Venting THE SIDE THEY DON'T TELL YOU. Moving out of parents house.

[OhWellDerp321]

I see all these videos on YouTube with advice on "You need to move out of your parents house". But a lot of these videos only share the positive side. And make it seem like it is easy to move out or its this great adventure.

So I wanted to share the negative side to consider also.

Again, this is not to say you shouldn't move out of your parents house if you have toxic parents. But this is just offering another perspective.

If it was simple as "I make enough money and I am well off", then I think most of us would have moved out by now if we wanted to.
A lot of these YouTube videos don't consider the fact that some people might have more severe issues that may hinder their ability to move out, despite a toxic household. Or they financially just won't be able to do it.


1) Moving out out will make you grow.

Yes. You may gain some experience since you have to make decisions on your own.
But lets be honest. If you are someone that needs to move out of your parents place to do this, you most likely had helicopter parents that made every decision for you. Therefore, you may severely struggle with making decisions.

You may think "oh, the only reason I had trouble making decisions was because my parents didn't let me. Now that I am on my own, I won't have that problem". Not necessarily. You may notice for the first time you actually have to make a life altering decision with no assurance or no one to ask. And if you screw up, you can't go back. That will be very tough.

If you haven't made enough decisions on your own, you probably will screw up. And its stressful to deal with up to the point sometimes you may lose sleep.


2) Moving out will give you freedom.

You may think you can just "do whatever you want" now that you are out of your parents house.

But the second you move out of your parents house, you are also limited.

You now have bills to pay.

That second career that you wanted to study? That dream you wanted to try of becoming a full time social media star?
Well, you don't have someone to provide for you anymore.
Job comes first and will always be first.

What's even worse is that you may be limited to what type of job you can get due to your location.

If you don't have a car? Yeh good luck. You are limited to walking distance or bus. Which limits your employment opportunities to within a 15km radius.
So don't be surprised if you might have to work a crappy minimum wage job if you can't find employment opportunities within your career field.

Oh you wanted to buy a house? Yeh lets be honest. If you are moving out and renting, you probably won't ever save up enough money to buy a house. Now a days, 50% or 60% of your income probably goes towards your living expenses.

Yeh. Freedom eh? Not always as glamourous.


3) Moving out will let you have a social life.

LOL. This is the part that I laugh most about when I see these advice videos.

They always say "once you move out, you can have chicks over and host parties".

Listen, unless you are working as an Engineer, Doctor, or some high level paying job, most people now a days working a normal 9 to 5 job can barely afford to pay mortgage on an apartment unit.

If you rent, you are probably renting a shitty room shared in a house with 5 other people.
In which case, most landlords will have it specifically state in the tenant agreement that you can't have guests over.

If you are lucky enough to make enough to rent an apartment, its probably a one bedroom bachelor.
In which case, you probably ain't bringing chicks over anyways. You definitely ain't hosting parties in your one bedroom apartment.

And have fun going out and socializing. It was easier when you have no financial commitments and could go out to the bar every weekend. But now you have to pay for your car, groceries, rent, and other things. You won't feel so easy anymore about going out and spending money.


So to summarize

Yeah moving out has its own benefits. A lot of these YouTube videos give advice that "you need to move out in order to grow, otherwise you will be a child forever". They make it seem like it will be a spectacular adventure where you "discover yourself" and learn to become independent.

But the grass isn't always greener on the other side. You may find yourself with less freedom. Once the excitement of "moving out" dies off. You may realize you still struggle just as much as your were when living with your parents. Just maybe with different issues.

 

[cemeteryismyhome]

You're right. 1. YouTube videos are not a reliable source, for anything. 2. Moving out makes you live an awful adult life, just like your parents already do. It's not fun and glamorous. There are financial advantages to multiple generations sharing housing, if they can handle everything else that goes with it.

 

[derpyderpins]

Some fair points. Life is tough!

Anyone who sells you any path as rainbows and sunshine is probably full of it.

I do have some thoughts to give some more realistic positive spin.

First, the stress and struggle is real. No doubt. But a "spectacular adventure" is almost an oxymoron if we take spectacular to mean "good." Adventures - the best ones - are full of struggle. I think of the last Lord of the Rings book. I read that series a little young, maybe, and I was admittedly bored hearing for a hundred pages about what a pain it was for Frodo to have the ring. I wasn't appreciating the depth of the emotion and message. But, yeah, that's one of the first examples of "spectacular adventure" that comes to mind, and for a good long while it's "this sucks," "this still sucks," "this sucks so I asked Sam for help," "now it also sucks for Sam." And even that is still a book, a condensed version, we're not seeing that for Frodo it was 24-7 suck.

So, you don't get "adventure" without struggle. I can tell you understand this, but I like rambling and wanted to illustrate it.

Two, on the economic difficulties: we're in a shitty time, tbh, in more ways than I'll make you read about here. It shouldn't take so much work to save up for a decent place. But, it's what we've got. The fact is that - unless your parents are helping you financially - that initial move out should be the worst part (unless you are going into debt. Don't do that, move home and save up instead lol). You save and watch as you slowly, slowly, move your life to look more like you'd want it to.

Third, this ties into this concept of "freedom." I had a whole thing here I deleted because it was two on the nose giving examples of a rich person who can't leave their room and a poor person who works all day. The basic point was that freedom is not the same as options.

A (literal) slave with a computer and internet access has the option to do thousands of things with the computer: create, consume, communicate, etc. Someone living on their own out in the woods will develop a routine - chop firewood, gather water, hunt, garden, etc - spending most of the day on these "mandatory" self-imposed chores. The latter is far, far more free (without any further detail).

I guess another way to think of it is that "freedom" isn't the same as "getting to do what you want, when you want." That's a type of privilege, but it's not freedom. It also has to do with your wants aligning with your opportunities (perhaps as a product of habit and environment).

And have fun going out and socializing. It was easier when you have no financial commitments and could go out to the bar every weekend. But now you have to pay for your car, groceries, rent, and other things. You won't feel so easy anymore about going out and spending money.

That's freedom! As I started: life is tough!

But the tough stuff, the freedom, that is the human experience. That's living this life that - at least in this solar system - is unique to the one species with higher conciousness. It's full of pain and hurt, like all life, but unique pain and hurt that comes as part of this human condition.

The world has made it hard to appreciate the small things. You see everyone's fabulous life online, you hear stories about the past generation having things easier, stuff like that. It makes it hard to see something like "I'm in my first, shitty apartment, and after grinding 6 months of my life away I saved up to get some proper plates and glassware, and now and then I can make myself a nice steak instead of ramen" as anything other than sad. But really, it's beautiful. Not because there's anything wonderful about consooomerism and buying stuff. Honestly, not even because of some major accomplishment. The thing is, that life - in that moment - is yours. It's yours to experience and no one else's. Your pain. Your joy. You have constraints: you need food, so you probably need a job, etc., but ultimately your mind can be your own. You can shape the world around you, even if all you're capable of doing right now is buying some glasses from Target instead of Walmart.

So option one is easy, full of instant-gratification, and ultimately soul-less. The other is difficult, rewards are few and far between, and it's real. Give me the latter.

_________________________________________________________

You definitely ain't hosting parties in your one bedroom apartment.

My college self is furious at this statement, lol. When the culture is right you can throw a banger in a studio. I actually held a couple parties in my first one bedroom out of college that were great. Fact is that people don't really party much these days. Maybe that's because I got older, or maybe it's changing times in a post-covid world. That actually makes me a little sad, but it's okay. Life's an adventure and that chapter is behind me.