“Basement dwellers” implies parents with multi level houses. I feel like the kid living with their parents for a long time will become more of a thing but they’ll be lucky to have the privacy and space of a whole basement.
And so I say, basement dwellers? In this economy?
That’s not true. Kids used to pay for themselves. My grandmother had 14 siblings. Many of them started working right after grade 8 and handed over their pay to their parents to help support the family!
Ok…sure…my grandpas siblings quit school at that age - their mom sent them to work instead because they could earn a quarter a day. I’m not sure that was really paying for themselves.
They also worked on the farm and helped in but kitchen. Life was very different back then. Medical care wasn’t nearly as advanced, accessible, and expensive as it is today. School was brief and free, not an enormous expense like it is today. Food was cheap, just labour-intensive because you had to grow it yourself. Housing was cheap too: you largely built it yourself and you didn’t need 15 bedrooms for 15 kids: 3-4 would suffice.