Mom is My Landlord

Mom is my landlord
By Jimmy Greenfield | RedEye | Chicago Tribune | March 1, 2006

A fully-stocked wet bar rests at one end of Jayson Thomas' living room, a working fireplace at the other.

His bedroom is across the hall from a full bathroom and his beloved music room, where Thomas spins records to entertain friends who are relaxing, socializing and enjoying cocktails.

It's a typical bachelor pad for a college-educated 30-year-old.

Except it's his parents' basement.

"When I have friends over, my [parents] don't come down," said Thomas, who has lived at home since graduating from Northern Illinois in 1998. "I'm pretty much free to do what I want down here."

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Thomas is among an estimated 4.3 million 25- to 34-year-olds (and 18.6 million 18- to 34-year-olds) living at home, a growing phenomenon of which Hollywood has taken notice.

"Free Ride," a sitcom about an unemployed college graduate who moves home with his parents, premieres at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday on Fox. Next week, "Failure To Launch"--starring Matthew McConaughey as a man in his mid-30s whose parents are desperate for him to move out--opens.

Thomas' parents are hardly desperate. They went house shopping while Jayson was in college and wouldn't consider homes that didn't have enough space and privacy for their only son.

They also have a daughter who lived at home for a year before she was married. But Thomas, who said he earns in the "high five figures" working for UPS, has no intention of leaving.

It makes sense financially, he said, and it helps that he has a wonderful relationship with his parents. Also, because his father works a night shift, his mother feels better knowing he's home.

It's an arrangement that works for everybody, including girlfriends who have spent the night, he said.

"If they felt awkward, they never expressed it to me," Thomas said. "If they ran into mom and dad it's 'Hey Mr. Thomas, hey Mrs. Thomas.'"

Not everybody understands it. He'll occasionally meet somebody who questions how he can be in his 30s and not want to be on his own.

"When folks say things like that I don't take offense to it," Thomas said. "Those who know me know I have my own reasons why I live at home. The lifestyle I live is affordable because I live at home. And the relationship that my folks and I have, I can't beat it."

Thomas pays for landscaping and a chimney sweep, but lives rent-free, doesn't pay for utilities and isn't asked to chip in for groceries. This allowed him to finish paying his college loans in 2004, build up his savings, and have enough money to indulge his interest in cars and travel. He owns four cars and takes several vacations a year.

While Thomas is happy, other young adults struggle with the idea of living under their parents' roof.

Brittany Spread, 24, enrolled at North Park College as a freshman and lived in a dorm before returning to live in the top floor of her parents' two-flat in Rogers Park for the final three years of school.

She graduated two years ago but still lives at home. She said her parents respect her privacy. But she knows the time is coming for her to move on. "I would say in the next year would probably be too long," Spread said. "I'll be 25, and it seems a little like, 'You're 24 and still not out of the house? Get in gear.'"

That's how John Harvey, 23, felt when he left his father's house in Wilmette last month. He had lived there since graduating from Indiana in August to save money while looking for full-time work.

Not having to pay rent helped, but it stripped him of his motivation to look for work, he said. "I didn't really have the drive to get a job because I wasn't paying for anything really," Harvey said. "It was kind of a wake-up call. Just get out of there and start living your life."

Harvey said he didn't like the stigma that came with living at home, and most of the time he was too embarrassed to tell women he lived at home. It wasn't much better at home, where having to live by his father's rules caused friction between them.

"We always go to church on Sunday," Harvey said. "So if I don't get up for church, he'd get mad. If I don't call on Saturday saying where I am, he'd get mad. I'm a little too old to be checked up on."

Setting ground rules both sides can live with is important, but it's just as important to set financial rules, said Dr. Mel Levine, a pediatrician and author of "Ready or Not, Here Life Comes." Spread, Harvey and Thomas have not paid rent, which Levine said is OK as long as their parents are not paying for their car insurance or giving them spending money.

"If you bankroll a kid, you start to take all incentive away from thinking about the future, from thinking about where you go from here," Levine said. "It's a real copout for the kids. Parents should not charge them rent, and I think you can feed them. And that's it."

That's how it is for Thomas, who defies the perception that kids who live at home are unmotivated. He's been promoted and four years ago won a national volunteer award from UPS. He plans to live at home until he gets married, and if that doesn't happen, no one in the house feels the need for a change.

"I think as an adult, I work as an adult, I make my own money and I'm able to travel," Thomas said. "And my mother and I can go to dinner and do movies."