Media coverage of “emerging adults” often focuses on over-indulgent parents and slacker children, generating caustic comments laced with Horatio Alger tales from the 1960s and 70s: “I graduated from college and got a job, moved out on my own and never asked my parents for help. Today’s kids and parents are soft and lazy!”

But what’s the reality?   Is it  harder in the 21^st century to launch into adulthood?  Are parents helping or hindering 20-somethings  by letting them move back home and giving financial support?  Academics, many affiliated with the MacArthur Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood, are digging for answers based on hard data.

A recent research report comes from Dr. Teresa Toguchi Swartz, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota.  In a study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, Dr. Swartz found that support from parents can actually help adult children stay on track for their goals, not turn them in sleep-by-day, party-by-night animals.

The study, based on a survey of  more than 700 young adults aged 24 to 32, found that parental support in terms of housing and financial assistance is targeted to help adult children embark on  real life.   Dr. Swartz divided the kinds of support parents offer into two categories: scaffolding and safety nets.  We spoke on the phone last week with Dr. Swartz, who is doing ongoing research about emerging adults.

Q. What’s the difference between scaffolding and safety nets?

With the safety net, adult children have hit a major bump in the road that could seriously derail them. The parents provide help under some crisis situation like divorce, serious illness, sudden loss of a job  and being victim of serious crime. The parents don’t want that event to put the child on the wrong track so they offer the help to keep them heading in the right direction.

Scaffolding is a situation where parents help  children reach a particular goal by giving them a launching pad.  Perhaps the child is enrolled in school and needs help with tuition; perhaps the child is saving for a down payment for a house and wants to live at home for awhile to maximize saving money. These were the most common situations where parents were giving help. We didn’t find a lot of slacker kids living in the basement. For the most part they needed temporary help, not unconditional mooching.

Q. Do parents believe it’s harder for this generation of young adults to launch?

A. Some of the parents I interviewed talked about how different it is today from when they were young adults.  One mom told me that when she went off to college she was given a pink Samsonite and expected to be on her own from there on out. Recently when her own daughter came back from six years in the Air Force including tours in Iraq, she came home to live because although she could afford her tuition, at age 25 she needed help with housing costs. It really is a different experience for this generation.

Q. You call the transition to adulthood a “collaborative process.” What do you mean?

A. Previous generations could expect to graduate from high school and find a job. The adolescent-to-adult period was a quick, rapid juncture.  Now its really extended with back- and-forth, moving in and out of school and finding a job that pays a living wage.

Adult children’s needs change over time so parents step in when help is necessary. Then they step back, not micro managing their child’s life, but serving as a sounding board.  Then at yet another stage parents aren’t needed to help make decisions but  rather  just listen to their children as they would do with anyone they care about.

Q. In your ongoing research have you found a cultural shift in parents’ expectations for their children?

A. A lot of upper and middle-class parents want kids to follow their dreams and have a fulfilling life and career. They don’t want them to flounder at the beginning of their careers. They don’t mind if they make $10 an hour to start; they just want to help make sure that it’s not for the rest of their lives.

Parents also find there are more road blocks to upward mobility in jobs these days in terms of needed credentials and jobs with definite career trajectories. They realize that young people may need to change careers several times over their lives and need an armory of different skills so they can keep up in this unstable and ever-changing job market.

Q. You found that young men tend to move back home for longer periods than young women.  Why is that?

A. There are still gender differences.  We found that for young women there are not as many as cushy feathers at home.  They are expected to contribute to the household chores more than young men.  Also young women are more monitored so far as their social activities so they are often more motivated to get their own places faster than young men.

Q. Your study found that while  almost half of the young adults received money or housing help during their 20s by the time they reach their early 30s only about only 10 to 15 percent received financial or housing.  What changed?

A. It was less a matter of age and more of the children eventually taking on  adult roles as incomes got higher.  The biggest indicator of independence though was when young adults either married or moved in with a partner. Both parents and children interpreted that step as an indication that it was time for the young person to fully take care of themselves.

My son Brendan graduated from a Jesuit university in 2009, ready to take on the world.  He’d planned to come back to New York, get a job in advertising, and eventually go back to graduate school. But with a bachelor’s degree in English literature, a minor in advertising, and a raging recession that has made the lot of the Class of 2009 particularly gruesome,  it quickly became clear that wasn’t going to happen. The prospects were slim for jobs in whatever field he chose. So while his friends got jobs as babysitters and bartenders, he decided (purely as a temporary measure) to work in his dad’s thriving private investigation firm.  Since it didn’t offer enough income for him to move out of the house, we gladly welcomed Brendan back to his old room, and promised him three squares a day. And a grand experiment began.

