SEASON 1: EPISODE 20
Episode Feedback
The emotions, dynamics and benefits of living with your parents again.
IN THIS EPISODE
Once you’ve left the nest and tasted independence, you don’t want to look back, just keep flying forward. That’s why moving back home with parents is not an easy decision for many young adults taking that leap, some even with their own families in tow.
Life happens, and when the door is open with love and support, moving back home isn’t the worst thing you could do. It’s not moving backward; it’s simply a stop on the way to getting to where you want to be.
There are advantages to living with parents as an adult — namely saving money — but, of course, there are also challenges.
In this episode, we talk to Paige Mariah, a successful, vibrant, thirtysomething who returned to the U.S. from England and moved back in with her parents. She’s got firsthand tips on how to make the most of your time at home. We also have Francesca Canzoneri from The Therapy Institute who helps get you in the right mindset when it comes to boundaries.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
[3:14] – Paige Mariah breaks down what’s it like to live at home in your 30s.
[5:59] – How to manage negative emotions when moving back home.
[8:08] – How to avoid falling back into a younger child-parent relationship.
[12:07] – The benefits of moving back home.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:01]
Amanda Greene: When I left home, it was to go to college. I was just ready to be independent. But then finding apartments, paying rent, buying household essentials, it was hard. But knowing my mom was there if I really needed her was huge. The safety net of knowing I could move back home if I had to was really comforting at the time. Life is expensive and the job market can be tough. Moving back home crossed my mind many times. I didn’t ever end up doing it, but lots of people are finding they have to or even want to. Welcome to Merging Into Life where we navigate life’s milestones one episode at a time. Brought to you by AAA Northeast. I’m your host, Amanda Greene. Today we’re going to talk about moving back in with your parents, the homey perks, the discomforts of home, and everything in between, and why that experience is a little more common than you might think. Take Paige Mariah, for example.
[00:01:02]
Paige Mariah: We’re going to be talking about me moving back home with my parents.
[00:01:05]
Amanda Greene: She was living her best life abroad in London, but after five years she decided to move back home with her parents in the U. S at 31. And trust me, as she says, it wasn’t as simple as just moving back in.
[00:01:19]
Paige Mariah: Man, life has changed a lot over the last year.
[00:01:22]
Amanda Greene: Paige had gone to London to pursue a master’s degree, and the city stole her heart. After she finished school, she stayed.
[00:01:30]
Paige Mariah: So I was able to get an entrepreneurial visa and that allowed me to stay a lot longer than planned. I was a full-time digital content creator. So I was vlogging my experiences abroad. I was the American in London on YouTube, and it was fun for a really long time, and I was able to visit 40 countries while I was out there.
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[00:01:51]
Amanda Greene: Sounds like a dream, right? Traveling, living abroad, building a career, but eventually the call of home grew stronger.
[00:01:59]
Paige Mariah: Honestly, I am very, very close to my parents and my younger brother, and my family’s in the U. S and my parents are getting older. I just felt like it was time to return back.
[00:02:11]
Amanda Greene: Leaving London wasn’t an easy decision, especially since her next stop was moving back in with her parents. It was an emotional roller coaster.
[00:02:20]
Paige Mariah: Oh my goodness, I had such a range of emotions. I cried so much that last year that I was there. Not a lot of people that I knew around me were doing that at 31. So yeah, I had a lot of weird feelings around it. I didn’t really know how much I wanted to talk about it online. But then I also decided that this is a super relatable subject that people don’t talk about enough and maybe it won’t be so taboo if I do speak about it.
[00:02:50]
Amanda Greene: Yeah, the idea of taboo really hits home.
[00:02:53]
Paige Mariah: Yes.
[00:02:54]
Amanda Greene: I think so many people struggle with the idea of moving back in with parents in adulthood. It can feel like a step backwards. But when you really stop to think about it, isn’t it a reflection of the realities of adulthood? I love how Paige acknowledges that. Now Paige is home. So what’s it really like to live with your parents when you’re in your thirties?
