How To {Successfully} Live With Your Parents As An Adult

Never say never. Even if you willfully moved out on your own at age 18 or immediately after college, there’s always a small chance that you might boomerang your way home at some point in your 20’s, 30’s, or 40’s. After living with my parents for the past 19 months (and then having them live with us for two months), I have found that many more people than you think are in on this trend. If you have recently moved back in with your parents (or are considering it), I have many tips for you!

You may be wondering why we moved in with my parents. Well, my husband and I got this crazy idea to build a house. We had been living modestly for the past several years, and we felt it was time to blow any money that we had saved. As soon as our son was born, I started the processes of searching for the perfect architect to work with. This took MONTHS to work out, but within a year of starting our home project, construction was in-motion.

In order to come up with more money for our home construction process, we decided that we had to sell our current home and could not live in it during construction. Plus, selling gave us a better sense of security because that money then became guaranteed and we didn’t need to work about fluctuating home markets. But without a home, where would we live?

A hotel? No, too expensive. A rental unit? Well we could….but I knew one way that we could save a lot of money. HI, MOM AND DAD! Casually one day, I said, what if we moved in with you guys? It would only be for a few months. At first it seemed kind of silly. We were grown ups, with jobs, after all. We had one kid and a dog, and figured we were long past living with my parents. Well, after our home sold in four days, we found ourselves moving in just two months later.

Thankfully, my husband is great with remodels. He got their basement all fixed up for us. My mom took on the massive project of a DIY Exposed Painted Basement Ceiling (this is by far my top blog post ever!).

Now, it did help immensely that we had the whole basement to ourselves. But, our toddler son was always wanting to be upstairs (with his toys, his hundreds of toys)!

How we survived this situation (or better yet, how my parents survived this situation), is beyond me. To add to the mayhem, we added a forth family member to our crew during this 19 month period. Yes, I got pregnant, had our baby girl, and we continued to live with my folks for five months after she was born. As I reflect, this was CRAZY!

Our home project was not supposed to take 19 months, but one thing you MUST HAVE when building a home is patience (I can say this now, but most people close to me know that I had very little patience during some parts of construction!). Especially with building a custom home where your spouse is doing a major portion of the work. This whole situation landed me on The Ellen Show back in 2016 when the Cubs won the world series - you can read all about that story here.

There were definitely ups and downs while living at my parents, but overall, things were pretty great! If you are living with your parents and want to keep the peace, here are a few tips that you can use. Keep in mind, these are things that I should have been better at - luckily I have CHILL parents (right mom and dad?) They were very patient with me. Which also made it that more important for us to welcome them with open arms for two months after they sold their home.

Tips for Surviving Living With Your Parent As An Adult

1) Don’t be messy.

I’m telling you this because I was messy. Very very messy. I was aware that I was messy, if that counts for anything? I made excuses that I was pregnant and too tired to clean, but in reality, my parents put up with way more than then had too when it came to our toy mess (and kitchen mess).

This was their first floor, over-taken by toys and baby stuff on the left when we lived with them:

I’m lucky we didn’t get evicted. If it wasn’t for my cute son (their ONLY grandson) and my very helpful husband, I am sure we would have been kicked to the curb.

I also had a tough time keeping our living space neat:

This was less of an issue for my parents since we were below ground and a bit out of sight. It was so hard for my to keep four people organized in such a small space. If you are considering moving in with your parents, just GET RID of everything you own before doing so. We ended up getting rid of most of our stuff anyways after we moved into the new house, which we should have done BEFORE we moved in.

2) Consider holding off on getting pregnant.

Or don’t, because let’s be honest, there rarely is a “perfect time” to have kids anyway! Being pregnant, living with my parents, and building a new house was a trifecta of stress that I welcomed.

And don’t forget, Pregnancy = Sober. Now of course, I am very glad we did not wait or plan around our living situation. Everything fell into place and worked out GREAT!

3) Cook for your family.

One way to help keep the peace is to feed your parents if you are going to live with them. My dad shared in a lot of the cooking, but it was nice to have family meals and to cook for other people. “Will this BLT make up for the state of the living room?” (a question I always quietly asked in my head).

4) Don’t roll your eyes.

Remember when you were a teenager and you would roll your eyes at every single thing that didn’t jive the way you thought it should? Well, you can’t do that as an adult! Especially when your parents are graciously hosting you and your crazy family. It critical to have a good relationship with your parents prior to moving in with them - this will help immensely with survival in this situation.

If you feel yourself becoming irritated (most likely over something trivial), retreat to your corner of the house. Honestly, this did not happen often during the 19 months back at home, but it was interesting seeing my parents go about their lives from a different vantage point (that vantage point being my 33 year old adult self).

5) Make the most of your living space.

We had a baby during the time that we were living at home. Under normal circumstances, I would have wanted to plan plan plan for our baby. I would have been setting up a nursery months in advance. Our space was limited, so I made the most of the room that we had to set up a mini nursery.

6) Keep your eye on the prize.

Always remember that living with your parents is not forever. And remind them of that as well. This was the state of our home when our daughter was born - our house was far from move-in-ready!

Living In My Parents Basement While On Maternity Leave

I had a vision of spending my maternity leave in our new home - but that did not happen. It was not until I was back for two months that we were able to move in. My husband worked tirelessly on our home project so that both us and my parents could start our new lives.

The biggest tip that I can give is to always remember that you are under your parents roof and you need to live by their rules! Basically, let them win anytime you can feel an argument brewing. It’s not worth it to be right, especially at this age and when you’re very obviously on their turf.

Overall, living with your parents as an adult can be a wonderful experience. Our son LOVED having his grandparents around all the time, and I am pretty sure my parents loved it as well. Living with them allowed us to save money. My husband and I both work, so we were able to save every penny while living with them. Our only big expense during this time was daycare.

As soon as we moved out of my parents house, my parents listed their house for sale. It sold in less than 24 hours. Everyone wanted a fresh start - including them! Once they moved and were in their new place, as a thank you, we got them a gift card to a nice furniture store so that they could get a few new pieces for their place. We pretty much destroyed the furniture that they owned while living there, so it was a perfect “Thank You” gift once we were moved out!

I’d love to hear if you, too, are living with your parents as an adult. How is it going? What kind of challenges are you having. Remember, it is not forever! Enjoy the time home while you can!

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