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> The whole phenomenon of kids leaving the house at 18, moving across the country, and not coming home again is fairly recent and fairly unique to the Western world.

I live in Poland and I'm the first generation that grew up after the fall of communism. I have seen this transition first-hand. I grew up in a multi-generation home with my grandparents and parents sharing the same space. I have left at 19 to another city, but some of my family members have stayed and there are four generations living in the house right now. My parents share a floor with my mother's dad, my father's mom and my brother (in his twenties). On another floor lives my mom's sister with her family (husband, daughter and daughter's children). Houses built to accommodate two or three generations were common even 30 years ago. Many people, especially in small towns and villages have built huge houses with the assumption that each of their kids will stay there and needs a floor of their own. Then, suddenly, so many things have changed. We can - or have to - work abroad, or move halfway across the country to study and then find a job. Many of those large houses are so sad right now with just a couple of elder people using two rooms and the kitchen with hundreds of square meters of empty space, sometimes filled with stuff left behind by their children who can't take it all with them to their studio apartments.

I don't know of anyone from my generation who would event think of building a house with their future kids and grandchildren in mind. But I think we're trading an important aspect of our culture for... I don't know. Money, success, independence, all these western things. I don't think I have a point here, just wanted to share.

As someone with no experience with Poland, that description was fascinating. Thank you for sharing!

> I don't know of anyone from my generation who would event think of building a house with their future kids and grandchildren in mind. But I think we're trading an important aspect of our culture for... I don't know. Money, success, independence, all these western things.

Maybe somewhat ironically, for my wife and I our living situation has been driven by the pursuit of career success. My wife and I are at the stage of our careers where we're really putting in the hours, and sharing a household with my parents makes life a hundred times easier. We don't have to worry about getting home before the nanny has to go, we don't have to worry about taking a day off when the baby's daycare is closed. We come home to a hot meal. Meanwhile, my parents are thrilled to be so actively invoked in their granddaughter's life.

That makes sense; to oversimplify somewhat, the boomers tended to be really crap as parents, resulting in a generation (my generation, more or less) who are absolutely adamant that they won't inflict the same on their own kids. This seems to have resulted in a close and strongly nurturing, if at times somewhat smothering, parenting style, which in turn gave rise to the millennials, who seem by and large to have much stronger family ties than their parents' generation does.

(By the way, I'm a member of the "moved across the country at 18 and never looked back" cohort, and I've occasionally had reason to wish I weren't; by placing myself far beyond any distance at which I could reasonably hope to receive the support of my family, I set myself up to blow a scholarship and drop out of school half a semester in. I've managed to make my way in the world reasonably well despite that, and have no real reason to be dissatisfied with my lot, but it certainly gives useful perspective on some of my fellows' declamations of narcissism and selfishness on the part of the generation following ours -- if I'd had some of that "narcissism" and "selfishness" when I was young, I'd have a doctorate now.)

That's an interesting observation. I had thought it was really more the result of the prevailing economic conditions, rather than the result of a strong, nurturing relationship. These are hypotheses that I would really like to see tested, that way I know whether to blame parents for causing economic crisis, or for babying their children (j/k).

It's interesting to look at the one time events that have happened in the last few (or several) generations. The destruction of farming/agriculture as the primary source of employment and the post war boom would be two big ones.

I think the change in agriculture is interesting here because the decision making process for the child of a (relatively poor) farmer wouldn't have been very involved, they would be quite likely to do what they knew. There would also probably be quite some pressure on them to get to it.

The post war boom is interesting because there were substantial opportunities for every single 18 year old that went looking for them. That's probably still reasonably true today, but the opportunities are at least riskier (in a life trajectory sense) than getting a good paying job at a mill or factory.

Great point about agriculture. Fortunately, telecommuting enabled me to stay on the farm, which couldn't support me by itself. Had I been born a decade earlier, moving away to a populous area would have been an almost certainty. If you have to move away from your family, the risk is already high, so what's a little more? Now, the vast majority of the population already live in urban areas, so we are back to not having to move very far from your family.

I didn't say much about it, but part of what I was thinking about is that someone who has had the experience of picking from many choices is probably going to give better advice to a child doing the same thing than someone who had one path that was quite clear.

(Which isn't contrary to anything you said, it's just another factor)

> the [_] tended to be really crap as parents, resulting in a generation ([_], more or less) who are absolutely adamant that they won't inflict the same on their own kids

Hmmmm. That sentiment may be less unique than you realize.

I'm a 'millennial' and my parents were Baby Boomers, and did a good job with me.

> [Millenials] take [their parents] on job interviews for support

No wonder my generation can't get a damn job.

I missed that bit the first time through. That seems to me to fall well on the wrong side of the line between "strong family ties" and "just plain not equipped to cope".