Times have changed. I also left home at 17 and had absolutely no plan to return to my parents home and never did. However, rent here is very expensive and rental properties are hard to find. Buying property is out of reach for most young people. I therefore understand why people live at home for longer.
Also, I don’t think young people have the need or motivation to move out young. Their family home is often bigger with more space for people to have privacy. For instance, my children had their own room, their own television, computers. We also have our own space to retreat to. Very different from the circumstances when I was growing up.
In saying that, all of my three children have all left home. They are all very independent although they didn’t all leave in the same way. My two oldest daughters left voluntarily to share houses with friends. After a few years, one returned for a brief period while trying to find another rental place on her own rather than a shared place, and she has since moved out again. My middle child is moving back next week for a while, again to give her the freedom to find another rental place on her own. I know this won’t be a permanent situation. I will miss her, as I did her sister, when she moves out. In contrast, my son was required to leave home after he didn’t find a job for a long period of time and behaved in a way that was totally out of order. He was told to leave. I hated doing this but I felt it was the only way to force him to be more self-sufficient. He agrees our actions were right thing for us and him and well deserved. Within weeks (he moved in with his sister for the short term and we helped her out financially although he doesn’t know that) he had a job and a shared house to live in.
I would not be happy and would not stand for my children living at home and not working. This isn’t a dosshouse. I don’t think it does them any service in the long run. I am happy to let them stay here, as long as they are contributing in some way to the household, but not to take advantage of us. In the long term, if we support them when they could be supporting themselves, we aren’t managing our own finances well. In time we will retire and the better we have been able to plan for that process and our future needs, the less financial impact that will have on our children. So, in the long term it makes sense for them to not bludge off us for too long or we will be bludging right back in the future.