So, as some of you know already, I moved out of my parent's house last weekend, into a new place. Somewhere new, somewhere exciting, somewhere that I won't have to see my mum everyday. It's taken me well over a year since I returned from Uni to flee, and I really have no idea how I managed to cope, if indeed I did. I think I'm still the same, but it's always hard for someone to accurately assess themself. The reason I left is basically my mother. Like all mum's she can be nice and also a pain in the arse, sometimes at the same time. Unfortunately for me, she was mostly a pain in the arse. The reason I stayed so long was money. I didn't have any. Since I've started working regularly, I've been constantly weighing up whether the cost of living would exceed the price of state of mind, and finally, after 6 months of work, the answer is yes. It is worth the (relatively cheap for rented accomodation) price for being able to do the things that I couldn't do before. Or I hope it will be, it's possible that it's too early to tell. But what is the physical price of piece of mind? I have no idea how I did my calculations, but I think I've found out what it is. Would the rest of you be able to calculate it for yourselves?
Don't look at me I left home to go to uni... Different system here... basically it meant I moved out lock stock and two smoking barrels forever at the grand ol' age of 18... Boy did I screw up plenty of times but I wouldn't trade the experience for the security of home any day... People who finish uni still living at home are pansies in my vernacular (happens quite a lot here)... Mums are all very well and good, you'll always love your mum but there comes a time when a mum is great from a long way away BTW whens the house warming... I'm sure I can make it if you give me enough notice. I'll bring a very small house warming gift and lots of booze for me to enjoy
Hm... I don't know enough about you to make any bets, but I know an awful lot of cases - myself included *-where the parent-offspring-relationship improved remarkably within months after the offspring left the nest. Sometimes its just time to go, and both sides feel it, sometimes without being aware what's the reason for the growing tension -and sometimes they go awfully on each others nerves. Going then is worth its prize, and that doesn't say anything about wether the parents invlved are good or bad at all. *The whole year before graduating from school, it felt like the roof was falling on my head any moment. We got on each others nerves. And strangely, while in all those years before my parents were proud to say i was pretty independant and wouldn't end up living at my parents at the age of 31, suddenly they knew pragmatic, and economical reasons to live at home while studying. I moved out after school. Who knows, i may have finished ny degree by now due to having had to work to be able to pay my rent, and I may have saved a lot of money. Still, it was just the time to go.
After I lived on my own during Uni, living at home didn't work. While my parents are very easy going, it felt like it was a step backwards. Now, my parents would worry/get anoyed if I stayed out without telling them, dispite the fact that for the past 3 years they'd only ever hear from me every few weeks. Little things like that. Though, living at home did have it's perks. Becuase I was the only son at home Mum was happer to do my bidding. My Dad loved it, for him, my moving out was a big deal. I'm the youngest and the last to leave (though technically I was teh first to leave-to go to uni, I came back-then they all left). I moved out not becuase i was unhappy there but becuase I realised that living with my friends would be more fun than living with my parents. I think I get on better with my parents now i'm out of the house. Now, I want to speak to my mother* and when I go home I like going for a drink with Dad. Absence, makes the heart grow fonder. And think of all the cool parties....well, all the parties.... can invite some friends ov- invite A frien- a girl... ... think of all the cheap aging whores you can have! * Although, becuase I'm the only one do does call I tend to get all teh abuse. Mum: Your brother hasn't been home for days! Me: Oh ok. Mum:There is he? Me: Um, Dunnno. probably round his mates Mum: He should call, why hasn't he called Me: I dunno mum. If I was Him I could answer your questions, but I'm not so i can't.
Not quite at that stage yet though I know I will *have* to move out. Lock, stock and barrel as spiky so aptly put it. I will have to leave home simply because living my parents would mean interesting arguments with embassies over visas (a student visa? and dependants visa? no an 'I want to stay with mummy and daddy visa please!') plus, they move so much I wouldn’t be able to keep up. Financially they have agreed to support me through school (rent, basic necessities, tuition, etc.) and after that it’s up to me. That’s how it is with my brother anyway. In his case I think moving out was a bit of a shock, he had gone from multi-cultural, international, third-culture kid life (in other words, spoilt rotten) to life to Uni where he had to rely on himself and no one was checking up on him. I think where you stay does have a significant influence on the way you act. It’s probably got you thinking ‘oh I have to get back by 1 for lunch or otherwise phone and say I can’t make it’ instead of ‘who gives a stuff’. I guess it will make you more aware of your personal space than before, ‘hey look, I can walk around in my underwear and all I have to worry about is closing the curtains first’ Plus mental stability comes into the picture with parents, ‘who’s behind me? Your stalking me now aren’t you!?’ So I think the advantages of mental stability definitely outweigh the price of living alone…then again, I haven’t looked into rent prices or anything so I may be wrong. In my case it’s either live alone or with my grandparents…which I had to do for 3 weeks once, that was enough. Never again. I’m sure my parents would rather loan me money to rent a flat than leave me there! It would drive me and my Gran up the wall and my mum would have to sit and listen to all the complaints .
