This phrase cracks me up, honestly – the idea of a boomerang is that you throw it; it curves out and then returns to your hand. We send our children out like boomerangs all the time – sending them to school, sending them to a friend’s and sending them out to play and we do want them to return, but when we send out our young adults to get married, to go to college or to live independently – it’s not necessarily what parents have in mind to have them return home again.
Boomerang Kids Can Affect Your Relationship
When your adult children boomerang to home, it can stress your relationship with your spouse because as much as we love our children – more often than not, the reasons they boomerang home are due to problems they encountered – usually economic. It’s not unusual for a couple to enjoy the economic freedom of being childless when their children leave the nest and when they boomerang home – there is often stress associated with their return – stress on the parent’s marriage, stress on the relationships and other.
Tough Times
Tough economic times can have adult children heading home. Current census figures indicate 56 percent of men and 43 percent of women between the ages of 18 and 24 live with one or both of their parents. For many college graduates, it makes smart financial sense to move back in with mom and dad. This gives them a chance to locate a job, begin earning a salary and set up a good cushion before they move out and get their own home.
When jobs are scarce, it can be harder and harder for adult children to find a way out of their parents’ nest and for you and your spouse, it can be tough because you’ve done your jobs – you’ve raised your children. The additional strain of supporting them as adults can make it harder on you and your spouse to do the things you may have dreamed of. Granted, you don’t need to look after an adult child the way you did when they were young – but you still want to shelter them emotionally and physically.
This can create a tension and sense of ungratefulness if you overdo and your child resists or you under do it and they demand more. If you and your spouse were planning to retire or travel on retirement, having your adult children at home may limit those plans.
If your children do boomerang home, then here are some tips to help you and your spouse cope with the changes their arrival can bring:
- Insist that they pay rent or make some other form of tangible form of financial contribution, whether they are buying the groceries, paying utilities or a third of the rent
- Insist that the child gets along with mom, period – this isn’t about power plays or defiance, the boomerang child has to respect mom and her rules
- Make the return a temporary one, designed to be a one-time event for them to get back on their feet, when kids return again and again and again – it can create a real bone of contention between all family members
- When marital stress is already a factor, find a way to help your children without letting them boomerang home – the last thing your marriage or your kids need is for it to explode under unnecessary pressure
Have you had to cope with a boomerang child in your home?
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