I call them basement boys and, these days, they are as common as mould. It turns out that most Canadians know at least a few of them. I am referring to adult children still living at home. Many are like my friend's son, still feasting on mum's cooking, still hesitating to take that final, decisive step to an independent life.
According to a new Statistics Canada study, almost 60 per cent of young Canadian adults between the ages of 20 and 24 live with their parents. Twenty years ago, only 41 per cent did so. That's a huge change in the composition of households, one that even a Canadian cheese producer has been making sport of in a current TV advert.
It shows an unshaven, pot-bellied young guy sprawled, half-awake in front of the television. A ghostly apparition appears on the screen. He gets up to investigate and finds a cable running from the television to a back room, where he discovers his parents trying to frighten him into moving out. The silly tagline advises parents that if they want their children to leave home, they should stop cooking with delicious cheese.
The Statistics Canada study shows that the adult-child-at-home phenomenon is largely urban. In rural areas, most young adults move out and stay out. As for parents who live in small apartments, it is one thing to have a 10-year-old sharing the space. It is quite another to have a 24-year-old who is dating, and coming and going at all hours.
The trend is also much more pronounced among families that have immigrated to Canada recently from Asia, and Central and South America. That's not really surprising. Within Chinese and Latino families, it is much more culturally accepted for adult children to remain at home than it is in families who have been here for generations. Economic hardship is likely to be the major factor keeping young adults at home. Rising tuition and housing costs, and declining government financial support for students, are making it more difficult for them to finance a college, trade school or university education.
So, where once it was the norm for Canadian youngsters to pick up and move out of the family home at 18, now, across the country, basements that were once largely storage areas are being renovated for longer-term occupancy. They aren't just for the basement boys, though. They are also for 'boomerang kids' - grown children who move out, suffer a setback and return.