[00:03:15]
Paige Mariah: Oh my gosh, they were overjoyed. They were so excited for me to come back. No, it’s so funny. My dad was so upset at me whenever I would even bring up moving out when I was there. He was like, “No, you should just stay a few years. There’s no need to rush.” They really have enjoyed me being in the house with them again. I hadn’t been that close to them in years. I would see them once or twice a year, so they were really, really excited to just have us all be together in one house again. So at the end of the day, this is my parents’ house. They have a certain way of doing things. They have a certain way of how they like things to be done. My mom doesn’t like anything to be left on her kitchen counter. If I do that, it’s like she’s fussing at me and I’m like, “Ugh.” I would say it was a bit challenging, especially moving in in my thirties because I feel like after I hit my 30th birthday, I just had this shift in me where I just really was craving my own space. I think I just had to keep reminding myself I had a goal and this time I knew that this is going to give me the opportunity to save, save, save and I’m going to set myself up to live alone and accomplish that dream that I’ve had for a while to just wake up to complete silence.
[00:04:35]
Amanda Greene: Moving back in with her parents, Paige had a clear goal, find a new job, then save up to find a place of her own. Her determination to do what needed to be done is admirable, and for many people, relatable.
[00:04:48]
Francesca Canzoneri: During the Great Depression, 48% of adults moved back in with their parents, so it’s about the same as it was then.
[00:04:55]
Amanda Greene: This is Francesca Canzoneri, a licensed associate counselor who specializes in family dynamics. Francesca is here to help us understand how to best navigate our feelings when moving back home. She says there are a lot of reasons we have to do this, but the most common…
[00:05:10]
Francesca Canzoneri: I’d say financial is probably the biggest reason.
[00:05:13]
Amanda Greene: I can see how deciding to go back home as an adult could come with a range of emotions. What are you seeing?
[00:05:21]
Francesca Canzoneri: Yeah. The emotions can be extremely mixed because obviously if we’re moving back home with our parents, we are a little bit comfortable there, especially if that’s the house that we grew up in. So part of us can be feeling nostalgic, maybe we’re feeling a little relieved knowing that financial burden is not as heavy as if we were on our own, but then there’s also an influx of some negative emotions. So we might be anxious, we might feel shame or grief or guilt. We might feel like we’re lacking independence, frustrated. I mean, there’s so many different emotions and they’re kind of all intertwined, so it’s really difficult to navigate them all at the same time.
[00:05:57]
Amanda Greene: What should we tell ourselves when that happens?
[00:05:59]
Francesca Canzoneri: I always encourage my clients to, first and foremost, just mindfulness. Take deep breaths, let’s stay in the present moment because we have the tendency to kind of worry a lot about the past, worry about the future, maybe we compare ourselves to other people and we kind of get down why am I not where I want to be? And it’s so hard, especially with social media, so you might see where your friends are maybe getting married or advancing in their career or buying a house or whatever it is, and you think about where you are and you compare and it’s natural, especially since it’s so easy to see where other people are. I always encourage my clients to tell themselves or remind themselves that this is an important part of their chapter, so this is what’s going to help them get back to where they want to be. It’s essential. If they don’t have this chapter, then it’s going to be really difficult for them to get where they want to be. So as much as this can be a conflicting chapter, it could be causing an influx of contradicting emotions, it’s imperative and it’s really actually going to set them up for success for where they want to go.
[00:06:57]
Amanda Greene: That is a really great line to remind yourself of, that this is an important part of my chapter, this is an important part of my life, this chapter is necessary. I mean, I feel like even no matter what you’re going through in life, that is a good thing to remind yourself of because you’re not going to get where you want to go until you get through this current thing.
[00:07:16]
Francesca Canzoneri: I tell them all the time, the best way out of a difficult situation is through because if we swoop it under the rug and pretend it’s not there, it’s still there. And if we just try to avoid it and go over it, it’s still there. So there’s different ways to deal with uncomfortable emotions. Stuffing is when you feel something you don’t want to feel and shoving it down and pretending it’s not there. And it’s a temporary fix because we’re ignoring it, we don’t feel it, we stuff it down, but the problem with that is eventually that builds up.
[00:07:44]
Amanda Greene: My mom actually has a shirt that says, “Feel your feelings,” And when she wears it, she points it out to everyone. She’s like, “Feel your feelings.” I bet when people do end up going home, it would be easy to revert into some childish ways.
[00:08:00]
Francesca Canzoneri: Yes.
[00:08:01]
Amanda Greene: Maybe feel more like your child-like self just from being maybe back in the home you grew up in. How do we try to not do that?