Right from the beginning I was skeptical. Coming home after being away and living independently for four years is difficult at best. Living with your boss? Well, that seemed just about impossible.  There’s something about discussing subpoenas over pork chops at dinner that didn’t seem right.  And what if he made a mistake at work? Would I be hearing about it at home?  It seemed unfair to mix family work with home life. Yet I knew that they don’t call it a “family business” for no reason. Millions have survived working for their moms and dads. And besides, it wasn’t up to me.

Far from merely surviving, Brendan has thrived.  The job has given Brendan and my husband, Jim, a chance at a relationship they never had. It’s made Jim proud, and Brendan even prouder when he does well. And I’ve gotten to watch as he’s matured from college student to graduate to full-on adult professional.

 My only input has been to make sure my husband treats his newest employee like all his other workers. That is, make sure he’s working hard, hold him accountable for his work, and give him the same opportunities – but not better opportunities – than everyone else at the firm. And occasionally, I urge my husband to give Brendan at raise, and I urge Brendan to ask for one.  He’s saving for rent, after all

Rosemary Beirne is a teacher and an editor on Long Island.

One of the big economic and emotional decisions baby boomers face is the question of when to sell the family home. We’ve all seen what happens when people wait too long only to be saddled with a house in their old age.  So when is the best time to move on?

Many of us decide to “downsize” when children go off to college, and that often sets off an emotional reaction from children, even if they are not living at home full time.  The New York Times Home section recently profiled a Connecticut couple who moved from their “theme park” luxury home to a small ranch where their adult children no longer had their own bedrooms, den and swimming pool.   The article generated about 150 comments, many lambasting the children for being spoiled by expecting their parents to provide “an eternal way station,” as one commenter called it.

The issue of this particular family aside, both parents and children face an emotional wrenching when the family home where they grew and flourished is sold.   Two college students told me wistfully that their family homes had been sold during the summer. Both will go home for the holidays to new houses.  “It will be very strange not going to the house where I grew up,” one said.

A friend is preparing to sell her home for financial reasons.  Her 24-year-old daughter tearfully reacted. “Where will I bring my children for holidays?”  Never mind that the daughter is not even in serious relationship!

Sometimes there is no choice for when to sell the home; it’s dictated by financial necessities like a lost job or a depleted 401k or mounting upkeep. Other times the house, perhaps with the mortgage finally paid off, is affordable but why do you need all those empty rooms? At what point—if any—do you sell and move on, and how much do you consider your children’s reaction?

Is there some unspoken assumption by our children that there will always be a safe haven for them? For a twentysomething with a low-paid starter job, living in a one-bedroom apartment with three roommates, it’s indeed comforting to know that a comfy bed and clean shower await back home.  But what about when children become more established and move into their own homes, especially when they are married with children.

Even at that point, several parents I know are reluctant to sell their too-big-for-two homes. The house with a leafy backyard, a barbeque grill  and maybe pool keeps the “kids” coming, often with friends or their own children, on summer weekends.  What happens when Grandma is the one with the table that seats 12 for Thanksgiving dinner?  Where’s the holiday feast when mom and dad live in a one–bedroom condo? What’s your daughter going to do in that tiny apartment?  Thanksgiving on folding trays?

Perhaps the notion of not making any sudden moves apply here.  The conversation about what parents are planning, and why, needs to start way before the moving van pulls up.

If you keep the house what do you do with that spare room?

If you keep the family house after the last child  heads off to college what do you do with the extra bedrooms?  Do you keep them as a shrine to the kids, complete with baseball trophies and the Barbie collection or sell the stuff on eBay? Do you use the space to finally get your own home office, exercise room or den?

One of my students wrote an article about how his West Coast parents bought new dog when he went off to college on the East Coast. When he went home for the first Thanksgiving he was appalled to find that the dog has claimed his old bed and his mom had put up pictures of the dog and other puppy paraphernalia around his room.

To make the transition smoother from your child’s room to a multipurpose place try enlisting assistance in redecorating when you child comes home on holiday break.   Those stuffed animals don’t hold the same sentimental value for a hip college student.  Ask you child to help you sort through the stuff and toss, store in the attic or keep.  With any luck the “keep” pile will be manageable.  Ask for suggestion for decorating in a updated style. There’s no reason an office or TV room also can’t function as a bedroom. Your son may be happy to see those soccer sheets finally donated, especially if the room comes with a new flat screen TV.

What would compel you, if anything, to open your child’s email account?  Author Joyce Maynard found herself facing that question when her daughter, living in the Dominican Republic,  suddenly became distant in her messages and phone conversations.

Sensing something was wrong, Ms. Maynard logged into her daughter’s email account where messages revealed that the daughter’s boyfriend was HIV positive, and the daughter was awaiting test results herself.  Link

If you feared your child was in trouble would you open his or her email account, if you could gain access?  Is it as much an invasion of privacy as reading a diary? What would you do if the child was in trouble? Admit what you did or keep it to yourself?