Something has gone terribly wrong in our culture in the past decade or so.  You love them, feed, clothe and shelter them, and teach them the way they should GO (Proverbs 22:6).  But they come back.  Maybe we aren’t teaching them as well as we thought.  This might describe your adult-age kids or you might need to read this to prevent this from describing your kids when they become adult-age.  They have been referred to as the Boomerang Generation because they leave only to come back against your true will.  I’m not even at this stage in life as a parent yet, but I have counseled dozens of people who are.  Therefore I have seen what works and doesn’t work with regards to the boomerang situation, and I have hopes and plans for how I will manage it when my kids are grown.  The ultimate goal is to raise kids that come back to visit but not move in.

Notice I said they come back against your “true” will.  We’re parents.  We don’t want to reject our children and kick them to the curb during a time of need, but it also isn’t our will to have them back in the house after we thought they were gone.  Our true will is for them to stand on their own feet and become productive citizens.

I’m using the word “we” quite loosely because the fact of the matter is most of the time there isn’t much “we” in the decision making process for how to treat the boomerang child.  Often one spouse is in favor of allowing the boomerang child to move back in and the other is not so much in agreement.  This issue can cause SERIOUS frustration in the marriage of the parents and SERIOUS strain on their finances.  Not to mention if the boomerang child is married the SERIOUSNESS is amplified by a lot.  Yes – this is a problem that is out of control because parents don’t know what to do.

I’ve read some good simple advice that says to do three basic things: Establish a Time Limit, Set Financial Boundaries, Respect Privacy.  Those are very good generalities, but I’ve met with countless parents who know those basic things but have a very skewed perception on how to define them in their situation.  For example – a single mom with an average income, a significant debt-load, no retirement savings, and barely living paycheck to paycheck SHOULD NOT be paying ALL the bills and feeding her boomerang daughter – along with her boyfriend and their baby – so that they can use the money they earn at their job only to pay for their fun.  Yes – I’ve counseled that person.

Let’s face it.  For most people the bottom line problem with an adult child moving back home is the financial implication.  Yes – their personal development, everyones privacy, and your sanity are all very important too.  But I’d venture to say the only reason they come back is money.  They either haven’t figured out how to earn some or they haven’t figured out how to manage it.  So here are my more detailed additions to the suggestions of what your expectations might be to be perfectly fair while challenging and encouraging the boomerangers to become independent adults:

Establish A Time Limit:

Set Financial Boundaries:

• Help pay SOME bills.  Limit the “some”.
• Do not put more effort into improving their situation than they are willing to put in their self.
• Do not pay for their entertainment if they cannot pay for their own cell phone.  This is a pet peeve of mine you can read about it here.
• If the boomeranger has no job and cannot pay for anything with money require them to earn what they get by doing work around the house.

Respect Privacy:

• Be respectful of the boomeranger’s privacy to the extent that they respect yours.
• Be quiet when they’re on the phone and expect the same, share dinner prep and cleanup responsibility, etc.
• Give them alone time and expect the same.
• Leave their stuff alone and expect the same.
• But if they’re spending YOUR money you deserve to know what they are doing with theirs.  When they move out of your house they can have their full privacy back.

I’m sure there is more we could add to these guidelines especially based on everyones unique circumstances.  What suggestions could you add?

A blog I enjoy reading regularly has a good related article –  Helping vs. Enabling

Remember that show from years ago called “Married With Children“?  Al and Peg and their two unruly teenage kids seem to have a miserably happy existence as a family.  It seems like they never left that living room and everything that happened was a picture painted with their crazy words so that you imagined how it went down.  Thinking back on that show if there is anything I could admire about it I think it would be that Al and Peg never really seemed shocked by the crazy things their kids did (or at least talked about doing), and nothing was ever taken too seriously.  Fellow parents let’s just admit – we’d all like to have a little bit of “whatever” attitude when it comes to having kids.

Now that I have kids I am more and more fully aware of the implications suggested by the title of that show – “Married With Children”.  Because being married is one thing, but having children is a whole-notha-thing and it can be crazy.  I think being married with money could be depicted in similar fashion.  I think we could make a new show titled “Married With Money” and portray a crazy middle class family like the Bundy family doing ridiculous stuff (or at least talking about what happened) with their money.  I’m sure there were moments of money issues depicted in “Married With Children” but I don’t remember specific episodes like that.

As funny as a show like that could be I think it would still be important to portray the husband and wife as light-hearted about it all.  I mean we should take managing money seriously, but crazy things are going to happen and we’re all going to make mistakes.  What we could learn from the Bundy family is to just take it in stride and keep moving forward.  That’s what kept Al and Peg together all those years…

What if there was a show ALL ABOUT the ridiculous money-related issues middle class families have today?  How would those story lines go?

As a married couple with different schedules, different habits, different priorities and responsibilities it can be very difficult to come together on the things that should be shared such as the family schedule, habits, priorities, responsibilities.  I know my wife and I experience this when it comes to doing our finances together.

When we made our financial turnaround and became serious about working together we did everything together – planned the budget, paid the bills, reconciled accounts, etc.  It wasn’t easy and there was conflict between us during the process.  But we did it anyway because it was the only way we could learn to make it work.  It would have been very easy for frustration to overcome us and cause us to go back to the old way, which was doing our own thing and wondering why it wasn’t working overall.

After a while of working on everything so diligently we didn’t have to do every single activity together any more.  Over time Shawna gained confidence that I was going to allow fun in the budget (because I’m the saver) and I became confident that Shawna was going to do everything she could to control the discretionary categories like groceries, dining out, clothing, and entertainment (because she’s the spender).  We still talk about the day-to-day money management but I do most of the details because it is more of my strong suit.  Now the only time we actually sit down to work through something together is when a new decision has to be made or a new concern has come up, or even better, when a milestone is being reached.

Shawna and I are about to sit down and do something financial together that we’ve been waiting for a very long time…

How is WORKING TOGETHER on the finances going in your marriage?  Don’t get frustrated and give up.  It takes time and diligence to get it.