Peter Haley/Tacoma News Tribune/MCT Dan Holland of University Place moved to his parents' basement in the spring while working an internship his senior year of college. Holland, a recent graduate of Washington State University, is pondering what's next along his career path.

By Niki Sullivan
McClatchy Newspapers

TACOMA, Wash. - When a teenager graduates from high school, he leaves home for college and stays gone, except for those holiday gatherings with mom and dad. At least that's how the story has gone for generations.

But not now.

More recent college graduates are moving back with their parents for months or years while they sort through the challenges of finding a decent job, saving money and getting a place on their own. And some never leave the family home in the first place.

Surveys of census data show that more than 60 percent of college graduates today live with their parents, earning them the nickname "boomerang" kids.

In addition to waiting to start careers, this generation of recent college graduates is waiting longer to get married, have children or buy a house – historically the biggest hallmarks of adulthood.

"There seem to be two main factors. The obvious one is economic," said Leon Grunberg, chairman of the Department of Comparative Sociology at the University of Puget Sound. "It's also that they seem to have very high expectations of their work lives.

"It takes a little while to find the right job, so a lot of them are getting internships or taking jobs that they're not going to end up in the long haul."

NEW BONDS

Janae Dietz, 25, graduated from Western Washington University and knew she wanted to do social work. Growing up, she always volunteered and had internships during school that solidified her desire to help others.

But Dietz still had questions: What type of social work, where did she want to settle down and how could she afford to live on her own?

So she accepted a job with the catering company she'd worked for through college and moved to Tacoma to live in the same bedroom she had while growing up.

That was almost two years ago.

She's still working for a catering service and has earned a promotion, but she doesn't feel fulfilled. "I just don't feel like I'm living up to my full potential," she said.

Dietz said the trade-off for conveniences – like not worrying about "taking care of cats or running to the store for toilet paper" – can sometimes outweigh the drawbacks. "Your independence and living your own lifestyle is challenging."

But Dietz is saving money for her own place, and she does enjoy the friendship she's forged with her mother, Brenda Dietz.

"I'm closer to her. ... I think she likes having me there," she said.

Brenda Dietz enjoys it, too, and is proud of her daughter.

"She's just doing great" at catering, she said. "She's really good for the job because she's very well organized,"

Janae's brother, Cedric Dietz, 23, also lives at home.

"I never really left home," he said. Instead, he studied culinary arts at Bates Technical College and lived at home. He said it's been nice, but he knows he needs to move out.

"It's a necessity because you gotta learn what it's like to survive rather than just live," he said. "It's a goal."

But there are roadblocks: "To move out would take a career, and maybe another person to move out with." His friends also live at home, and one moved out only to return.

Brenda likes having her children around but said there are challenges, such as when family visits from out of town, the guests are relegated to sleeping in the basement.

"We're to capacity here," she said.

NEW SET OF RULES

As boomerang kids become more common, new rules and relationships are forged.

Adult children often face the prospect of not being able to host friends, or not be comfortable with having them over.

Parents have to learn that their grown children often don't want as much guidance in their day-to-day lives as they did in high school. And things like laundry, buying groceries or making dinner turn into points of conflict.

"At one point, we had four generations of family under one roof," said Penny Tennison, who lives in Gig Harbor, Wash. She said she and her husband have had "only about two years of empty-nest experience" in 37 years.

Tennison said her husband takes it in stride, but that she's a little aggravated that her children "seem to think that all household responsibility reverts back to Mom and Dad," she said. "If they wash dishes or scrub a bathroom, it is a rare event and profuse displays of appreciation are expected."

Tennison said children moving back home "is becoming so frequent that a new set of relational guidelines needs to be worked out."

Grunberg, who's in the baby boomer generation, said people in his age group generally felt a need to rebel from their parents in order to differentiate themselves.

"You got out of the house. ... Apparently this generation doesn't feel that rebellious distancing from their parents," he said, adding that, generally, they seem to like their parents instead.

Boomers "are more tolerant, more permissive. You can move back in with people like us," Grunberg said. In contrast, he doesn't think many baby boomers would have called their parents friends 30 years ago, "more kind of authority figures," he said.

TIME FOR SOUL SEARCHING

When Dan Holland, 23, finished his coursework at Washington State University this spring, he thought he'd finish his required internship, graduate and find a career in public relations.

He moved back to University Place, Wash., to live in his parents' basement while interning. After a summer of working, Holland is unsure of his career path.

"I haven't decided if I wanted to look for a job in public relations or look for any other type of job," he said.

The main factors are finding something that will be personally fulfilling and a salary that he could support himself on.

"I feel like I've put a lot of pressure on it," he said, referring to the search for a career. "It means more than a part-time job to me. It means something that I really want to do or feel good about doing."

Adding to the stress is that his brother, father and two previous generations worked as Longshoremen at the Port of Tacoma. He has a "preference card" that allows him to pick up work there, too.

While he figures things out, Holland is living in the basement.

He said living at home has been nice: His younger brother also lives there, his mom does his laundry and he doesn't pay rent, although he hopes to when he starts making a little money.

"I guess my welcome home moment was when I had my music up and got a phone call from my mom, who said to turn my music down," said Holland. "I've been gone for four years. For the moment, they're happy to have me."

His mother, Sue Holland, said it's nice having him back now that he's grown up a bit.

"They come home as adults, and you've had them only as children. It does make a little bit of difference. Dan and I hang out together, and he hangs out with his dad," she said, which isn't something they did by choice when he was in high school.

As comfortable as it is, it's still been difficult for him to accept that things didn't go as he planned.

"It's just kind of a bummer because the whole time when you're in college, you think you're working toward making a life for yourself," said Holland. "You think you're going to get a good job right out of college. Now I'm in the same position as my little brother, who didn't go to college."

THE COST OF ADULTHOOD

There are many theories for why this generation has become the boomerang children: Rent and home prices are high, the job market isn't in tip-top shape and people just cracking into careers are searching for meaning, rather than just a paycheck.

One theory, however, is that the boomerang generation is a myth. Some analysis of census data shows that a high percentage of young adults in their 20s have lived with their parents since at least the 1880s.

Michael Rosenfeld, a social scientist at Stanford University, says his research indicates that about 70 percent of people in their 20s lived with parents in the 1940s, and it hasn't reached that level since then.

But, he says, during the '70s, when many parents of today's 20-somethings were getting out of school, "real wages" hit a peak, which made it easier to leave home.

That makes the contrast between baby boomers and those of the boomerang generation even greater.

"I had two kids by the time I was 23 and married and had my education behind me," said Kim Fry, whose son and daughter live with her and her husband in Federal Way, Wash.

Fry graduated from high school early, went to school to become an X-ray technician and immediately got a job. "I was ordering people around since I was 17 years old. You look at your typical 17-year-old now and you don't even want to give them your car keys, let alone put an X-ray button in their hands," she said.

She said this generation seems "softer" than hers, but she understands.

"A lot of them, when they graduate from college, they have so much debt from trying to go to school. When you look at housing prices, I don't know how kids do it now. In those ways, it's harder, I think," Fry said.