[00:08:08]
Francesca Canzoneri: That’s a really good question, and I think this really goes both ways. Just as you don’t want to be treated like a child and have that feeling of you’re a child again in that house, we have to also respect our parents in a way that that’s their house and they’re not just our parents. So it’s kind of like establishing this adult to adult relationship. I think the toughest part of when adults move back in with their parents is that line is blurred, right? We are so used to having the power differential of the parents and then the child. When we move back in as an adult, we need to establish how are we going to change this dynamic? Because yes, it is your house and I am your child, but we are all adults living under the same roof now. So we want to respect that that’s our parents’ house, it’s not our house, and to try to stray away from going back into our childhood ways. I mean, there’s a few different things we could do. If it’s possible, ask our parents, can we change our childhood room around? Can we make it more adult-like? Can we get new furniture, new decor, paint it, whatever, just so it doesn’t look so much like a childhood bedroom? We could take on more responsibility in the household. Don’t expect mom and dad or whoever you’re living with as a family member to do it all. Take on some of that responsibility. Food shop, clean the house, wash the cars, run the errands. That will kind of create less of a power differential and kind of make it more equal and neutralized.
[00:09:31]
Amanda Greene: I think something that a lot of people struggle with are boundaries.
[00:09:35]
Francesca Canzoneri: Yes.
[00:09:35]
Amanda Greene: And this is an instance where they’re really going to come into play. So how do we set boundaries with our family? What are some of the best practices in this circumstance?
[00:09:45]
Francesca Canzoneri: Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. They are something we always strive for and they’re really hard. And I think the reason that they can be hard is especially for people who fear tension and don’t want to cause any rifts or any issues in the relationship or damage the relationship and try to keep a more peaceful environment, which works to an extent. If you’re continuously worrying about the other person and how they feel. It’s peaceful, but then eventually you’re kind of swallowing a lot, so that’s why boundaries are important. So I think first and foremost, just understanding ‘What are my boundaries?’
[00:10:16]
Amanda Greene: I think a lot of us are still learning even how to assert boundaries and what they even are and what they should mean in your relationships. So that I think would be a really tricky one. Is there a way to make sure that you don’t overstay your welcome?
[00:10:33]
Francesca Canzoneri: I typically always go back to communication. I think it’s really important to check in, how are we feeling? Is there anything you need me to do more of or less of? Are we comfortable? Are there any changes that either of us can make to make this more comfortable?
[00:10:47]
Amanda Greene: You kind of touched on the independence of someone who had previously moved out and is now moving back in, and as adults, most of us are used to our independence. What happens if we want to stay out late but our family is worried when they know we’re not in our bed? What do we do there?
[00:11:05]
Francesca Canzoneri: That’s a tricky one. I think the first thing to keep in mind is your family is your family, so it doesn’t matter how old you are, they’re always going to worry about you. And now if you are living in their environment, they feel a little bit more responsible for you to check in, make sure you’re okay. So accepting that and understanding it’s coming from a good place I think is a really important piece. And then also, going back to that assertive communication and those boundaries, where can we come to a compromise? I appreciate that you care about me, I appreciate that you want me to be safe, I appreciate that you want to make sure I’m okay, I appreciate that you care. And at the same time, it makes me feel anxious when you worry too much or call me throughout the night or whatever it is. So just being honest with how you’re feeling and coming to a compromise of, okay, if I tell you I’m going out with my friends, I will be home by this time. If I’m a little bit late, I’ll reach out.
[00:12:01]
Amanda Greene: We’ve touched on a lot of the uncomfy parts of this and how to work through it, but what are some of the benefits of living with your parents?
[00:12:08]
Francesca Canzoneri: Yeah, absolutely. I think just being reminded that you have such good support because I think sometimes we could take that for granted sometimes. Not everybody always has that so showing that gratitude and having that comfort so easily accessible by moving back in is nice. Just knowing that you could take so much pressure off of yourself, that you have to figure it out right now, right?
[00:12:29]
Amanda Greene: Yeah. A little breather.
[00:12:30]
Francesca Canzoneri: Yes, absolutely. I could take a deep breath, I could talk more kindly to myself, I can take this pressure off and not feel so anxious and I can just be stable in this moment and not worry so much about the next thing.
[00:12:44]
Amanda Greene: A safe place to regroup.
[00:12:46]
Francesca Canzoneri: Absolutely. Yes, for sure.
[00:12:48]
Amanda Greene: What about from the parent’s perspective? Any additional benefits for them?
