Many young men and women remain dependent and at home with parents due to problems related to academic difficulties while still others remain because of inadequate skills in dealing with life in general.
As you can see, it is not possible to give one answer to fit all but remember always that some men could stay at home to look after one or other parent who may have a medical need.
In these cases, the son or daughter seems to ‘postpone’ life until the parent gets better or dies. It often takes the direct intervention of the parent to ‘liberate’ the child.
What makes some adults reluctant to leave their parents' homes and begin living their own lives? Is this a sign of bad parenting?
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The book of Genesis 2:24 is as good a starting point as any. It tells us ‘that is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh’. The book of Mathew is equally clear on the matter. Chapter 9:5 states, ‘For this reason a man will leave father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh’.
The Constitution is also without ambiguity on the matter and spells out the centrality of the family unit. It states, ‘The family is the natural and fundamental unit of society and the necessary basis for social order and shall enjoy the recognition and protection of the State.’
By implication, both the Bible and the Constitution recognise the fact that society can only exist in an orderly manner if, at some point in time, boys and girls leave home, team up and become parents themselves. Your question, therefore, is why this natural event does not take place in some cases.
Before attempting to answer that question, let us look at a different one which is related but is not the same.
At what age must a boy or girl leave home by way of marriage and what factors drive this process? An even more complex conversation relates to the matter of the relationship between leaving home and getting married and the extent to which these may or not be related.
The average age of marriage in Kenya is 24.8 years for males and 22.5 for females. The equivalent numbers for the US are 29.5 years for males and 27.4 for females.
What, you might ask is the explanation for these big differences and what might they imply about parenting styles.
Just to add confusion to these numbers, the average age of marriage has been going up over the years and is, in many cases related to girls’ education. Life and issues are not as simple as they might be expected to be.
Now that we have seen how your question can get very complex, let us examine other variables that come into the equation. Adolescence has, over the years proved to be a most elastic concept. Simply defined and as a noun, it is the period following puberty during which a young person develops from a child to an adult.
The World Health Organisation proceeds to give the age range for this period as being from the age of 10 to 24 years. First, you may wonder, why not nine and 26? Secondly, is a range of 10 to 24 years perhaps not too big? No simple answers are available here either.
So, what happens in this magical phase of human growth? As many people remember of themselves, this is a phase of rapid physical, emotional and psychological changes.
Social relationships also come up for renegotiation as the role of peers increases as that of parents gets less, setting the stage for great conflict of ideas and responsibilities. It is also a time for the search for ‘the self’ and meaning of life. Academic pressures are also at their maximum just at the times, that sex hormones make great demands on self-control. It is almost a miracle that for most people, adolescence goes without a crisis.
Any time of change is normally the time of potential problems and parenting and adolescence are no exception. It is, therefore, possible that one of the outcomes of things going wrong during this period is, as you have observed, a reluctance to leave home upon attaining adult status. As often happens in life, each situation has to be judged on its merits. For some, it could be that the young adult has failed to develop the skills required for independent living due to say, a problem with self-esteem. It could also be a problem related to depression in adolescence or indeed a challenge with alcohol or other substances of abuse.
Many young men and women remain dependent and at home with parents due to problems related to academic difficulties while still others remain because of inadequate skills in dealing with life in general.
As you can see, it is not possible to give one answer to fit all but remember always that some men could stay at home to look after one or other parent who may have a medical need.
In these cases, the son or daughter seems to ‘postpone’ life until the parent gets better or dies. It often takes the direct intervention of the parent to ‘liberate’ the child. So, does remaining at home with parents have anything to do with parenting skills and style? Yes, sometimes it does.
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