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Comment by apparent | Hacker News Reader

I agree with some of the commenters who note that the author tries hard to portray this as "financial savvy" but without a whole lot of evidence.

Have any of these adult children successfully moved out after saving up money while living with their parents?

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> > Have any of these adult children successfully moved out after saving up money while living with their parents?

Most people in my circle who bought a home in California before the age of 30 did exactly this.

Weird that the journo wasn't able to find anyone for the article who fits the narrative better. Instead, it just comes across as failure to launch.

Yes, I absolutely know some. At the same time, many weren’t out of financial necessity but maybe financial convenience. I know a few who had a remote job or worked in their hometown even though they had savings and weren’t spending a lot.

They then would move out to a bigger more expensive city and feel more financially comfortable than they would have. This was in first generation immigrant families, which as the article notes, is where this practice is more common.

You assume the goal is to move out, but it might not be. Extended families have lived together in many parts of the world throughout history. Expectations of living alone are relatively new.

That's true, but there were also no stories of adult children getting married and living with their spouse/children with their elderly parents. There weren't even any mentions of adult children (or their parents) who sought such an arrangement.

> there were also no stories of adult children getting married and living with their spouse/children with their elderly parents

That used to be common arrangement.

Like, fun fact, Rosa Parks has such arrangement. On darker side, John Brown sons with families lived with him, were totally ruled by him.

Interesting anecdotes, but what does this have to do with the fact that the journo apparently couldn't find a single person/family who was seeking this sort of setup, or who let alone taking it to the next level? They were all just single people living at home, with no spouse or kids.

We also didn't have today's medicine throughout history, nor today's food security. "Return to monke" is not an argument.

We should aspire to increase our quality of life, but keep perspective on what are new problems and crises, what are old problems and may still be unsolved. Cheap and abundant housing supply for everyone to live alone is and old problem and unsolved.

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife

Yes. Or they stayed put. I had a friend who lived at home and drove a Jaguar. He helped his mom occasionally, but it was a financially great deal that allowed him to live large.

Driving a Jaaaaag but not being able to bring women/men home seems like a special kind of hell.

> Have any of these adult children successfully moved out after saving up money while living with their parents?

Even if they do, it still means they failed to save up that money without having to live with their parents.

This is just the WSJ-reading "haves" justifying the increasing stratification of society by reframing a clear regression[0] as a "responsible individual choice" which that crowd LOVES.

(EDIT: it's also cope for the parents of those kids for the not-quite-THAT-elite WSJ reader crowd who doesn't want to believe either their kids are failing or their economy is faltering.)

[0] Even if you see the everyone-moves-out vs multigenerational-housing trend as a negative overall, the broadening loss of the ability to make that choice is a clear symptom of overall economic weakening.

> Even if they do, it still means they failed to save up that money without having to live with their parents.

So? This practice of moving out for no particular reason is very US-centric.

To me the "normal" obverved in most peer households of my youth is that people live with their parents until they get married, often late 20s.

You are correct.

The US is coming to resemble economically stagnant Europe more and more.

No particular reason? Says who?

> So? This practice of moving out for no particular reason is very US-centric.

No particular reason? It happens when these people go off to college, for the most part. Moving back in is seen as a regression, for understandable reasons.

If someone is going to a university far away, that would be a good reason to move.

No particular reason means when there is no particular reason, such as when going to university in the same city.

It's often much better to live at home and save $1K+ (sometimes quite a bit +) in rent every month in your 20s. That can build a lot of savings for a mortgage downpayment later.

> This is just the WSJ-reading "haves" justifying

The WSJ has had a string of such apologetics lately. I know because family members keep sending them to me.

Another example:

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/european-soccer-fans-marvel-at-t...

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