Boomerang Children: A strategy for emptying the nest

Some of us go with the flow when our grown kids move home with us--especially if they're recent graduates and are trying to gain footing in the work world. A neighbor whose son went to cooking school (to study the glorious culinary arts) loves having his son at home: When the son cooks dinner--and he does so a few times a week--the meals are sensational.

But more of us find the experience frustrating: too up-close with adolescent habits they have yet to shed and with adult ways we're not ready to deal with. For some of us, the experience is financially draining: We're spending money on our adult children that we should be squirreling away for retirement. That is the point Barbara Torris makes in her blog Retire In Style.

She has proposed a solution: downsize. Sell [or rent] the house you brought you kids up in and move into something smaller that doesn't necessarily have room for an extra grown up.

Here's a fuller explanation of the theory from the Retire in Style post:

"Many mid-life and retired people are downsizing so that, when the children need help, coming home to live will not be a choice. They know it would not be a happy situation for them. Interesting huh?

"Could it be people are saving enough money by downsizing so they are able to help children in trouble but not make them dependent on them totally? The family remains on good terms and the children continue to mature and be self reliant. Helping pay part of the grown child's rent is a lot different than them coming home to live rent-free. The child could still be responsible for most of the cost and be forced to live within their means."

Just throwing the idea out there, as was RetireInStyle.

In case you're wondering who--daughters? sons?--is boomeranging back home, there's this recent finding from Pew Research.

Pew Research Center Notes: “Living at home” refers to an adult who is the child or stepchild of the head of the household, regardless of the adult’s marital status. Source: Pew Research Center tabulations of March 2012 Current Population Survey Integrated Public Use Micro Sample.

Related articles

Money Matters:Our grown kids' financial struggles are tougher than ours were at their age.

Catching the Boomerang: Downsizing?

When Parents Throw a Boomerang!

When your adult child moves back home

Baby boomers movin' on down: Downsizing your home means scaling back on stuff

Tips on Downsizing From a House to an Apartment