Seems she's reacted in a perfectly normal way to what is a perfectly normal situation.

People have yet to grasp that as human life expectancy increases, so do life phases. Adolescence no longer stops at 18, if it ever did.

Many kids end up heading home after college. My brother didn't move out till he was nearly 26...I was 24. Careers can be hard to find, as can the motivation to do them.

but you seem to be unaware of a little thing called "enabling". You say that life phases are longer, but really that's code for an excuse not to grow up. I take advantage of that all the time with my parents, but i'm at least honest about it.

If a parent's role is to teach a child how to survive on their own, they have to let them acquire responsibility gradually starting when they are young. There's nothing wrong with helping your kid, imho, when they need help. But if they are not motivated, then you are just helping them coast along. Motivation that is "hard to find", as you say, usually indicates either laziness or depression. And enabling that attitude and/or personality disorder is doing a great disservice to someone you purportedly care about- and people tend to do it for selfish reasons (i.e. it makes me feel like a good parent or if i didnt, i would feel like a bad parent).

BTW. I'm not judging with the word selfish. I just want to point out that many things people say they are doing for the 'good' of others are really about assuaging their own guilt or just making themselves feel good.

...Many kids end up heading home after college. My brother didn't move out till he was nearly 26...I was 24. Careers can be hard to find, as can the motivation to do them...

Oh, Jesus christ--you're pathetic. "Careers can be hard to find"--LOL! Yeah, that's why you have to go out and WORK, asshole. That's why you have to go and live in a shit-hole apartment and eat macaroni and cheese out of the pot for a couple of years. That's also what becomes your "motivation." I simply can't believe what I'm reading here. I started working at 16--after school, on the weekends, and over the summer. There was never any question about it--none. My parents would have laughed at me if I'd suggested that I didn't want to work. Then, when I went away to college, I worked in the cafeteria at school, bussing and washing dishes. Often while brutally hungover (but always dragging myself in anyway). Of course, I also worked full-time every summer. I then graduated at 1:00 pm on Sunday, May 22, 1983, and was literally at work in my first post-graduate job 20 hours later--at 9:00 am on May 23. I CAN'T BE THE ONLY PERSON WHO HAS DONE THIS. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?

For what it's worth, this is not perfectly normal. It may be normal in some demographics, but not across the spectrum.

The experiences of the author, her son, and apparently you and your brother are luxuries. I say so, not to denigrate you, but to confront you with reality. Many, if not most, 18-24 year olds do not get this sort of safety net. I don't begrudge you yours, but I wish you wouldn't tell yourself and your peers that your experiences are 'normal.' To do so is to close your eyes to reality, and to tacitly embrace the growing inequality of opportunity that leads to an increasingly stratified society like ours.

I'm 23 with a career that I was motivated to find outside my home state. I went home for two months to work temp jobs while I applied for what I really wanted. My mom did read over my college application essays but she sure didn't type them up or rewrite them. I did receive financial support in terms of food and gas when I drove home, but it was understood that this was in exchange for good grades and came with budget lessons. The reason why motivation is so hard to find and adolescence takes so long is at least partially because of parents. I don't think the writer is a bad person, but I'm certainly not surprised that a kid who had his applications typed up for him and his essays rewritten wasn't successful his first time at college. If he had done it on his own and not been accepted at Wisconsin, maybe he wouldn't have gone through the misery of having to drop out. I wish him luck in California and hope he learns to write his own papers and only go to his mom for a quick edit and typo-check.

I understand that careers are hard to find, but her son isn't trying! He is being rewarded for his lack of effort with a nice apartment (probably nicer than mine) and a free meal ticket! "Oh, poor baby, you flunked out of school. Here, why don't I give you a nice place to live and pay for anything so you'll never learn how to be independent."

He won't even make the effort to walk down the street to a cyber cafe to check his e-mail. His mommy needs to learn to let go, and soon before she ruins his chances of ever functioning as a normal adult.

i don't see any hate here.

a lot of posters (who can't seem to grasp the concept that if you are going to have a dialogue, you don't do it by having everyone top post- go to myspace if you just want to post a blog!) echo your sentiments, but i think you all speak in hyperbole.

while there are always a few people who go to extremes with how they discuss a situation (even though if you continue the conversation and get them past their first indignity, they might quiet down...), many people just seem to be being "real" about how the world works and what a parent's role is in preparing their kid for it.

My problem with her parenting doesn't have a lot to do with him living at home or her sending him money...I know a series of kids who lived at home while in college because it was cheaper (obviously not this family's problem) and a lot of kids whose parents helped them through school.

The way I see it, the problem is that she never instilled in this kid the desire to feel pride in your own accomplishments. Kids start out with this as toddlers: how proud is a child the first time he stands unassisted, the first time she dresses herself, the first time he rides a bike with no training wheels? Parents need to encourage kids in this. Pick them up when they fail, dust them off, give them some words of encouragement, and let them try it again. You can't take pride in getting an A on a model rocket your dad built for you.

