, marry, divorce, go to jail and get a tattoo, but often seem unable to make a bed, cook a meal, wash a t-shirt or, in some cases, remember to brush their own teeth. Some parents don’t have to live with the unmade beds, the sweat soaked recycled clothes and the bed-head hair because their children pack their bags and move their in-house dishevelment off to college.
But many parents today find themselves living with adult children, who show no sign of leaving the nest at 23 or 25 or even 30, no sign at all. Of course, adult children don’t leave home for one simple reason. It’s all to do with BONDING. They have bonded with the family fridge, CD player, TV, phone, computer, second car, pantry, beer supply and much, much more. And if they left home they would really miss that fridge.
Moreover, some parents even tolerate their adult child bringing a friend home for sleepovers. This friend is currently in a long-term relationship with the at home adult offspring. But engagements can last 22 years these days. Parents are worn down waiting for the wedding. With sex and room service on tap, these young adults will never leave home. It’s time we parents took a stand. But how can we nudge our adult kids out of the nest?
It’s easy. We have to become hard to live with. And if you want any clues on how to become difficult to live with, look at them. These adult children are past masters of Making-Life-Hell-For-Everyone-Else-in-the-House. After 21 years of putting up with them - their teenage years, their childhood, their toddler years and their babyhood - we parents should be able to pick up a few pointers from each stage.
I suggest you start with the teenage years. First get a weird haircut. Forget the comb-over. Try a green Mohawk. That would really terrify the adult offspring. Play loud music. Yours. I suggest Frank Sinatra. Or better still The Chipmunks do Christmas. Don’t talk. Grunt. Don’t change your clothes for weeks. Scratch and belch. Or, get some Britney jeans and flash some middle-aged bottom cleavage.
Ask them for a loan every other week saying ‘I’ll pay you back. I promise.’ And leave some less-than-fresh oversized undies by the front door and they’ll be too terrified to enter the house. Start wearing really obnoxious t-shirts. I suggest one with the slogan ‘Geriatrics Want more Sex’ or – this should worry them – ‘Retirement Home Reject’. Cover all the walls with geriatric pinups. Ronald Reagan. Maggie Thatcher. Tom Jones. If all else fails yell ‘You don’t understand me’ and run to your room sobbing.
If obnoxious adolescent behaviour doesn’t work, it is time to move on to the childhood years. Start collecting useless things. They collected basketball cards and little Happy Meal figurines. You could collect false teeth and put them on display. And start fighting with your partner for the exclusive right to the remote control. Make it serious. Try and look as if you are going to disembowel each other on a daily basis.
Take up an instrument. You have suffered through years of kids learning the saxophone or the violin. I suggest you get yourself a drum kit and become a home-based, shirt-off drummer. Bounce a basketball up and down the hall for hours. Knock on their door and moan ‘I’m bored’ every 20 minutes. And when they are out partying ring them up on their mobile and say ‘you’ve got to come home. I feel sick’.
If that doesn’t work, move on to the toddler years. Play with your food, dribble, take off your clothes and run around the house naked. And finally, as a last resort, move on to the babyhood years. At night, simply wake them up every five minutes, crying.
That should do it. You know we parents have put up with behaviour like this for 21 years. That’s enough. And if you started to behave like this, I doubt if your adult children would last 3 minutes. They’d be packing their bags and out the door before you could say ‘Geriatrics rule, OK!’
|
|
|
|
