The Parents on 'Shrinking' Kicked Their Unemployed 25-Year-Old Out of the House. Here's How to Handle Your Own Grown Kid Living at Home
There was a powerful scene in Apple TV’s Shrinking earlier this month that likely hit hard for any parent who has ever watched a kid struggle — especially a kid who is a young adult.
It happens when therapist Paul (Harrison Ford) is being straight with his friend Derek, who has been coddling his 25-year-old son, Matthew. Matthew has been living at home after losing his job (something that happened in Season 2, as well), and instead of setting boundaries and deadlines, Derek and his wife Liz have been doing their son’s laundry, making him meals, and avoiding any tough conversations about the situation.
Paul issues a warning to Derek: “Biggest mistake a parent makes is doing too much for their kids. They have a problem, you swoop right in and fix it. They never learn resilience.”
Later, after another, harsher talking to from Paul, Derek gathers his courage and tells his son it’s time to move out.
The situation is beyond familiar to clinical psychologist Mark McConville, author of Failure to Launch: Why Your Twentysomething Hasn’t Grown Up, and What to Do About It, who estimates he has done about 500 consults “with exactly these parents.”
And yes, he says, “the parents are doing too much for this kid, no question.” But to better understanding why, he suggests widening the lens to look at the dynamic in a cultural context: “This generation of parents is generally more supportive of young people growing up than any previous generation.” In other words, we know more — about mental health and other issues affecting our children — than our parents knew about us and their parents knew about them. And it informs how we help them go through the world.
“Parents don’t set out to enable their kid, they set out to support their kid,” says McConville. “It’s what the kid does with the support that’s offered that determines whether we label it support or we label it enabling.”
Below, some help in parsing the difference and understanding the new dynamic of parenting when your kid is an adult — including how to set boundaries and expectations while still showing support and empathy.
Kids Moving Home After College: ‘The New Normal’
According to social psychologist Susan Newman, author of Under One Roof Again: All Grown Up and (Re)learning to Live Together Happily, “It used to be, if your adult child came home, people would say, ‘What did the parents do wrong? What’s wrong with that kid?’ But that’s not what’s happening anymore,” she says. “People don’t question an adult child returning home, because everybody knows the economy is difficult. It’s the new normal.”
In fact, about a third of all American young adults — and 57% of those 18 to 24 (compared with 53% in 1993) — live with their parents, according to both a 2024 Pew Research survey and recent U.S. Census figures.
And while many moms and dads may thrill at the notion of a kid coming back home after being off on their own for several years, they may also be anxious about the future — and grow resentful about financial support going on way longer than planned.
But it’s important for parents to balance those feelings with those of the adult child, who is likely already feeling shaken, ashamed, and worried about their need for dependence in their 20s.
“You’ve just lost a job, and you’re young and still impressionable. You’re a neophyte in the adult world. You are feeling like a failure. And failures in your early 20s have this tendency to become identity-defining,” McConville says, whereas an older adult would be more able to shake it off.
When that kid comes home dispirited and dejected, and his parents provide a loving environment, their intention is that he’ll use that as a springboard. “He’ll regain courage, he’ll jump back into the job market, he’ll initiate a job search,” he says. “And I would say, if we had 10 identical cases, that’s what would happen with probably seven of them.”
But in the other three, the kid takes that parental support and “converts it into enabling” (kind of like Matthew does). Here’s what to do then.
Gradual Steps to Helping Adult Kids Launch
“People think that you go from this sort of support that has become enabling, which is what [the Shrinking episode] portrays, and that the next point on this spectrum is to kick the kid out,” says McConville. “But there are a lot of halfway points between those two extremes.”
Determine How Capable They Are
Did your young adult come home during a major depressive episode? Have they developed a debilitating drug or alcohol habit? “If he is effectively disabled, then the agenda becomes treatment,” possibly even requiring it while still offering support and encouragement. But if the kid is capable and just had some bad luck, it’s time to have another kind of conversation.
Have a Focused Sit-Down With Your Kid
“I always suggest parents make it very ceremonial,” says McConville. “Take him out to dinner. You’re in a restaurant, you know he’s trapped, and you define a new paradigm for the relationship.”
Then talk about how, the last time they lived with you, they were a child, and you were obligated to support them in specific ways. But that now they’re coming back as an adult — and a housemate. “You say, ‘in a certain sense, we’re equals. So, we expect you to contribute.’”
One of the biggest traps that makes the situation difficult, says Newman, “is when all parties resort to their mommy, daddy, and 10-year-old-child selves,” as in the Shrinking episode. “When an adult child comes back, there are role changes — parents are no longer the commander-in-chief giving orders, and the kids are not kids.”
If they’re not working, you can’t very well ask for rent, but you can certainly as them to do their own laundry, help with the grocery shopping, make dinner twice a week, or anything else that makes sense for your family.
“You come in as if you were a roommate and you were moving into an apartment with two strangers,” says McConville. “You’d sit down and talk about how to apportion the tasks and the duties?”
Newman agrees, advising, “Don’t treat them like guests.”
Address the Elephant in the Room
Resentment can build if you feel your grown kid is somehow taking advantage of you financially — not really looking for a job, loafing around and playing video games, using up their share of the household resources without contributing. But you worry that haranguing your kid will just make them feel worse. That’s when it’s time for another conversation.
“Say, ‘Look, I’m happy to support you. I love having you here. However, the condition of you staying here with my support is you must be doing something constructive,” advises McConville. He says that stating the bottom line as “an abstract principle” tends to get less pushback than saying, “You must get a job.”
Doing “something constructive” could mean many things — taking a class, doing some substantial volunteer work, getting a part-time job, or any combination.
If, worst-case-scenario, having the conversation still changes nothing, then you move to what McConville calls “the birthday method.” Tie a deadline to the calendar instead of just a change of mind by letting them know that when they turn 25, for example, they’ll have certain financial responsibilities, such as paying for their own phone plan, their own gas, their own car insurance, or a portion of the groceries or WIFI bill.
So, he explains, “If you’re my kid, and I say, ‘I want you to get on your own phone plan,’ and you say to me, ‘I’m not going to do it,’ I’ll say, ‘well, that’s entirely up to you all. All I’m telling you is that as of April 1, you will be off the family plan. What you do to resolve that is completely up to you.’” What you’re doing with that approach, he says, is “trying to take the dilemma which has landed in your lap and move it into your kid’s lap.”
Whichever conversation you’re having, he stresses, “I want parents always to maintain a spirit of affable, loving warmth, not just, ‘pack your bags and leave.’”
They Got a Job? Great! Don’t Be Afraid to Still Help Them
So, your kid got a job and they’re moving out. Congrats! But they’re still going to need to lean on you — and that’s perfectly OK.
“A lot of kids’ eyes light up if you talk about getting them their own apartment. And you don’t want a kid who feels thrown out or abandoned,” says McConnell. So make them feel special — and help them in any way you are able, whether it’s taking a field trip to IKEA to buy them some cool furniture, taking them on a tutorial trip to the supermarket, or kicking in to help them pay rent and other bills until they can handle it all on their own.
“If they’re going to be moving nearby, you can offer to drop off home-cooked dinners or lend them your car — just small ideas that will help ease the tension of leaving for an adult child,” says Newman.
Finally, she adds, try not to let tension over expenses leave your relationship hanging in the balance. “You don’t want money,” she says, “to loom over everything and dictate how you get along.”