Well I left home at 18 for uni, came back home for holidays (they kicked us out of accomodation at the time) afterwards while I looked for a job and... didn't get a (proper) job until 9 months later. If you look back at some of my posts in august/september last year, I was expection to move out pretty quickly. My mum didn't want me to go. Excessively so. When I first told her she cried a bit and tried to make me stay. I wasn't having it, she then said, "You're just doing this to get at me." which just made me want to go even more. My relationship with my mum is complex and not really something that really talk about, except with my siblings, who obviously know the score already. I would hope that our relationship would improve markedly, but I don't think it will much. My precedent is my brother, who still doesn't enjoy visiting her that much, despite having left home for about 6 years now. As a parent, my mum isn't bad. She's raised me to be fairly balanced and encouraged me to be intelligent or whatever. As a person to live with though, it can be hard. Obviously a bit different for me, as I'm going to live with people I don't know, rather than friends. I'll still see my dad at football, probably have a drink before the game. No different to now. I'll pop round the house occasionally (I still have my key...) The housewarming party is whenever you bring the booze No comment.
I haven't even moved out yet and my mom is going insane. She works at the school during the day and I go to college classes and work in the evenings so she complains that I don't talk to her anymore and she throws tantrums about it. Her mother calls her everyday and she throws a fit about it but I have a feeling when I move out it will be me getting the daily phonecalls.
I only knew one of the people I was living with the other was his friend who I'd never met. Still, your likely to have something in common with a friend of a friend. Luckly, we all get on great. What are the people you live with like?
My dad did the same. While in a drunken moan he said that 'I loved my friends more than him and thats why I was leaving with him.' After that Mum had *words* with him and his moans when from ' I don't what you to leave' to 'I won't want you to leave, but I know you have to.' It really upset him when I leaft. But what can you do, you can't stay somewhere just to please other people.
One guys a bit reclusive (but he probably thinks the same of me), but he seems alright, haven't really chatted with him yet. The other room is taken up a newly married couple. The guy's a talker, but he seems a nice guy. He can tell when I'm joking, which is a bonus given the sarcastic nature of some of my jokes. His wife's nice too, quieter though but still nice. Of course, I've only known them all for two days.
The reclusive guy will end up one of your best friends, probably. I know that happened to me. Even though I moved to a different country I still talk to my old roommate a lot. Hope you enjoy your new house. You need to have at least one big party where the police show up... around 11 pm...
I went away at age 18 for college and even though I came back home when it didn't work out for me, I never felt truly comfortable or "at home" there again. There were always so many strings attached, so many expectations that I tried to fullfil. I had a hard time finding my way to living the life I wanted to live. I didn't really leave home until age 27 when I moved into an apartment with my now husband 5 months before the wedding. I'd been staying with my grandma in town during my work week and driving out to the farm on my days off, not the first time I'd done that and I wasn't the only family member who had taken shelter at grandma's house. She had a dormitory in the basement, one summer I shared it with my Uncle Joe, Aunt Judy,and their kids Billy, Jody, and Angela, I was touched to come home from work to find Grandma and Aunt Clare had put up a wall for my corner of the basement. Grandma did a lot for me that I never knew until much later. Besides always getting us several gifts at Christmas she also gave my folks cash to buy their gifts to us, no wonder Christmas was always better then I ever thought it was going to be. My folks have done much more for me and all my siblings since we moved out then they were ever able to do for us when we were children. They even care for their great grandson a couple of days a week. This is the strongest reason I know for not having children too soon. They also came to my rescue last year when they put up some of their life savings to secure the loan for my present home. I will always be beholden to my folks, and hopefully, always grateful.
