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Judge Backs Parents, Saying Their 30-Year-Old Son Must Move Out (npr.org)
"Attention geeks living in their parents' basements!" writes PolygamousRanchKid , sharing this story from NPR:
The promise of adventure didn't do it. Neither did the lure of independence, or the weight of his 30 years. Instead, it took a judge to pry Michael Rotondo from his parents' home. The couple won an eviction order against their son, after a judge argued with Rotondo for 30 minutes. "I don't see why they can't just, you know, wait a little bit for me to leave the house," Rotondo told Donald Greenwood, a justice on the Onondaga County Supreme Court...
Christina and Mark Rotondo resorted to legal action after a series of notes to their son (starting on Feb. 2) failed to get him to move out of their home in Camillus, New York, a town west of Syracuse. Those notes followed discussions that began last October. The notes to Michael Rotondo ranged from orders to leave and encouragement to get a job, to offers of more than $1,000 and help in finding a place... The notes escalated into a formally worded notice for Rotondo to leave that set a 30-day deadline -- which lapsed on March 15...
In a legal filing cited by CNYCentral, Rotondo said that in the eight years he has lived at his parents' house, he "has never been expected to contribute to household expenses, or assisted with chores and the maintenance of the premises," and that those conditions are simply part of an informal agreement. When he was in his early 20s, Rotondo briefly lived on his own, but he moved back in with his parents after losing a job...
The case is being seen as an extreme example of a growing trend. As NPR reported in 2016, a Pew study found that, "For the first time in more than 130 years, Americans ages 18-34 are more likely to live with their parents than in any other living situation."
Christina and Mark Rotondo resorted to legal action after a series of notes to their son (starting on Feb. 2) failed to get him to move out of their home in Camillus, New York, a town west of Syracuse. Those notes followed discussions that began last October. The notes to Michael Rotondo ranged from orders to leave and encouragement to get a job, to offers of more than $1,000 and help in finding a place... The notes escalated into a formally worded notice for Rotondo to leave that set a 30-day deadline -- which lapsed on March 15...
In a legal filing cited by CNYCentral, Rotondo said that in the eight years he has lived at his parents' house, he "has never been expected to contribute to household expenses, or assisted with chores and the maintenance of the premises," and that those conditions are simply part of an informal agreement. When he was in his early 20s, Rotondo briefly lived on his own, but he moved back in with his parents after losing a job...
The case is being seen as an extreme example of a growing trend. As NPR reported in 2016, a Pew study found that, "For the first time in more than 130 years, Americans ages 18-34 are more likely to live with their parents than in any other living situation."
How did this even make it into the firehose?
Home ownership, along with car ownership, is a meme designed to keep the economy going in the post-WW2 era.
For most of human history families stayed together over the course of the centuries, farming the same land over and over again. Move where? Why? People bred for the purpose of having more hands to help farm the land and someone to take care of them when they were too old and sick for manual labor.
All of the world's problems stem from the fact that human nature hasn't changed while 20th century Western Civilization tried to shoehorn it into what best suited Capitalism.
Parents have been increasingly hovering and micromanaging, being extremely overprotective. Kids are denied the freedom that used to be normal. Mostly because of fears of that ultra rare stranger abduction, or some other low probability tragedy. They think well what's the downside, what if it did happen? Well this is the downside. Adult age children unprepared to deal with real life. Problems like here, and others like anxiety, are increasing in lock step with lockdown of kids. You trade the tiny tiny chance of kidnapping or something for a very good chance of stunted development and mental health issues.
And worse, it's practically required, because busybodies think any kid walking down the street alone is a police matter, and CPS misses kids being beaten and goes after parents who let their kid walk to the park. Support laws like Utah just passed, clarifying that the normal freedom most of us over 35 had isn't neglect.
Sometimes a deadbeat is a deadbeat entirely on his own. This kid graduated college. He's not uneducated, though it seems he hasn't bothered to learn much. His parents may share some of the blame, but sometimes, you have to grow up despite your parents, if you didn't grow up because of them.
When you want to evict somebody for real, you do it legally to begin with dont fuck around. Dont try to serve the notice yourself or any of that bullshit. Or come up with your own arbitrary timeline. The kid was right initially, they cant evict him by typing some letter saying get out in 2 weeks. Thats not how it works people.
Except he doesn't pay rent, this is "evicting" the guy you let sleep in your spare bedroom for a few days but never leaves. Or your girlfriend kicking you out of her house and you go nope we had an "informal agreement" so I live here now until I'm evicted. Freebies end when the person giving it away wants it to end. When the time was up they should have put his things on the street and changed the lock. I doubt he'd have gotten anywhere in court, no consideration = no contract. No contract = you're a guest. Guests leave when they're asked to leave or they get kicked out.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
...apart from the lawsuit I guess, and with it broader awareness.
Anime watchers and those familiar with modern japanese society will already have heard of the terms: NEET, hikikomori.
But as with many problems in japanese society that often gets picked by international media as some weird thing that must only happen in Japan, this is not by far a japanese exclusive phenomena.
https://think.iafor.org/reclus...
International media often exploit, fetishize, and even mock Japan for having these weird cultural things, often painting a picture as if it was commonplace there when it really isn't... but the truth behind this mocking of foreign countries is that more often than not, these things not only do exist back at home, but often it's worse than in Japan - only it's taboo, overlooked by press, and not selected as a subject for exposure.
So yeah... this guy is probably one of these cases. Surprise, bad stuff that happens in other societies is probably happening in sacred US of A too. And probably, a lawsuit is not the best way to deal with it too. Not that I'm ignoring the tribulation that the parents must've gone through already, but hikikomori are often unstable and should be seeking treatment and re-education, not being booted out of home.
