the thing about parents who leverage their economic support over their children, is they seem to have no sense of how that's going to play out negatively for them. in this age of precarity and young adults living with parents well into adulthood or middle age, the stakes are even higher.

my relationship with my own parents is fine, imo. we talk, i'm honest, etc. but i also live hundreds of miles away and do not need shit from them. so now there's this "we wish we saw you more" and i'm like, "sorry, i am not a retiree with literally every option for moving and residing at my feet." they were slightly dickish towards me when i lived with them in my late 20s because i needed to make a big change, professionally. that resulted in me living at home for a few years. so, in my experience, they wanted me out. now i'm out, so what are they complaining about?

but what i am talking about is the friends i had who had parents who were assholes to them starting in high school. telling them in front of their friends that they would be out on their ass on their 18th birthday, no help, no nothing. pushing them out of the house at 15 to get some dogshit job and telling them to "grow up". a lot of those people never talk to their parents again. and, for all the hype about social security and medicare... old people who aren't rich start falling apart before 65, and really could use a ride to their doc appointments or someone to come around and be handy. when those people complain about their kids never coming around, it's them telling on themselves. that's who they taught them to be.

basically, to sum it all up.... it makes sense to nudge kids out of the nest so long as it comes with the support they need to make it. but unlike birds, when humans advance in years, they like to have their offspring close by. and the way a lot of ameroids do it, they seem to be ensuring a particularly hard and lonely sunset for themselves.