Congrats, Electric Man ! Deep breath now, smell that newly-found freedom... I hope your Mum feels better about your moving out - some folks find out they actually LIKE having the little buggers (erm, children!) out of the house for a change! I also had to move back home after college, since it was hard to tell which sucked more at the time: the job market or my resume. My parents were extremely supportive, but I agree with Hsing - grown-up children at home just make for an awkward set-up, that neither side can easily diagnose or even admit to feeling badly about. (I was trying to hold on to my up-until-3am college schedule... my parents were worried about both my health and their sanity, especially when I was out somewhere late at night). I ended up skipping the whole roommate routine, though - since none of my friends lived locally, I got an apartment by myself. It eats up most of my salary . (But at least I can take care of other people's pets and have no one but myself to blame, when it comes to housekeeping!)
We don't have much of that on campus college thing here... when you go to uni you leave home, get a job and never go back again... you're on your own and paying for uni. Ahh the flatmate stories I could tell... my current flatmate is a social retard, who didn't say 1 word to me the first month we lived together... the only thing we do talk about is Australian Idol. Like I said retard. His cleanliness leaves a lot to be desired, he opens the raw meat packet, leaves it on the bench for 2 days and then won't wipe the bench after he's finally thrown it out... :evil: :evil: :evil: Although I am going to the wedding of a former housemate...just because we didn't talk for the last 3 years and she annoyed the crap out of me doesn't mean I'm going to turn down the chance to drink lots of free booze on her... Lessee it took me 27 years to turn up to England the first time...how many years will it take to get alcohol to EM's place this time??
Way to go Ben. I didn't know you'd moved out. It's always nice to know i've a place to stay if i wake up in a kebab shop back entrance in wycombe. The two people I live with are very different. Ones an alcoholic, well drinks a lot anyway, but is salt of the earth while his girlfriend is a stuck up student who shouts if I leave a sock in the living room. And not even a six month old sock. Strangly it's the girl who was my friend first. Because of the little bit of tension, it's MY Sky, I am currently in the midst of getting a mortage and moving out. As for the mother thing. I get on with my mum really really well, I know I could go back there at anytime if I needed to. She's always been there for me and I hope i've always been there for her too, if she's needed someones washing to do.
This is true. And there even paying there half of the bills too. I just wish they'd understand the saying, IT'S MY SKY!!
Put a PIN lock on the channels, so only you can access it! or punch her in the face next time she touches the remote, while screaming 'It's my sky you stupid, pug faced, whore, touch it a again and i'll make you eat your own fist!'. It's the only way she'll learn.
This is something I haven't tried. I thought the anal gratings in the cornflakes would work or the abduction of her pet toe but yet she still seems determined to watch damn american kids and teen shows on all those stupid channels. I mean, IT'S MY DAMN SKY!
I technically moved out of home at 18, as soon as I'd finished my exams. However, since we were also going into familial and financial meltdown at the time, and I was moving from London back to Hastings, I was actually living in a flat belonging to my Grandad, paying a nominal rent, and trying to convince my work (where I had a 'casual' clerical job - sometimes full-time, sometimes part-time) to employ me full-time. I remember that first month very well. I had £10 from my mum to buy a work wardrobe with, and £10 for a fortnight's food (which is not much, given food prices in the UK), followed by another £10 two weeks later. I had virtually no friends, due to moving about for my parents' work in previous years, and was desperately lonely. It sucked for a while, but I had taken my first steps towards freedom. After the first night, which I realised was the first night I'd spent alone in my entire life, I got used to doing things my way. My flat gradually filled up with furniture, I started building a social network again, I was getting more work hours and things were looking good. Then, my father did some stupid things that caused my family to lose their house; with various sisters dispersed in different university digs, my parents moved into a one-bedroom flat in seedy St Leonards, and my little sister moved in with me. I then asked my work to give me a full-time job, so I could support my sister, or else I would look for a job elsewhere (wish I'd gone ahead and done just that, looking back). My boss agreed, and I became a twenty-year-old worker supporting a dependent on £10,000 pa, a successful person's wage in Hastings, but still pretty lacking in general terms. I couldn't have done it without my Grandad's willingness to house us and to pay our bills. Without Grandad, I would probably have been homeless and sleeping on people's sofas from the age of 18, and so would my little sister. With the prospect of the twins' college situations changing, my