http://www.newsday.com/long-island/economy-forces-grads-to-return-to-parents-home-1.1465828
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MICHAEL HEATON:
Every weekday, Michael Heaton, 21, sips coffee brewed by his mother, then makes the three-hour, 140-mile round trip commute to work in White Plains. He comes home for a dinner prepared by his mother.
She also does his laundry and picks up his dry cleaning.
Heaton is a success story. He’d earned so many advanced-placement credits in high school that he graduated from Manhattan College as an economics major in three years. He found a job as a payroll supervisor in a home health care agency in White Plains at what he calls a “competitive” salary.
He looked for an apartment in or near Westchester, yet balked at paying a third or more of his income in rent. He moved in with his parents in Smithtown, near his alma mater, Smithtown West High School.
Because of his long hours, he says, he hasn’t been able to help more with household chores.
“I’m spoiled,” he acknowledged. “But this situation is very different from the independence I imagined.”
Heaton’s mother, Grace, a full-time homemaker, said she realized that others might find it strange that she does the laundry for a 6-foot- 5-inch adult son who has a job. ”I’m calibrating my parental involvement,” she said. “Since I’m doing the laundry for the rest of the household, it’s just a little more work.
“If he didn’t have a job, he’d definitely be doing more around the house,” she said.
Having lived with two grown daughters in her house, Atwood has succinct advice for someone who has a job and moves back in with parents: “He needs to figure out a way to get another place to live, so that he’s not infantilized.”
She’s seen that happen to young men, especially.
“It’s difficult for a boy to feel like a man if he has mommy folding his wash,” she said. If housing is too costly, she added, the family could try to carve out an apartment or other walled-off living quarters for someone who has returned.
“And that means cooking his own meals and doing his own laundry,” she said.
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Heaton, Michael [MC????]
[JR: Tough times out there. And, I remember back in the dark ages that you Catholic boys and girls were EXPECTED to live at home UNTIL they got married. Maybe it's just common sense to do this?]
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