A. All upper class and some (most?) middle class people can afford to support their children indefinitely. Less wealthy individuals, the millions and millions of people who live paycheque to paycheque just to get by and whose retirement plan is to work until their last days, cannot.
For so many families, the only way they can afford to support their children even in their childhood is government aid, which gets cut off when the child reaches 18.
B. For immigrants, moving back to one's parents is a much more difficult process. You may have to move to another continent. You have to give up on trying to find a job or settle down in the US. Moving back to the US afterwards would not be exactly easy either, because being away from the US for extended periods of time may mean losing your green card.
No parent wants to support their adult child indefinitely. The whole point of raising a child is to raise them to be self sufficient as adults. There's quite a difference between a parent offering their child a place to stay while they get back on their feet and supporting them "indefinitely".
For children of immigrants, B is absolutely not a problem, in general (of course there are exceptions). In my experience there is far less stigma attached with living with your parents well into adulthood for children of immigrants than natives. It's even culturally common to remain with your parents until you're married. Of course first generation immigrants have it more difficult. That is part of the inherent risk of moving to a different country.
First generation immigrants were my point in B. Please note that this includes many of your university classmates and current colleagues. They may even come from well-off families who can support them, but they would have to move back to their country of origin and because of the way US immigration works, that would most probably be a one-way trip.
First gen immigrants have it more difficult. No doubt, but at the same time, they start businesses more often than their own children and multi-generation natives do in the US: https://www.forbes.com/sites/elainepofeldt/2013/06/26/first-... . But yes, many first gen immigrants are from relatively well off families in their respective countries. Chances are the immigration policies in the US are more favorable than whatever country they emigrated from. It's perfectly fine that we expect people who come here to work and support themselves otherwise our social programs would get burdened with taking care of anyone who could hop a flight.
Multigenerational living is pretty common in many parts of the world - many places children dont (or cant) move out of their parents house until they are married, and later in life their parents move in with them. There's a difference between supporting a child or parent with a roof and a meal and supporting a child with a NYC apartment and a trust fund.
It is of course a spectrum between no support and supporting a lavish lifestyle. Some parents may be able to let their child sleep on their couch, but cannot afford to rent a bigger home with an extra bedroom. Some parents may be able to afford the groceries, but (after the age of 21) not the health insurance for their child. Some parents may be able to support their child, but with significant financial difficulties that would put a strain on family finances, make their retirement plans nonviable, or pushes back their retirement date significantly; so the child would not dare take financial risks because while they would not go homeless, they will be putting an unreasonable burden on their parents, ...
So yes, if the family is reasonably well-off (owns their home, has savings and good income, have a margin of safety in their finances) you can depend on them as your safety net. If they are not, you cannot or cannot in good conscience.
What’s your estimate of the percent of the population that could move in with their parents? And then additionally what’s your estimate of the percent of the population that can program that this is true for?
40% of young adults in the USA do live with family, and it’s a good bet that a large fraction of the rest could. It’s certainly not universal by any means, but it’s also far from some great rarity.
I’ll grant that the original comment talked of having “his own bathroom” and that is reasonably rare, but it’s the least important part of the package compared to a room and shared meals.
A room and a meal indefinitely with absolutely no pressure to leave or contribute? With the freedom to find the next job or opportunity that fits, not just desperately throw out their resume and accept the first offer? Not so much.
I think the comment they're responding to and others are grasping at straws and trying to find excuses.
Like I said in another comment even in the poorer European countries it's possible to move back with one's parents. And in fact people do live with their parents into their twenties.
The parent said "very few people have that kind of soft landing."
The fact is, having parents with a place you can crash at is perfectly normal. If your parents weren't complete degenerates or very unlucky, they have a couch you can sleep on. Anybody who's startup founder material can at that point find themselves a job.
<shrug> I have a supportive, middle class family and if I went broke I'd be sleeping on an air mattress in front of the TV and trying to figure out how soon I could start contributing to the monthly expenses. It enough to keep me from wanting to take any large risks.
I also didn't mention location, but my relative's parents are withing spitting distance of the valley. Someone who has to move from Mountain View to Omaha is going to find it really hard to get back into the thick of things.
The most underrated type of privilege is location privilege. If you grow up far away from a major city, you have to invest heavily to break-in. One false move and everything you worked to establish gets wiped away.
People growing up in Omaha are at a severe disadvantage vs people who grow up in Mountainview.
And if your parents are in Mountain View or nearby, you can stay with them a few extra years after you get your first job to save money for a downpayment on your own house.
A person without that option may spend a decade paying rent and trying desperately to save up enough for a down payment.
I distinctly remember moving to Silicon Valley as a developer from out of country. Realizing that the standard of living bump due to my 2x Salary, was actually a standard of living drop.
Then looking around at the company, seeing the IT support guy with the brand new Porsche. Wondering if he 'struck it rich' with a previous .com and finding out it's just because he lives at home still.
People growing up in Alliance, Nebraska, are at a severe disadvantage vs Omaha. Almost everyone in Nebraska lives within 50 miles of Omaha (1.3M of 1.9M people).
I moved around a lot as a child, and in my admittedly anecdotal experience... this is not the case for most people in urban / suburban areas.
In most places in the United States, extra space is a premium that requires consistent stable work at or above the median household income in a single field of work over extended periods of time.
From this alone we can rule out those who work minimum wage jobs, most of those who do not have an established field other than "Service Industry" and many of those who specialize in an "unskilled" trade, e.g. forklift operators.
Those who do manage to purchase a home with the requisite space often don't live in posh neighbourhoods with comfortable amenities, and generally are not swimming in excess income.
Additionally modern society, with its' inundation of appealing marketing campaigns and easy credit, has rendered even your "middle class" families cash-poor, stretching their budgets thinner and thinner with each additional monthly payment.
When you culminate all of these things together with a fundamental breakdown in nuclear families and rising divorce rates, "going home after a rough patch" is not an outcome most are able to, much less willing to, consider.
Within your (and my) peer group it is, sure. But even you surely know a bunch of folks who don't have an easy fallback like that. For anyone from a poorer background, and especially those who have to move (or, yikes, immigrate) somewhere else to found a startup, it's very much not.
It's the privilege argument that I'm sure you're sick of arguing about. The world is set up well for perfectly ordinary middle class educated kids with working (or wealthy) parents. That's not everyone.
If the family you'd fall back on lives in Section 8 housing and you don't meet several criteria and become an approved occupant, you can't go back to live with them. If you stay with them, they will lose their housing. This applies to about 1.2 million Americans. The VA and HUD also have rental assistance programs, each of which also has rules about who can live in the rental. Altogether, programs like this serve about 5.2 million Americans. Given that we're predominantly talking about adult children, a larger group is touched by these rules.
For so many families, the only way they can afford to support their children even in their childhood is government aid, which gets cut off when the child reaches 18.
B. For immigrants, moving back to one's parents is a much more difficult process. You may have to move to another continent. You have to give up on trying to find a job or settle down in the US. Moving back to the US afterwards would not be exactly easy either, because being away from the US for extended periods of time may mean losing your green card.