Living with Parents vs. Living Alone

whatsinaname

whatsinaname

Skilled
So this topic came up the other day over lunch with friends. A few said they prefer living in a joint family/with parents to living alone and would go back if their job allowed it. Personally, I moved out for college and have been living separately since then and I quite like it. (Even though I have a very close relationship with my parents, I prefer my privacy.)

What do most of you do? Are you living alone because of job/college but prefer to live with family or do you live at home and want your own place?
 
I been living alone for only 1.5 years+ .... but given a chance and opportunity.. I would go back home and live with my parents. See they wont move from my hometown. :D. Only short visits.

I love being taken care of and love living irresponsibly. But alas.. life.. :(. On top of that... They want me to get married asap.:scared14::dead::dead:. Even looking for girls. Yup, none of my girlfriends ever thght of me as marriage material. Sad but true they are. :yahoo:
 
Living in a joint family, and I quite love it. There are always advantages in living in a joint family. None of them interfere in my privacy, so it's not a problem at all.
 
I have been living with a room-mate since the last 4+ years and it's been fun. I do miss my parents but I guess I've learnt to live separately. I've been in the hostel since the grad. days (June 2004 until May 2008) and the first semester was a complete disaster since I was badly pampered by my parents until I left home for graduation. And then one fine day I find myself in the hostel with a bunch of unknown guys from unknown backgrounds who would later on become my close friends. I suffered from homesickness and used to weep over phone calls. It may look a bit childish/girlish but that was me and that's past now. :ashamed:

Staying with parents and working is a good thing indeed. When we have started working, most parents have a few more years before they retire. Good home-made maa ke haath ka khaana and all that but then again some of them may feel that their parents are over-reacting to some occasions. For instance, if you were to return back home late (getting stuck in the traffic, owing to work or say a farewell party), they may get tensed. Or if you catch a small cold and/or sneeze after the morning shower, they may get over cautious and hand you a lot of advice! Some of us tend to get annoyed at times. Then again, some parents do whereas some do not. That's probably because they are our parents after all. That's one side of the story. Now parents tend to miss us a lot (well almost all of them do if you stay separately no matter how many children they have). In my case, I make it a point to visit home for a week once every four months and they visit me once every year. We keep in touch over phone calls and e-mails.

Anyhow, I prefer to live separately since my parents can take care of each other. But then I do get constant fears of some emergency that may happen and there's no one else to take care of them other than us. Specifically when the close relatives are not around. It is going to be the same after getting married.

PS: A very good topic for discussion after a long time!
 
I've been thinking about this for a long time. I've stayed alone during my college days and that was fun (mainly because we were 10 guys in a 6 bedroom duplex flat with 4 internet connections and our own LAN :p).

Don't know how different living alone would be now that I am working. What I have seen, in my case at least, parents have become relaxed now that I have started working. They don't bug me over trivial matters. So, right now I don't have any issues. Moreover, it is really good to go home when people are waiting for you and are happy to see you. :)

If I don't end up getting married for the next 3-5 years, I would definitely like to have my own place. Let's see.

Would love to have more opinions here!
 
I have never been stayed alone and this led me to be very heavily dependent on my parents for each and every thing , my mom still does the morning chores for me , making ready the clothes i need to wear to office , getting my breakfast ready etc, and I love it :happy26:

But living alone makes you more independent in real world and actually helps going forward in life , however it does not mean you should be living alone to be self reliant
 
I think everyone will agree with pros and cons. Spent my whole life in hostel (yeah starting from Nursery), still my parents used to pamper me. Picking/dropping was always along with someone (themselves/house help, someone was always there). All shopping was aided, someone always tagged along. On the other hand, being hostel made me self reliable for the household stuff - washing clothes etc.


Now been living alone for past 2 years. Used to find it a bit difficult at times during travel/shopping - specially buying vegetables - always mystified why some potato is good/bad that too in supermarkets where things are already sorted (pointers welcome :) ). Things have improved quite a bit now.
 
Opinion will vary with every individual. Some of my views

-Till the time you get married, life will be good with parents even their too much of involvement
-Once you get married and if you are staying together your wife will make your life hell as she will never like your parents involvement and you will be screwed big time.
-Parents need us as they love us dearly, we will understand this only when we get old and have kids who will want to live separately.

I am getting emotional but we need to put our self in our parents position and think. Assume their age, health and wish factor and everything changes. Age changes lots of priorities and as person we need to consider their loneliness.

My brother works in Qatar and I might be going onsite next year and when I think that my parents will be alone that time is quiet disturbing.
 