parents then managed to bag a mortgage and buy a second flat. Little sister and I were shunted into that place, and the twins moved into Grandadly rent-free accommodation. I wasn't sorry, since my grandparents were very intrusive landlords, but we now had to pay higher rent, in order to cover the mortgage payments. After this, I moved back into Grandad's flat, but I'm buggered if I can remember why now. I was being shuffled around constantly, depending upon whatever plan my mother had concocted most recently for how we would all be housed and happy. Most of these moves took place with slightly less than a year between. I may even have got a couple of them out of order. Then, my parents' marriage broke down, and my mum asked me to move in with her to help pay the bills, while Dad moved in with my little sister. (By now, I had had to condense my sparse flat-full of belongings into half a room, and my mother started telling me I owned too much stuff.) This worked reasonably well, until it transpired that little sister was desparately unhappy living with Dad, and had to be moved into the Grandad-flat, already occupied by the twins. At this point, my older sister started making noises about how it was unfair that she had to live in a rented room while we all got free accommodation with parents. I was considering bitching her out and suggesting we swap so I could get my independence back when circumstances changed again. First, my mother got a new boyfriend and decided to move into his house; this more or less coincided with Garner's and my decision to get married, and for him to move to England. Therefore, to help with the costs of transporting a person between countries and then staying alive until he could get a job, Mum said we could live in her flat rent-free. So, while waiting for Garner to get over here, I finally had a place to myself once more. It was bliss. I could eat what I wanted, when I wanted; I could stay up till 4am talking online without disturbing anyone else; I could chill out in my pyjamas all day, if I felt like it; if the washing-up got ignored for two weeks, no one bitched at me. Heaven. (Meanwhile, ongoing problems at my job came to a head, and I resigned, just ahead of getting fired. I then got my current job, paying less money, but providing much more happiness, stability and prospects.) After Garner moved over, we lived in Mum's flat until it became apparent that her husband's illness was going to become terminal; she would have to move out of his house and back into her own flat. So my dad agreed to move out of his flat and in with his girlfriend, and Garner and I moved into Dad's flat. It was too small for the two of us and all our stuff, and Dad started making noises about wanting to sell it even before we'd moved in. So, a month after Garner finally managed to get a job, we moved again, into the house we're currently renting. Including all the times we moved house before I was eighteen, I've moved eight times in ten years. We still haven't finished unpacking in our new house, despite having been there for over six months; I can't quite believe we won't have to pack up and move again soon. If you couldn't be bothered to read all that, here's my conclusion! I tried to move out early on, but moved back in to help my mum financially, rather than for her to help me. So I don't think I was really being a pansy - although I guess Spiky was thinking of people who stay at home through lack of motivation. Living on your own has many difficulties and many rewards; living with other people but independent of your family mainly has rewards. Good luck with dealing with your mum, Ben! And good luck with your dad, Rinso!
Things are cool with father dear now. He's still gutted that everyone has moved out, but this had to happen sooner or later. Now, I get the occasional drunken phone call, and mother gets the much more frequent drunken roaming around the house saying 'where are my boys'.
Eight times! That's how often I moved in my entire life. Wow. Seeing how many stuff gets lost on movings, its a miracle you still have anything at all to fill your house, which will hopefully provide happiness and shelter for a little longer than a few months.
Let see I've never worked out how often I've moved: Wagga-brothers in sydeny Brothers-aunts aunts-student accommadtion in Greenwich Creenwich-Pymble Pymble-North Sydney North Sydney - Balmain Balmain- Borneo Borneo-Penang Penang-Balmain Balmain-Stanmore Stanmore-Wagga Wagga-Canberra (Kingston) Kingston-Braddon So that makes 13 times in 9 years... No wonder I don't have 1 complete set of crockery or glasses... When I say pansy I'm reffering to the people (quite a lot in Aus) who go to uni near there house and who decide its cheaper and easier to stay at home, rent free, and still moan about not having enough money to go out... the poor dears :roll:
HEY!!!!! Pansy I may have been for spending 3 (out of 4) years commuting to college from home, but when all your money goes to pay for gasoline, train tickets, books, paints, film, photo paper etc - why is it that artists, who traditionally earn LESS than everyone else, have to pay MORE for their school supplies? - then yeah, pretty soon you'll be crying next to the ATM machine, because it won't give out an amount smaller than $5.00 and your total balance is $3.79. GRRRR! :evil: Mowgli ANGRY!
