Introduction
A single Google Search of “Living at Home” will reveal the cultural stigma behind this lifestyle.
Often for men, “living at home” is synonymous with “lazy, loser, bum”.
Certainly, for most men, that may be the case–IF they choose to label living at home as the same experience as if they were a child.
But in this post, I will outline the wholistic pros and cons of living at home, and I will demonstrate how relabeling certain aspects will actually show why living at home is more practical.
Relabeling yourself
It’s important to first rebrand yourself as an independent person who happens to live with their parents.
Realize how blessed you are to have such great roommates. You’re not a loser so long as:
- You’re contributing to rent
- You have a job
- You’re actively working on goals that will contribute to your independence (e.g. saving money for a home, growing in a career, etc)
- You’re going out to socialize (making friends, or networking with professionals)
In other words, your living situation does not determine my loser status–it’s your habits and actions that do.
The Pros
1. Paying Rent: To a Stranger, or to Family?
I realized this when working at one of my companies, which had a huge minority presence.
In most of my talks with these (legal) immigrants, they mention how they always send money back home to help out their family.
Why don’t we do the same here in the US?
Sure, our parents in the US aren’t living in poverty, but I’d argue that putting that money to practical family needs helps reduce future burdens.
2. Saving Money
Despite having to pay rent, the rate may be lower than the market value; in such cases, this leave us with a margin which which we may save and reinvest for something much bigger.
House prices are rising, and while earning more money can help, reducing living costs is also part of the same question towards home buying.
Granted, this takes discipline on the part of the person living at home to choose to relabel saving as building up towards an independent home, rather than spending money on silly toys and gadgets.
However, if done so, the ease at which one may purchase a home will be much greater.
3. Reducing Depression
I can actually personally speak on this one.
When you graduate university and head straight from a big family to living alone, and then, suddenly, having to learn how to deal with the responsibilities of (1) living alone (2) work responsibilities (3) adult stress.
Then what? Young adults act stupid by pretending to be something they’re not just so they can make shallow friends who can help with their loneliness–or their loneliness may compel them to act irrationally, by participating in casual dating and debaucherous vices to “hide the pain”.
All of these can be avoided if we had a secure, loving home where we feel save and in the company of loved ones.
4. Generational Wealth through Generational Knowledge
If baffles me how young men will seek the advice of strangers, rather than simply checking in with the experiences of their family.
Again, this requires relabeling: instead of viewing your parents as “out of touch” with the modern world, view them as “wisdom teachers” who have at least mastered the basics of human experience–the house they’re in, the family they raised, the chaos they’ve endured–it’s all very useful and the underlying lessons can be transferred to whatever chaos you are dealing with.
The generational knowledge you get might not even be knowledge in the sense of memory and information, but rather unconscious behaviors and habits that you adopt as a consequence of observing how the family works.
Quite often, these “a-ha” moments we gain from our elders, siblings, or parents are accidental rather than intentional–you might be washing dishes in the kitchen when your grandfather walks in and normally starts telling one of his stories, as usual. Only this time, you notice something seemingly small and insignificant in the way he speaks, until suddenly you come across a profound realization–that “it all makes sense” realization you get when you finally connect all the dots from the prior interactions to understand a deeper meaning and wisdom, all coming to light from a seemingly ordinary action that sparked a catalyst to your attempt to connect the dots.
5. Stronger Family Bonds
You family will die one day, and that’s a guarantee.
When you look back, will you be happy to have spent quality time with them? Understanding that 80% of our interactions are the “ordinary” and “mundane”, we can choose to, again, relabel “ordinary” and “mundane” as opportunities to learn more about who our parents were.
I think we often overlook quality time as some big and massive adventure–and while those are fun to have, they don’t take up nearly as much volume as the day-to-day interactions we have that build connection, trust, and authenticity.
