So, you're back home with your parents — gorging on their seemingly endless supply of free food, free WiFi, free laundromat services, and free booze wine. However, you can't shake the feeling — mainly spurred by watching far too many coming-of-age movies on Netflix — that you should become the true master of your domain by spending a cool grand on a studio apartment with a luxurious bathroom working toilet.
According to a new study from the Pew Research Center, you should probably thrust such thoughts forcefully to the back of your mind — as you're actually a part of an exponentially larger sector of millennials redefining what it means to live with one's parents:
Once the source of great derision from those on the outside, "I live with my parents" — though not quite a brag, humble or otherwise — is now more or less just an inoffensive assumption. According to the study, just 67 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 34 are considered as "living independently." In the first four months of 2015, the unemployment rate for this same demographic reached a victorious low of 7.7 percent — meaning plenty of people with a traditional income are still crashing on their parents' couches and/or sleeping in their childhood bedroom.
Sadly, the study fails to mention how wonderful it is that The Marshall Mathers LP has such longevity that your mom is still telling you to turn it down 15 long years later.
