living at home

PRO

by Kristina 

via

This is an issue near and dear to my heart considering just over two months ago, after my college graduation, I did move right back in with mom and dad. I know everyone’s first instinct is to “CON” the crap out of this, but let’s take a minute to be imaginative and look at the sunnier side of sleeping in your twin bed with the Sailor Moon sheets (hypothetical Sailor Moon sheets. Obviously).

Let’s face it: The food is better here. When I cook, I throw everything in the microwave and hope for the best. Literally. That was a daily occurrence in my college years. Now, I have the space and time to really cook here which means I’m probably decreasing the chances for cancer I developed during college by like half. Or something scientifical like that.

Being back home also reminds me of who I was as a kid--kind, optimistic, enthusiastic. I believed that anything and everything was 100% possible. I wasn’t grumpy or jaded and I had every faith in the world that, with some hard work on my part, love and all life’s other good things would come right when I needed them. Bottom line: Maybe 22-year-old Me can learn a shit ton (to use a technical term) from 9-year-old Me.

I’ll leave this “PRO” with a final point: I owe my parents everything. Through their own blood, sweat, and tears, (or money, whatever) they put me through a great school. They like having me home, at least for now, so why not stay here and help them through a transition--from parents with children to parents with adult children--in their lives? Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I still think family is one of the only things in this world that still matters. Moral of the story? Being a part of that family in the living-at-home sense might be just what everybody needs.

CON
by Lindsey 

via

If you're a normal human being (and not like the hilarious-but-let's-face-it-socially-awkward nerdlings from The Big Bang Theory), you do not want to stay in on a Friday night ... playing Parcheesi ... and watching PBS ... with your parental units.

If you do want to actively participate in the aforementioned situation, you seriously need to reevaluate your life AND get out of your parents' basement. Don't get me wrong, I understand that jobs are hard to come by these days, apartment rent is high (trust me, I would know), and the safety-and-security net that Mom and Pops provide is soothing and fuzzy feeling-like, but still. The answer is still NO.

When I graduated from college last year, I had a plan. Granted the plan didn't work out ... as planned ... but it still got me out of the house and on my own. It was high time for me to wake up and embrace responsibility. Is it hard to live in the real world? F*** yes. Without a doubt. But one has to think of it as individuality, self-reliabilty, self-sustainability, blah, blah, blah....

If you're living with the 'rents, you're still coddled like you were in college. Oh, it's Christmas break, I can just go home and sleep for four weeks. Oh, it's summer and every night Mom is making something delicious for dinner. Yes, it sounds lovely, but it can lead one down the path toward a makes-you-shudder combination of  Failure to Launch and that guy who tries to uncover government secrets from the safety of his ageing mother's basement in Live Free or Die Hard. I'm sure there are clips on YouTube if wracking your brain isn't getting results.

To reiterate, get out of the house. Move on. For me, after high school was over, college had ended, and the real world had begun, I still knew people from my middle-school days who, at the least, lived at home; at the best, lived at home with babies they had decided to pop out pre-high school graduation.

As Sassy Gay Friend would say and, yes, I'm going to hashtag it just for effect:

#lookatyourlifelookatyourchoices