What do I practically mean by this? I’ll give a few of my personal examples
- When I pick up my younger brothers from school, I have a 10 minute, every day slot where I get to ask them what kids these days are doing
- When my father comes home from work to relax and unwind, everyday, for 10m minutes, that’s my window to ask him about the exciting work he has done, or perhaps a funny story that happened at work
- When my mother reaches out, stressed, and asking if I can help with an errand, that’s my opportunity to practice being light-hearted and joking, while also see what my mother practically needs so that I can develop solutions to help ease her burden (e.g. setting up automatic payments, reminding her of her appointments, teaching the kids how to bike so she does not have to use up time to drive them to school, etc.)
The point is, life really isn’t the same without these small, compounding, 10 minute increments that we have for others.
- Increase Risk Tolerance
When you have the emotional safety net of your parents, you’re more confident to try out ideas, knowing that you’ll have at least one family there to help consult and provide advice.
The Cons
1. I actually encourage EVERYONE to live alone for some time
I know, I know–I’m a hypocrite! But hear me out.
This process of relabeling is only possible if we have perspective–how can we relabel something if we don’t have other labels to draw from?
That’s where living alone comes into play.
I highly recommend young adults to live alone, preferably in a different state, to actually understand and experience the extent to which family matters. It doesn’t have to be long, but at least 6 months (if living far away from home town). 1 year would be ideal.
Not only is living alone beneficial for understanding the value of family- but it is also essential towards the development of your self identity and confidence. As Rollo May described in his book, “Man’s search for Himself”, the “hollow man” is an empty man who plays into conformity due to his compromised and underdeveloped inner strength and identity in know who he is and what his values are.
Likewise, you cannot really know yourself so long as you continue to play the “identity” bestowed upon your family.
Some people don’t have safe Families
I consider myself blessed to be part of a big family, where each person is successful on their own path. We are also quite tolerant of everyone because it’s a mixed household consisting of half-siblings.
However, some people don’t have that, and they may actually want to escape a toxic family.
Opportunities from Afar
There’s also the aspect of opportunities for work.
Those that live in a small town may benefit tremendously by moving to a location where jobs are plentiful.
There’s also the impact of how our environment shapes us, and moving early on to a place that will help your career grow will pay dividends later on.
Now that it’s 2023, remote working is a bit more socially acceptable; even then, you may find forming connections to be easier when moving to a bigger city.
Slobs who don’t relabel
A lot of these benefits of living at home come from choosing to relabel.
However, if you continue to label yourself as a “man child”, or you don’t label paying rent at “helping the family”, or even saving money as a mean to buy a house in the future, then all of this is quite futile, and does lead to the “man child” who’s dependant on other for help.
My personal experience with becoming a slob
From my own practical experience, I’ve been in the position where I worked remotely “from my mother’s basement” (it was more of a spare room, but you get the point), and have faced times of entitlement, laziness, and lack of drive or ambition.
This is coming from someone who is naturally driven, competitive, and hard working.
For a while, I was extremely tempted to get my own apartment, but I knew deep down that was not my best move on the chess board because (1) I want to minimize my expenses (2) I want to be spontaneous enough to move when I want, without having to worry about a lease. And ultimately (3) I want to spend time with my family
So what solution did I find? Use my home for sleeping only.
Let me explain. When I wake up, rather than spending the whole day in one room, and acting lazy, I get up and start my day working at the library or book store. I’ve written a post about the benefits of working remotely from different places, check it out if you currently work remotely and looking for a change of scenery.
Especially if you’re working remotely, use this as an intangible asset that permits you to work from anywhere. And if you combine this with the fact that you have a home base from which you may return, it’s the best advantage you have.
Now I exaggerate when I write “sleep only”. Of course, if I want to change settings, I can alway work from home, or spend the evening after working to catch up with my family.
But the main point holds true: spend as much time as possible outside of home, and cherish the time you are at home.
Conclusion
Whatever option you choose, to live alone or to live with family, understand that it’s your choice, so you might as well choose to be happy.