I have been in hostel since 1994. Since then I am just like a guest in my own home. Never stayed for more than 45 days. (vacations).
Every hostel have their own share/style of fun (from JNV till Infy-mysore). Hardly missed my parents all these years.
Last year I got married. And life turned a li'l.
Priorities changed. Now I am missing my parents. May be because, I am getting old :)( ) and my parents are about to retire and they need me now.
 
I have been living with my parents after my high school finished(was in a hostel when in school). There are positives and negatives. I learned how to survive living alone there, but I learned how to live being with my parents. They teach you a lot of things in every phase of life. Especially after marriage. And now me with my own kids and living with my parents it just works. Cant even explain the benefits of being with parents when one has his own kids. They are better guardians then me when it comes to kids, they teach you how to handle them, you have a peace of mind when you go out and a lot more. Yes you have your space when you are living alone but for me the perks of living with parents is more then the personal space.
 
I have been living alone for about 2 years now,
I wouldn't say i have been extremely close with my parents, but there definitely was a certain amount of comfort when you live with your parents!

When i decided to go to a colg which was 2k km away from my place, there was a small amount of insecurity under me, with issues regarding adjusting to a different language, and i found my set of principles had to be compromised on many counts as i was living at a twin sharing room at a hostel.

But one thing i noticed was that, i was not home sick! even at my place, I had to do all my work alone as my parents were adamant that their sons being independent. So i adjusted to the hostel life and started enjoying the Late night rides and High volume music :D

In my third year now, some days when i see my friends who live at nearby places like mumbai going home every other week, there are a few pangs in your heart:( !
but I know the moment of peace at your home with your parents is short lived, in a day you will be back to bickering :D


I Love my parents, But i love my privacy and freedom too.

I will select separate living arrangements , not because i dont love them enough, its because, a Person should learn to be independent in life.
and as long as you live with your parents the whole life, you aint gonna learn it!

This is just my personal belief, I mean no offense to anyone
 
I remember as a kid that I used to get annoyed at my dad telling me that he would kick me out at 17. At that age (class 5-6), I couldn't see the advantages of moving out I guess. That changed when I got older. Funny thing is, for a couple of years dad and I were both working in Bombay but we continued with separate living accommodations. Our relatives didn't understand and also held a small intervention to ask if everything was alright between us. :lol:

One other thing that moving out does is hit you with your financial responsibilities. I spent more than I should in the first two-three semesters of college. My dad then told me that all of those expenses were coming out of a student loan that I would have to pay back myself and that he would not pay for my education/living expenses. That woke me up a bit. :lol:

Children moving out is becoming more common in India. The norm in the US has been kids moving out at 17/18 and the child staying at home was odd. I see that changing a lot now, especially with the economic situation. Children are staying longer and longer at home before they move out.
 
I have been living away from my home from 2005 onwards and I must say, I enjoyed it but in the meantime I missed my parents a lot. You cannot imagine a good quality food, easy life away from your home where you get your breakfast /lunch/dinner on bed :)
You cannot enjoy a HD multimedia room, Drawing room etc and I must say, you cannot define hygienic conditions away from home :D
But at the same time, you can enjoy 24*7 gaming, privacy, gf interference etc :D away from home. So in this life nothing has only PROS, if there are PROS then it must have CONS also.

Now I have started business also away from home so I think I will spend my rest of life also away from Home.. Mom I miss you.
 
I would pretty much agree with everyone but one thing I would say after living in a joint family for 21 years is that when you move out of your comfort zones you learn how to tackle real life situations. One has to face them up and solve them despite him not wanting to do it.
 
I have been living with my parents forever, and have never even though of living alone. The though itself scares me. And here is how it goes.

I will not be able to live without the internet and certainly not without my parents, but i still have a choice, they do not. I remember when i was a kid, my mother will make my fav. food, my father will work hard, do over time and buy things which were luxury for any kid, a video game, a 386, floppies and what not. When i grew up, i realize that they were always there to support me. When you are scared, you don't need anyone to talk to you, just just need someone to stand by you side.

And when its my chance i ditch them, NEVER. I would change my work, myself, my routine, my profile, my location, my world for that matter, as buying the most expensive phone is not what matters, the thing that matters is to live with people who have supported you, and not to leave them when they need you the most. They will never say it as they have self respect, ego, honor, but hasn't it been the same with us. They knew when we were down and supported us in the most needed times, but we ever expressed it as they already know about it.

Though, these are my views, my situation, my world. Yours might differ and i respect that.

GODSPEED
 
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