A child whose mother wails "OH my poor baby!" every time he scrapes his knee or gets a bad grade will never learn self-sufficiency. And from the fact that his mother pays his rent--not sends him money, mind you, but actually pays the landlady herself--shows that she is still wearing that nursing bra and he knows it.

She has done this young man a real disservice. He should move far, far away and learn how to take care of himself, or he is going to be completely sunk when she dies.

Freki

There is a BIG difference between letting an immature kid stay at home a few years after high school and giving him an apartment in San Francisco. This kid has all the benefits of independence without actually having to be independent. He is being taught to expect a standard of living that he will probably never be able to earn on his own. If he was too immature to handle college, then what makes you think he should be running his own household?

I can't believe that this kid did not have his ass handed to him after flunking out of school after his freshman year (or first semester, I forget). Seriously. Also, for most, freshman year is full of requirement classes (English, etc.), you usually don't get into classes for your major 'til the second semester of your sophmore year. And, he flunked out of the requirements? That sounds pretty lazy to me.

I would have had to hit the bricks the next day to find a job.

This kid has all the benefits of independence without actually having to be independent. He is being taught to expect a standard of living that he will probably never be able to earn on his own.

This is the major point.

Some people do have the fortitude to make it on their own after being provided for while in school, but they're usually not the ones flunking out.

This kid should have lived at home and attended college, maybe part-time for 1-2 years. I know of similar cases; they often partied hard frosh year, then ended up booted. UWis is a big 10 school with some high academic standards. It is not a goof-off institution. (And he was paying out of state tution - ouch).

My daughter at an East Coast school has friends who wish they had been raised similar to her background. Our income did not allow us to fulfill her every wish. She learned at an early age (apparently) how to cook, clean, do laundry and, even more importantly, how to organize and prioritize. She can communicate well with adults and does not expect us to rescue her at every moment. She had some tearful moments freshman year but she's learning. It's called growing up.

Her sister spent sophomore year abroad and traveled in several countries in Europe on her own. That was sometimes nerve-wracking but she matured tremendously. She'll be heading to the UK for grad school next year.

I had course problems my freshman year but had a high enough GPA that I held onto my scholarship, buckled down and graduated with honors.

There's a fine line between parent support (which every student needs) and parental interference. It's tough to be realistic about your own child, but there were enough red flags in high school that he needed a lot of maturing before being turned loose.

By the way, I see these issues on a regular basis since I work on a college campus.

Here's yet another mini-bio in support of the position that Ms. Goldstein must not be allowed to get away with assuring herself and others that anything in this vampiric, codependency relationship she has fostered with her baby boy is "normal," much less beneficial, especially not to him. For starters, too much parental money is involved for the experience to be considered normal. First, Ms. G (and spouse? I recall no mention of an adult male in her pathetic story) simply strews money around (Xbox, rent, grocieries, gas, phone calls) whever she encounters a difficulty. Pfui, as Nero Wolfe used to say. Every bit of money that I had from the age of 16 onwards, including college and grad school, I earned for myself--and expected to, and did not feel abused or downcast by doing so--for I knew how tight money was in my parents' lives. Second, Ms. G (& spouse?) seems to have expected nothing from her son--no responsibilities, no grades, no risks, nothing; she even wrote his application for him. God forbid he should suffer for his dead-butt performance in college! God forbid he should learn anything painful from that, such as 'If you don't study, especially for classes that don't interest you, you will flunk out...which means you will have to become self-supporting (rent, groceries, gas, insurance) at a very young age.' Third, she, like many of her co-hoverers, seems never to have understood that buffering your child from all unpleasantness--a skinned knee, a lost ball game, a summer at school instead of at the beach to repair a draggy GPA--means teaching them that somebody else will always pick up after you; that it is your right to expect to be babied; that you are not strong enough or smart enough or stout-hearted enough to survive absent such pampering.

Ms. Bonnie, you are well on your way to ruining your baby boy forever, which I am sure is the exact opposite of what you meant to do. Please, please stop. Give him a financial cut-off date a month or two in advance, then cut him off, and stick to it. No more paying his rent, his groceries, he gas, his school fees. No more. No more.

My parents were certainly supportive when I moved out. They helped furnish my craphole apartment, called to see how I was doing, and took me out to nice restaurants when they came to visit, because they knew how sick I was of Top Ramen. I got generous Christmas presents, and my mom would always find some reason to do some grocery shopping "for herself" and then leave all this food at my house. Sometimes my dad would even hide a $50 bill in the book he knew I was reading, before he left. It was very helpful.

But let me tell you, I paid my own damn rent. I was proud of it, too; it was MY apartment.

Freki

PS Fritz, bring me 6 bottles of beer.

Well said! I actually moved out of my parents house (for the 4th and final time) at age 32!!!! That was when I and my now-wife ought our first home. Now I have my own son and we have 2 homes. For me living at home was just a way to save on rent money.