Boomerang Kids: A growing trend that's here to stay, literally

GREENVILLE, N.C. - You raise your kids to one day leave the nest and make a life for their own.

We all love our kids and hate to see them go but now, more than ever, many parents are seeing them come back home, 20 and 30 year olds returning home to live with the parents.

Many people are writing it off as a sign of the tough economic times, but a report by the U.S. Census Bureau shows that might not be the case.

For Maureen and Denise McNamara living together was a no-brainer.

"I think we're more like roomies now," said Denise, Maureen’s mother.

The mother daughter duo have been together for close to a year in their Manteo home.

"We've been working together to make this 100-year-old house a little more aesthetic," said Maureen as she’s able to help make repairs that mother Denise couldn't do otherwise.

"I can reach molding when I'm painting," she said.

But it wasn't always like this.

In 2007 Maureen was graduating from East Carolina University with a degree and a promising career in Greenville.

Looking back now, she remembers her father telling her to come back home.

"When the economy first started going downhill back in 2008, I think he said it in 2009, ‘come home, it's time for us to be all together, we can save money together,’ and I said, 'Dream on Dad; what are you thinking? No."

A year later, Maureen’s father, Jim, would die unexpectedly, leaving behind Denise in Manteo and Maureen, close to two hours away, in Greenville.

"You come home from work and there's nobody there you know, it's talk to the animals a lot," said Denise, jokingly.

Fast forward another year to 2011 and Maureen was ready to take her father up on his offer.

"Those kinds of events open your eyes a bit and I just had an epiphany," she said, "I left my good playing job with benefits and came home."

30-year-old Maureen came home jobless and living with her parents, a boomerang kid and part of a growing trend of thousand like her.

"This has become my office area," Maureen said during a tour of the house, "We, I think, have blended pretty well together."

A report by the U.S. Census Bureau shows a 19 percent increase in males ages 25-34 in 2011 who moved back home and for women like Maureen, in that same age bracket, a 10 percent increase.

"It's really based on individual bases," said Bryce Jorgensen, an ECU Professor of Child Development and Family Relations.

He says this trend is anchored in a phenomenon called “Emerging Adulthood” where the age that corresponds with adulthood is continuously being pushed back later and later in life.

"Now we have people that are 28, 29, 30 - they're still acting like they're 19-20-years-old, exploring themselves, figuring things out and trying different things.  They haven't made a decision to move forward," said Jorgensen.

But for Maureen and Denise, this is forward.

"I can't understand that.  You're family and with the economy they way it is, it's actually a wiser choice to do so," said Denise.

"Really, depending on the parents stance I think will depict on what the kids are doing - boomeranging - whether they're home and how soon they go out," said Jorgensen.

"I know I can take care of myself, I have," said Maureen, "But I think it has changed, I feel like an adult because I'm lucky to be in a situation where I'm allowed to feel like one."

The U.S. Census data shows the boomerang trend began before the economy took its downward turn, meaning other causes like emerging adulthood play a larger factor that once thought.

"They're not adolescence which gets over at 18, yet they're not full adults because they're not financially depended and living on their own and these types of things," said Jorgensen.

He says, more than anything, they're a phenomenon here to stay, literally.

"I don't see it reversing. Unless everyone starts making tons of money and getting married in their early 20s again and living out on their own," said Jorgensen.

But David Carter did get married in his early 20s and lived out on his own for a year-and-a-half.  Now, he's a boomerang kid.

"With all the job layoffs and some of the jobs in Kinston are cutting hours and stuff like that, so I mean, it's kind of risky," said Carter.

Carter moved back home to Kinston after leaving Alabama, but once Carters job prospects dried up with the economy, he says, his Alabama life dried up as well.

"It was costing me more financially to come back and forth so I said it would be better to move back to North Carolina," said Carter.

Since Carters father is disabled, moving back home – like Maureen - was a no brainer.  Carter helps out around the house, even helping with bills after getting a new job in Kinston, but Jorgensen says the help may be hurting the situation.

"The second thing is: Are the parents taking away the motivation to move forward in their career?" said Jorgensen, "If you have parents that say, 'You're paying rent; you're paying part food; you're doing this, those people that boomerang back quickly leave."

We asked Carter what he says to people who tell him it’s time to move out.

"I can do things that they can't really do no more so it works out for the best," said Carter.

Jorgensen says boomerang kids can sometimes divide the parents, one believing the child should move out while the other believing the child should stay.

In those situations, he says, the boomerang trend is not healthy.

"We're becoming more of the 'me' generation.  It's this me generation of things about me.  So instead of before when people were looking forward to marriage and having children, people aren't ready for that," said Jorgensen.

For Carter, it's more about not being ready for an uncertain economic future.

"Financially, you'd be better off to just stay at home," he said.

Jorgensen says the parents should sit down and help their child set goals for moving back out, then help them work toward those goals.

That keeps the child from regressing and becoming totally dependant on the parents.