Millennial homebodies are threatening to upset the age-old nesting cycle

Humans fall somewhere between jellyfish and elephants when it comes to how long they nurture their young, the former having no truck with their offspring at all and the latter living in multigenerational herds. But conventional wisdom has it that human progeny generally fly the parental coop in their late teens in the West and a little later in the East, as joint families are a rarity now. The case of the 30-year-old unemployed American man whose parents went to court this month when their efforts to get him to leave their house failed, however, highlights a very millennial problem: homebody offspring. According to the US Census survey, an astonishing 34% of young adults now stay in their parental home, albeit driven more by economics than filial emotions. And that obviously has spawned its own set of nesting issues.

During the hearing in New York, the recalcitrant son cited a common law requirement of a “six-month notice to quit before a tenant may be removed through ejectment action”, which begs the question of the status of offspring in their parents’ homes today. At what age do children turn from kin to lodgers, with all the related financial and legal implications? If more parents serve obdurate grown-up millennials with eviction notices, specific laws may need to be framed to deal with this phenomenon!