Living At Home In Your 20s: 4 Of The All-Too-Real Struggles

You’ve had your picture taken in the cap and gown, been handed your piece of paper and now it’s time take your first steps in the big bad adult world. Unfortunately, between an Irish housing crisis and the struggle to find a job without emigrating, substantial amounts of graduates don’t have much choice but to return to the nest. Although it is actually really sound of your folks to let you live under their roof, eat for free and maintain what is, in fairness, a pretty cushy living, there are still a number of struggles that come with being the grown up where you grew up…

1. The post-sesh interrogation

It’s a Saturday night. “I’ll head for one” has long since turned into a fourth round of shots and the next thing you know you are putting your key in the front door as the sun is starting to rise. In college, this wasn’t a strange occurrence and you could retire to your room to bask in your hangover in peace.

Enter the Irish Mammy.

“Where were you? Who were you with? Did you meet any nice boys/girls? What were you drinking? I thought you were only going for one?” This interest may come from a place of love, but there is nothing to rattle the next day fear such as trying to remember details from your night out that are PG enough to share with your mother. Mammy I love you, but can I not just die-off in peace? Please?

2. So long dating life, we hardly knew yee

You’ve spent the last few years with your own place. You were free to see or date whomever you wish without question. Likewise, invite your “friend” back for “coffee” without the care of your housemates. Well, your new roomies are likely to take much more of an interest in your dating habits. You might get away with seeing an unnamed “friend” for a while, but, like the session, new love interests are also a trigger for interrogation. Never mind the fact parents can’t seem to wrap their heads around the “casual” dating scene that is common among millennials, but also there is actually nothing less sexy than having to tell a potential love interest “Soz, I can’t tonight my parents are at home.”

3. The “Clean Room” Fear

This one is going to make me sound like a brat. I appreciate coming home to a clean room down to the ground. However, I know my next greeting isn’t going to be “Hi how was your day?” It’s going to be five stern little words that signal the initiation of a lecture. “Did you see your room?”

Okay so there was a few shirts on the floor… and one or two or ten plates… and a bat in the corner… “ALRIGHT MAM! Your argument is completely valid but leave me alone all the same!” “You shouldn’t have cleaned it Mam, I was literally just about to!”

(Disclaimer: I do in fact keep a tidy room but let’s be honest, there’s “busy student” tidy and then there’s “Mammy” tidy.)

4. Pri-vac-y? Is she a singer?

Now that you’re back at home, you are living in a constant state of vulnerability. Privacy goes out the window as your family members have never heard of knocking. Gossiping on the phone with your friend. Having a bath, getting dressed whatever we do in our time are all now activities that can be interrupted at any time. This is Momma’s house after all – and she don’t knock in her own home. Dishwasher needing to be emptied? Ironing to be done? Chores that need seeing to get the 2012 apocalypse treatment and whatever you are doing must be dropped immediately. I swear emptying the dryer was never this urgent in college…

However, when all is said and done, living at home means living in fully furnished, fully amended, responsibility free environment and surrounded by people that genuinely care about you. Okay so it isn’t 100% ideal but it is actually a complete blessing for now. Don’t forget, your parents are paying a mortgage too, and letting you crash without too much contribution to their bills is actually really sound.