I can’t decide whether millennials are lazy or brilliant.
The Pew Research Center reported a record number of millennials who are living at home compared to those living with a spouse or partner. In 2014, 32.1 percent moved back in with their parents compared to 31.6 percent who are living with a romantic partner.
Now, don’t get me wrong, surely there are some appeals of living in your parent’s basement. Namely, it’s free. Adios electricity bills, Wi-Fi installation fees and plumbing expenses. At your parent’s house, they do that stuff for you.
Along with this, you don’t have to consume mass amounts of frozen pizza every evening. Instead, your taste buds can swoon over mom’s new recipe for shrimp tacos.
There’s milk in the fridge with an expiration date that hasn’t passed yet.
There aren’t any mysterious crumbs lying on the floor because your cleaning lady has this thing called a vacuum. It’s a miracle.
But along with living a “free” life you’re back under your childhood roof, which means you can’t come home at 5 a.m. parading your newest group of gal pals around your living room that’s chock full of your mom’s favorite crystal figurines.
You can’t stack all of the wine, vodka, tequila and whiskey bottles you’ve consumed on top of your kitchen cabinets because oddly enough, your cabinets reach the ceiling and you don’t want your father sitting you down to have a chat about when the church’s next AA meeting is.
We 20-something-year-olds haven’t had much direction in our lives since Zayn decided to do his own thing.
Maybe living with our parents is a way to claim back that security. Or maybe we’re just saving up a little bit more cash so that when we purchase our first apartment, we don’t have to call rodent control every two weeks to get rid of the rat that seems to think the heating vent is its own condominium.
In addition to our own flagrant display of inadequacies, living with our parents might in part be owed to the maleficent world of modern dating.
Young adults between the ages of 18 and 34 would rather curl up in the fetal position on the tiny twin bed they’ve been sleeping on for years than create a dating profile on Match.com.
It’s common knowledge that dating in this day in age is seriously messed up. Romance consists of awkward sex in some stranger’s room that’s dimly lit by an episode of “Bob’s Burgers” playing in the background.
People don’t date each other in fear of commitment. The word “marry” is largely out of the question until one’s received at least five promotions and has thought out their entire retirement plan. It’s a weird world we live in.
Clearly Lil Wayne didn’t teach us enough about how to love.
Either way, if you’re scoring a home run with a partner, or never even hitting because you’re stuck on home plate, sooner or later, we’ll all end up in the same place.
