My name is Kali, I'm 20 years old, and I'm happily engaged...
...and we live with my mom.
My fiance and I have an interesting history. We started dating my freshman year of high school and his junior year of high school. He was in a horrible family situation at the time, and when he turned 18, my mom let him move in with us to get away. Originally, he planned to get an apartment within a few months, but with the horrible job market in our hometown and a lack of transportation, months turned into a year, and one year turned into four.
I graduated high school, started college, we got engaged and I moved in on campus for a semester before he enrolled as well and we got a dorm together (because I'm gender-queer and Kent State was lovely about gender-neutral housing in our case). Unfortunately, for more reasons than I'm willing to go into, that only lasted one semester until we were back at home with my mom. I'm not going to lie, it's rough. Between financial stress, family drama, and mental illness, things have gotten pretty strained over the last few months.
"I can't wait until we move out" has been a familiar refrain between us for a long time. Don't get me wrong, we both love my mom and we're grateful that this living situation is beneficial for both us and her, but it's difficult to still be living with her at this point in our lives. Western society has the narrative that we're supposed to follow — graduate high school, go to college, move out, start a relationship, graduate college, get a job, get engaged, get married, have kids — in that order, with no deviations.
In truth, a lot of people probably read the title of this article and thought "what a loser," but the truth is that life doesn't work perfectly, it's not always black and white. I met the person I want to spend forever with when I was 14, not 24. We've lived together with my mother as a big family unit for years. We've decided that the practical benefits of living together outweigh the stress caused be any arguments we have. Hopefully I'll be able to graduate soon, we can get good jobs and be able to afford our dream place in Seattle. And actually get married ... that's definitely on the list of things to do somewhere. But for right now, this is the best situation for all of us.
I suppose what I want to get at, beyond this lovely sort of "True Life" special, is that people don't follow the same path. We aren't robots. Some people have kids while still living with their parents. Some people have kids and live with roommates. Some people get married and then go to college. Some people just don't go to college. The truth is that we all have different paths and we need to stop shaming people for doing what's right for them. Stereotyping and judging does nothing to help anyone. Living with my mom doesn't make me or my fiance a loser, just like my friends who had kids in high school aren't failures. People who move back in with their parents after college aren't losers. In fact, in some areas of Asia, it's expected for married couples to move back in with the husband's family. It's all relative based on what our culture has taught us. We're all just doing the best we can with what we're given. And I think that should be good enough for everyone.