[00:12:52]
Francesca Canzoneri: Yeah, I mean a lot of parents experience that empty nest syndrome when their kids move out, go away to college, or maybe they get married or they move out and get their first place for the first time or whatever, and that could be really difficult for them. So sometimes I think having them back in the home can kind of make them feel a little bit more fulfilled again, it could feel like a little bit more… I don’t want to say their purpose because we don’t only have one purpose in life, but if you’re a parent, that is a big piece of your identity and a big majority of what kind of helped you make choices in your life is by being a parent. So for people who really struggle with the empty nest syndrome, it kind of can bring back that relief of, “Ah, they still need me. I am still an important piece of their book,”Right? ” I am still an important character and I love that we have this relationship where they can still rely on me and maybe they can help me.”
[00:13:44]
Amanda Greene: You are a joy. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of your insight and talking about how to handle all of the emotions that come with moving back in with your parents as an adult.
[00:13:54]
Francesca Canzoneri: My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:13:56]
Amanda Greene: Thank you so much for being here. Moving back home as an adult is never an easy decision, but for Paige, it’s turned out to be a transformative experience. As we’ve heard, living with family as an adult can bring up so many emotions, from financial stress to newfound independence and everything in between. But one thing that often gets overlooked is the impact it can have on relationships. As Francesca told us, moving back home can give us that unexpected opportunity to reconnect, deepen our bonds and create new memories. And as Paige shared with us earlier, those connections can be life-changing.
[00:14:34]
Paige Mariah: The best part about being back with my parents, just being able to be with them every single day. I really, really missed them, and I don’t think I even realized how much I missed them until I was able to move back in and see them all the time and just creating new memories with them. We’ve been traveling together, just even going for a walk with my mom in the park, that was a thing that we did a lot when I moved back, so they were really happy. And one thing about my parents, they have always been so supportive and they knew that they would be able to help me and give me this gift of living rent-free for a little while, and they would do that as many times as they could. They just want to help me get ahead always, so I’m so grateful for them.
[00:15:16]
Amanda Greene: I think we can all agree, family matters, and whether they’re a short drive away or under the same roof, any opportunity to connect is valuable.
[00:15:24]
Paige Mariah: I’m still a thirty-minute drive away. If they called me, I would be there in a heartbeat, whatever they need.
[00:15:29]
Amanda Greene: Speaking of family and getting to know each other a little better, let’s wrap things up with a round of rapid-fire questions. First one, buying your own food or eating what your parents eat.
[00:15:40]
Paige Mariah: Buying my own food, a hundred percent.
[00:15:42]
Amanda Greene: Paying rent or enjoying the free ride.
[00:15:45]
Paige Mariah: Oh my goodness. I don’t think anyone should ever choose to pay rent, but for now, at this point in my life, paying rent because it is worth every penny to have this peace and quiet.
[00:15:59]
Amanda Greene: What about do your own laundry or let your parents do it?
[00:16:03]
Paige Mariah: Let my parents take care of it. I miss that the most.
[00:16:06]
Amanda Greene: Always letting them know where you are or staying private.
[00:16:09]
Paige Mariah: Keeping my life totally private. My parents still have my location so they can have an idea, but they don’t need to know everything.
[00:16:16]
Amanda Greene: How about having friends over or keeping your social life outside the home?
[00:16:21]
Paige Mariah: Having friends over. Like, I’m so excited to host. I’ve always wanted to do that, so looking forward to my housewarming.
[00:16:27]
Amanda Greene: How about locking yourself away in a bedroom like a teen or hanging out in common areas with your parents?
[00:16:33]
Paige Mariah: A little bit of both. It depends on the mood that I’m in, but I think I really did enjoy hanging out in the common areas with my parents and just talking to them.
[00:16:42]
Amanda Greene: And give it a time limit or stay forever.
[00:16:46]
Paige Mariah: I would say for your own sanity, give yourself a time limit.
[00:16:48]
Amanda Greene: Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on today, Paige.
[00:16:50]
Paige Mariah: Thank you so much.
[00:16:53]
Amanda Greene: So this is something people are doing, moving back in with their parents, some with their own families. I get it. It would be nice to save a little money, have more people around to help out with household chores, even have my mom do my laundry, but I think we’ll stay put for now.
You’ve been listening to Merging Into Life, where we navigate life’s milestones one episode at a time. Brought to you by AAA Northeast with assistance from JAR Audio. I’m your host, Amanda Greene.
If you’re learning as much as I am, follow us wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review. We would love to know what you think. Email us at podcast@aaanortheast.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are not necessarily the views of AAA Northeast, AAA and or its affiliates.
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*The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are not necessarily the views of AAA Northeast, AAA and/or its affiliates.