There is a high potential of this being a case of throwing gas into the fire. Optimistic scenario, sure, the guy will leave home, get a job and reform himself. But people in the US really should not ignore the potential of someone mentally unstable becoming enraged with the situation and turning into yet another nightmare scenario that we all know pretty well by now having multiple cases a year. He could take his parents money, buy a gun, a go shoot some people plus himself.
... did was kick me out when I was 19, 5 months after I was out of high school.
"You're learning a job. I don't care what. Wanna do performing arts? Ok, fine by me, you've got the talent. But you're moving out by end of summer. Get those applications rolling." -My mom, paraphrased.
I was doing performing arts 6 months later, in a big town 300 km away. She drove me there, in her Citroen Charleston De Cheveau. She told me a few years back that she had to pull over and cry for while on the way back, but she knew it was the very best thing to do. ... Smart lady, my mom is.
Best move ever. ... All because I was pushed on to the trail that made me become a grown man. ...
6 months in I felt better than ever before in my life, doing my own thing my own way. These days I'm a man with a grown daughter traveling South America for 9 months flat at the age of 20 and have a SO I love and respect, that fucks like a pornstar.
Love you, Mom.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I think you misread something there sir. Deliberately I presume. :-)
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The problem isn't that he's overstaying or that they raised him poorly. Pushing the child out of the nest is a transition many families have to go through. You might say he should have learned or they should have taught him earlier, but that's a matter of degree.
The problem is that they have so few skills to resolve the conflict that it reached the courts and media.
Except he doesn't pay rent, this is "evicting" the guy you let sleep in your spare bedroom for a few days but never leaves.
It would've been easier just to state that you're not a lawyer.
Perhaps he would be happier living with Italian parents?
My parents raised all 7 kids to be independent. We were expected to find our own travel methods for sports teams, pay for our college education, get a job ASAP. My mother was a little disappointed when most of us stopped coming home (or calling all the time). She said they raised us to be too independent. OTOH, none of us has needed to be bailed out by our parents from jail or financial issues. We plan for the worst and hope for the best.
When I went off to college, 2 weeks later, they sold their house and moved out to "full-time" travel in an RV. They said, if you don't take it with you, we aren't going to store it.
One of my sisters moved home for a few weeks after college. She was required to pay rent and buy groceries. "First and Last" Dad kept saying to her - a reference to first month and last month rent (for the man-boys here). She moved out ASAP to get away from the house rules.
Which brings up a point, if the house rules aren't restrictive enough, some man-boys won't leave. A few ideas for living at home:
* Rent - you pay.
* Laundry - do your own.
* Food - you provide 2 dinners a week to the family
* House/Toilet cleaning - assigned based on your cleanliness.
* Curfew - 10p nightly
* Overnight visitors - none. If 2 people are in the bedroom, the door is open.
* Phone use - none after 9pm.
* Internet use - none after 9pm. Expect highly restrictive filtering. No porn.
That should be sufficient to get any man-boy to leave.
However conditions for younger adults are much harder today then the past generations in terms of home ownership.
Home ownership has been overpromoted for decades in this country, and the reality of it is finally sinking in (not necessarily for this kid, but for our country in general). We have multiple cable networks that are still effectively acting as marketing outfits for realtors, hyping home ownership as an investment 24x7.
What is finally happening though, now that we again have a reasonably normal real estate market, is that people are finding they are not actually making money on their homes. You spend $20k on a kitchen renovation and then 10 years later you sell your house for $5k more than you paid; losing $15k in the process. On top of that you were paying homeowner's insurance the entire time, paying interest on your mortgage, paying to keep up your lawn, driveway, roof, exterior, interior, etc. People are waking up to the fact that houses are in fact really terrible investments. If you want to save money you're better off renting and putting the difference into even a CD (if you are risk-averse) or a balanced stock market account (if you are more risk-tolerant). But we've been told for so long that a house is a great investment, and a lot of people are stuck with that mindset because it was repeated as gospel.
Even people who are currently retiring and selling homes they lived in for 30+ years (having therefore paid off their mortgages years ago) are finding they aren't getting back as much as they had imagined. They bought for $40k, sold for $220k, which sounds great. Except they actually paid closer to $90k with interest over those 30 years. And they spent at least another $20k over those years on homeowner's insurance. They spent thousands on roofing and carpet, and lawn maintenance. They did their kitchen, bathroom, etc. The actual return looked like $180k but really was much closer to $30k once all this is deducted, which is a pretty lousy ROI for 30+ years.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Too many parents these days want to be a "friend" to their children. That's all good, but respect is even more important. If you've taught them respect and hard work, you probably won't have to kick them out in the first place. But if you do have to, you won't have to go to court to make it happen!
Two young men in my own family had to be shown the door at some point. There was no court case. And later, they both thanked their parents.
This kid graduated college. He's not uneducated, though it seems he hasn't bothered to learn much.
1. You should never confuse graduating from college with being educated. The two are entirely unrelated.
2. He actually didn't. He has said repeatedly in interviews that he does not have a degree, so unless you know something I don't then it seems that he's both uneducated and not a college graduate.
In Germany they pay YOU to be a student. In the US, you pay through the nose to be a student :)
Multi-generational families are a thing from an agrarian past, there is no place for them in a modern society.
Do you have children?
I have an Indian friend. She and her (Australian) husband live in a house with their two little kids and her parents.
Childcare for her is way wicked easier compared to us white folks. The kids' grandparents help with school dropoff and pickup, meal prep - You name it. The kids help keep the elders young, and the elders help reduce the stress on the parents.
Holy shit, this. Live-in grandparents easily provide $20-30k a year in child care services, never mind the joint savings from combining fixed living costs and utterly invaluable additional sanity you gain from having the adults in the household properly rest with maybe even some time for their own leisure.