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January 23, 2005

Sure, Come Back to the Nest. Here Are the Rules.

Lauren Zieja, a store security manager in Pompton Lakes, N.J., lives where she always has: with Mom and Dad. They don't ask her to pay rent, for groceries or any other household expenses. Therefore, Ms. Zieja, 28, socks away $600 to $1,000 a month toward an eventual departure from the roost. Last year, she sprang a nice surprise on her parents: a hot tub. "It's certainly nothing we asked for," said her mother, Clarice Zieja, 54. "It was her way of saying, 'Thanks, Mom and Dad.' "

The Ziejas are hardly alone in having offspring living in the family home well into post-collegiate adulthood. The Census Bureau says 50 percent of all 18-to-24-year-olds were living at home in 2003; for 18-to-34-year-olds, it was 27 percent. Chubb Insurance says it has noticed an 11 percent increase in the number of 21- to 25-year-olds on parents' auto insurance policies in the past two years. Many factors may be at play, including what many experts call post-9/11 insecurities - as well as parents' compassion for children who may be recovering from the breakup of a romance. But many people say the main reasons for the growing numbers are economic. In some cases, the returning offspring, sometimes called boomerangers, may be struggling to pay off college loans or having trouble finding jobs that can cover housing costs. And their parents are often at the peak of their own earning power and can afford to take them back in.

"My parents want me to be set for the long run, which is why they're helping me now," said Nicole Dahman, who is living with her parents in Louisville as she pays off debts from four years at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. "If they were just pushing me out on my own already, that would hinder my opportunities." The best of these parent-child relationships are built on some financial rules, or at least on some expectations, that encourage responsibility: A child who is unemployed must try to find work. One who has college debts must strive to pay them off. A graduate student has to hit the books hard. Gainfully employed children should pay rent - or some amount for parents to set aside for them - or invest for their own future.

"Lots of parents want to look the other way," said Doug Charney, a senior vice president of the Charney Investment Group of Wachovia Securities in Harrisburg, Pa. If that happens, he said, children don't build self-discipline or learn responsibility. In the Hlebiczki family, of Fort Thomas, Ky., Louis, 26, Elena, 24, and Nadia, 22, all live with their parents and two younger sisters. While one older sister works full time as a marketing assistant and the other teaches high school math, Louis is finishing a business management degree at Northern Kentucky University. He is also working three part-time jobs.

For a time, Mr. Hlebiczki was the only sibling who paid rent, at $750 a summer - imposed whenever he wasn't in school mainly as an incentive for him to stick with his classes. His parents, Louis and Helen, put that money into an account to help him finish college. He also says he contributes to his church, to the Special Olympics and to other charities. "I hear from my friends who are out on their own who aren't keeping up with their own financial expectations," he said. "I don't have to deal with that, and it's a nice advantage." For the Hlebiczkis, having so much grown-up humanity in just 2,000 square feet of space can become complicated. For example, the younger Louis ends up subsidizing his teenage sister's allowance through a bookkeeping arrangement created by his father, an industrial engineer, to ensure equitable responsibility for a broadband Internet connection. And parking logistics are difficult for the family's six vehicles.

Courtney Witter, 28, came home to Seargentsville, N.J., two years ago - broke and fighting lupus, an autoimmune disease, after living and working in New Zealand for five years. Her financial obligations are largely restricted to payments of $250 a month for her health insurance and $300 a month for her car. She has also saved about $2,000 toward the $6,000 or so she figures she needs to get her own apartment, maybe next year. With her immune condition stabilized, Ms. Witter is working for her father's industrial marketing and publishing company. "I like to think I give him a cut rate in pay because he pays the rent for me," said Ms. Witter, who has a psychology degree from Connecticut College. "And I try to contribute financially in my own way with groceries and being generous with gifts. But my parents love having me here, especially after seeing me only three times in five years." Her father, Andrew Witter, agreed. "Every now and then, Courtney will make mention of how much she appreciates it," said Mr. Witter, 60. "If I never heard it, I'd probably bring that up sometimes."

More and more marketers, in fact, are trying to figure out how they can avoid such sensitivities while also tapping into the significant disposable income enjoyed by some adult children who live with their parents. They're maneuvering toward targets like Shannon Doung, 25, an ad agency representative who was living at home with her mother in Redwood Shores, Calif., last May when she decided to spend $3,000 on a three-week vacation in Greece.

Marketers have already broken the code in Japan, where the boomeranger trend is older. "The Japanese kids in their 20's and 30's that live at home are the ones with the big plasma TV's in their rooms and the top-of-the-line cars," said David Morrison, president of TWENTYSOMETHING Inc., a young adult marketing consultancy based in Philadelphia. Mr. Morrison and others said young American adults would keep boomeranging, even in a recovering economy. "The expectation is already filtering down to the high-school level," he said. "They've seen neighbors or siblings do it, and they've seen that everybody makes it."

Abbreviated Version
© 2005 The New York Times