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| A room with a view or a room of one's own, it's all the same to me... |
Yesterday at lunchtime I sat, by myself, in the heat of a Midwest afternoon, and contemplated selfishness, fiscal responsibility, and moving out of my parent’s house. Not necessarily in that order.
Yes, I am one of those recently graduated twenty somethings
still living in my parent’s basement. (Yes, I am actually in the basement.) I’m not complaining – I love my parents
and they’re very easy to get along with. In fact, I rather enjoy living at
home. I’m not contemplating this move because of anything anyone said or did,
or didn’t say or do. I’m doing it because I’m afraid I’m lazy, because I’m too
comfortable, and that if I don’t do it now, I won’t do it at all.
I’m a member of that generation that the phrase ‘emerging
adulthood’ was built for. We graduated with degrees in things we liked and
moved back home to cower underneath a
lot of student loan debt. Some of us had helicopter parents. Most of us grew up
with internet connections in our homes and technology to help us around every
corner. We’ve been called entitled, lazy, vain, and overeager for our quick fix
of self-esteem boosting. People write all kinds of articles about us telling
how we’ll be the downfall of civilization or just a new chapter in human
history or points in between. (You can read articles here
from Time, here
from the New York Times, and here
from USA Today).
It’s hard to be an ‘emerging adult’ and not take some of
this to heart. As someone who grew up listening to everyone talk about twenty
somethings and credit card debt and the housing crisis and student loans, I
feel like a pretty financially responsible person – I pay more than my student
loan lender asks me every month (part of my evil plan to pay back my loan
early) I have a pretty healthy trio of savings accounts that get regular
deposits, I don’t use my credit card except to buy plane tickets, my new job
allowed me to start a 401(k) that gets 3% of my paychecks, I almost can’t bring
myself to shop in regular retail stores after thrifting for so long, and I
always consider what the cheapest thing is at Starbucks before I take myself
out for coffee, which only happens once in a blue moon anyway, because from my
side of the tracks a Starbucks habit sounds like the first step on the road to
ruin.
And I don’t want to consider myself a mooch, either. In high
school, I had no part time job, no money, and no car. I ended up getting a lot
of help from a lot of people that I couldn’t necessarily pay back. Oh, you’re ordering in pizza and everyone
has to pay their share? Someone had better pick up Merc’s five dollars. When
I got to senior year, my parents not only bought me a car so I could get to my student
teaching gig but also started giving me what amounted to a stipend ($75 dollars
every two weeks to make sure you eat and keep gas in the car we bought you.)
As I quickly discovered, $150 dollars a month can go a long
way towards keeping a car in gas and paying for groceries for just one person if you play your cards right.
I learned to love my crockpot, and I made sure that every time I had something,
I shared it. Oh, we’re having a birthday party for someone on the floor? Let me
bake you cookies. Pizza on Friday night? In reparations for years of other people
paying for mine, let me pick up the bill. You just invited me out for frozen yogurt? I have a coupon, and in the interest of making things easy for the cashier, let me get this.
My grandmother, who is one of the most generous people I
know, explained to me once that the reason she is so open-handed with her
grandchildren is because she never got anything from her grandparents (who were
emotionally distant as well). She wanted to be the exact opposite for her
grandchildren, and she is, and that’s the kind of person I’ve striven to be, in
college and after. Generous, but not to the point of exceeding my income.
But now I’m back at home, and thrift and economy aside, I’m
starting to feel like a mooch again. I pay my share of the car insurance, fill
my own tank and pay for my own oil changes, I contribute to the communal
cupboard once in a while, I do the dishes and any other chores when I’m asked,
and I participate without complaining in the yardwork. And I know that whatever
evidence there is to the contrary, I’m still a burden on my parents.
Which is why I’d like to move out.
My younger brother, who next year is starting his sophomore
year at college, just signed a lease (with mom and dad’s help) on an apartment.
He commuted to school last year to save money, and now he’d like to live closer
to school and have a normal college student social life that doesn’t involve
two trains and a bus trip. I get that. But my brother is also significantly more
independently minded than me, and I’m worried, as the oldest and a bit of a
homebody, that my staying at home is setting a bad example. (It also doesn’t help that my other brother,
who is also younger than I am, asks every couple of months when I am getting my
master’s degree and when I am moving.)
I’ve been at home for two years since graduation. I have a
full time job now. Why shouldn’t I strike out on my own? Isn't that what Virginia Woolf alluded to when she said "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction"?
I put this suggestion to my parents, listed off several
apartments I’d seen on craigslist, talked about how I’d run the numbers and
thought I could make it work.
My mother shrugged and my father said no. “I want you to be
financially stable when you move out,” he said, citing something about owning
your own car and being able to put a downpayment on another when the old one
goes and being able to afford a house. He’d spoken with a co-worker of his who
owns shares in several apartment complexes as a side business. When this co-worker
was younger, his grandfather had given him the same advice about owning and not
renting, and he didn’t take it until several years later. Renting is a black
hole for money that doesn’t pay you back. But buying a two-flat living in one
half and renting out the other, that is the way to go.
Where do they even have
two flats? And when will I be able to afford one of those? And if I save
a little every month for the long-awaited for house, can’t I have my own front
door right now? Surely a little 600 square foot studio that I can bicycle to
work from isn’t too much to strive for. My grandparents also keep asking me why
they haven’t met a boyfriend yet. There’s not a whole lot that sounds more
derpy to a potential date than ‘Sorry, no, not my place, I live with my
parents.’
I rustled up a list of potential apartments anyway, sat down
at lunch to call them – and then felt incredibly guilty about it. Am I only doing this because all my friends have their own apartments and I'm embarassed to say, "Here, come over to my house. My parents might join us for dinner"? Was I being
selfish for wanting my own front door and forks and a rice cooker and a washer
and dryer and a place to bring my friends on Friday nights? I’d be buying more things just to furnish the place, and that’s a little materialistic. Am I only doing this because I want more stuff? The energy use of a
small apartment like that would be more than if I was living at home – lights
to keep on, dinner to cook. Just the other day, in light of six family members needing to be six different
places with only four cars, my dad had dropped me off at work and taken my car.
They couldn’t do that if I didn’t live with them and didn’t give them the
flexibility of that extra vehicle. Living in community means that you save on
things like energy use (if five people are all in one room they can use the
same lights) and cooking dinner and yes, driving to work every day.
And it would be lonely, being just me. Living in community means just that -- community.
So, friends, I am putting this question out for you. What are
your thoughts, your feelings, your experiences with moving out?
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