Boundires and Adult Children

This is not so much about living in New York, but more about young adult children living with you. Of course this is compounded by the New York City sized apartment and the cost of living in the city. Last year after Jordan got back from her summer in Tokyo completing her BA at Temple University Tokyo, she moved in with us to decide what her next move would be in her foray into adulthood. Ten months and one unpaid internship at an animation studio later she has decided that she is heading to Austin, TX to get a job at Blizzard Studios (parent company of World of Warcraft for those in the know). First of all, Jordan is probably the least offensive house guest that you could ever have. And second of all I think having her here has made Cameron's to New York much easier. But... she has been sleeping on the fold-out couch for ten months. She is tired of pulling it out and folding it up each morning and I am tired of my livingroom being a bedroom. She has split her clothes between a small wicker dresser in Cameron's room and a rolling rack in my bedroom (I think the shoes are strewn between the two spaces). Jordan moved to Durango her freshman year and lived on her own for four years, so I know moving back home as been a struggle for her as well. She has a job at a boutique in Soho. One night she had to stay late to take inventory. It is a tiny boutique so we expected her home around 10:30 p.m. By midnight we were worried and she was not answering her cell phone. If she tells us that she is going out after work with friends we do not wait up because we have a general idea where she is heading in case she doesn't return home by midmorning. But in this case we thought we would hear from her to let us know she was on the subway headed home. We called the store at 12:30 a.m. and her manager said that they had just finished inventory and Jordan had left 10 mintues earlier. When Jordan got home we told her that her manager had told us she had finished around midnight. Jordan was livid (hmmm...I'm not sure Jordan and livid can be used in the same sentence but I am taking poetic license). But it's a perfect example of a parent not being able to go to sleep not knowing where there child is and how an adult child who is at work does not even consider the need to call their parents to tell them that their work is running late. Hunter on the other hand is more in the gray zone. He spent a year between working in Zion National Park and working his way through Europe. Ane he has been living on his own this past year in Denver going to college. Becasue of his indpendence I was surprised when he landed back in our apartment this June ready to lay on the couch for a lazy summer. I don't think he reads my blog or he would have realized that not working is not an option when I am working two jobs. At our urging he did quickly land a job at Argo Tea as a barista, although he grouses about tomorrow's shift endlessly the evening before. I'm not sure how he thought taking a good chunk of the summer off and having spending money in New York City would reconcile itself but some heated arguements transpired before he starting applying for work. From my own experience working at "un-named retailer", having a job in the city allows for a unique vantage point seeing New Yorkers as coworkers and customers, always making for an entertaining story at the end of the day. He will go back to Denver with a much richer view of the city as a participant in the flow of the commerce and much richer in his bank account that would have surely been quickly depleted if he had not joined in the work-a-day world. Cameron, at fourteen, still has a free pass, although if anyone reading this is looking for a babysitter she is available! And at what point do you stop paying for your young adult's entertainment and eating out? We don't eat out every day, but in NYC it is much more common to eat out than probably anywhere else in the country, so should I foot the bill for their slice of pizza or take-out Chinese? When we go the beach should I pay for their $35 train ticket and lunch on the boardwalk? When everyone is headed out to work should I offer my metro card at $2.25 per ride? and when we are making a late night run to Insomniac Cookies do I offer my debit card to cover cookies for all? Although we live in a vacation destination we are not on vacation. And no one that I know has a vacation budget 365 days of the year. At what point do you tell your adult children that just because they are living at home they are no longer a dependant child? In three a week when Jordan moves to Austin and Hunter is back to his life in Denver, all of this will be a moot point, but until then the bank account is still hemorraging.