Why can’t we just grow up?
The 30-year-old still living at home is all too common. Seduced by the lure of free board and lodging and pressured by over-protective parents, grown up children can’t break free
Great home cooking, a first-rate laundry and smothering love and all while you get to splash your wages on clothes and clubbing. It’s easy to see why so many adult Cypriots find it hard to fly the nest – including most of my friends now aged around 30.
Blame it on culture all you like, but when it comes to Cypriot parenting, there seems to be no limits, something epitomised by the growing trend of adults who are being treated – and often act – like young children.
Cypriot parents are known for being over-protective, over-loving (and frankly, at times, over-bearing), but surely there is a point when all this TLC borders on being destructive? While many parents elsewhere count the days until their kids are old enough to leave home, it is common knowledge that Cypriot parents dread the day their children will want to move out. They do everything in their power to get them to stay. If the children do leave, then desperate pleas and shameful enticements will follow in an attempt to get them to return. When all else fails, they resort to blackmail: “Return home at once or we will no longer support you financially!” Such devious forms of bribery – a result perhaps of an obsessive/compulsive desire to control – are neither a healthy contribution to family dynamics, nor do they allow children the freedom to make their own choices and become the adults they could and should be.
Costa Constantinides, a US-trained licensed counselling psychologist, specialised in Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) and is familiar with children issues. For the last 10 years he has been a counsellor at the Grammar School helping students, families and teachers and before that worked with abused children abroad and taught psychology in Cyprus. He puts the phenomenon into a historic context. “To understand the present one needs a look first at the past: Until the 1980s very few Cypriots received tertiary education. The economic boom from tourism allowed the social-economical scales to tip like never before in the island’s working class history. For the first time prosperity meant extended education, travel and work opportunities for both sexes,” he says.
According to Constantinides, young women no longer need to marry at 14 to have a life. Young men no longer have to marry to have sex. In short, the young can have their cake and eat it. But what about those who don’t want to be stuck back living with their parents again once they return from their stint abroad? Once the parent’s trap has been set, and Cypriot youth have been snared into living back home, there is little hope. Indeed, the line has already been crossed when parents still cook for their adult children on a daily basis. Even worse is when the latter find large, unrequested amounts of food delivered to their homes – that is if they are lucky enough to have escaped and are living alone!
Seen through the eyes of the parents it all looks rather different of course. Living alone while young and single? Imagine that! This is a serious offence in the minds of traditional Cypriot families. What would the neighbours think? And why on earth should you live alone somewhere when you can still reside at your parents’ place, a fully catered for free hotel, with cleaning and laundry services included? And if you must reside elsewhere, you would be crazy to even consider living further than a five-mile radius from your parents’ home, God forbid should you ever need something and be more than a few minutes drive from their rescue!
Christina, 54, has two grown-up children, and although they do not live with her anymore, she still finds it hard to let go. “At my age, after having devoted my life to my family, I am left without a career to focus on, which leaves me with more time to concentrate on my kids,” she says. Christina admits that sometimes, although she does things to help her children, she is in fact acting out of selfishness. “If you are not in a very successful marriage or have a full social life, you end up compensating for this by over-parenting,” she says.
According to Constantinides, letting go is a real issue because mothers in Cyprus still do not generally cultivate their identity beyond their traditional roles. “This translates into the fact that acting as a parent is a primary (if not the primary) source of self-esteem. Letting go feels more like falling off for many mums. Besides, how many young adults want to cut an umbilical cord bulging with cash, food and five-star service?” he says.
Nevertheless, if you are one of those young adults who have tasted independence and liked it, and if you’re stubborn enough to accept nothing less, you will discover that the battle is nonetheless only half won. Never, ever, make the mistake of giving your parents the key to your place. Don’t fall for the “just in case” speech – not even for emergencies. If a copy of your keys ends up in their hands, any parental idiosyncrasies they have will end up in yours. Whether they turn up bearing bags of groceries, a piece of furniture, kitchen utensils or some electrical appliance they think you should have, or whether you arrive home from work one evening to find your mum cleaning the kitchen and your dad washing your car, one thing’s for sure: if you move out, your parents will find a way to move in. Expect expressions of shock at the state you live in, criticism of what you are doing wrong and what you should do instead to ensure solitary survival (i.e. do it their way, or give up and move in with them).
Take Katerina, for example, a single woman aged 30, who still lives at her parents’ house. Like many English-Cypriots, Maria chose to study at university in the UK after which she moved back to Cyprus into her family home, initially on a temporary basis. Eight years later, she is still there. She tells me she has tried moving out countless times, all to no avail. Excuses why it hasn’t happened yet are plentiful: how guilty her parents make her feel about leaving the family home, how overprotective they are of her, how improper they feel it would be for her to live alone while unmarried, or what a waste it would be for her to spend money on a place of her own when there is a good enough bedroom for her right there. Sounds familiar?
It’s the same with men. Savvas, in his early thirties, has been living with his parents since returning from his studies abroad. He says that he too has been trying unsuccessfully to move out for years, but recently I have come to doubt that he is trying his hardest. I think that part of him actually enjoys living at home. Perhaps his family is old fashioned and somewhat unreasonable, but then again, he doesn’t need to do any housework, buy any groceries or think about bills while living under their roof. Instead, he spends the time he would otherwise use to convince his parents (and himself) that he needs his independence, going out. And the money he saves by living at home is spent on entertainment and his new car.
Alexi, 34, on the other hand, is finally living the bachelor life he has always wanted after he finally managed to convince his parents. He truly appreciates the time alone he now has, but unfortunately his family is still too demanding, and despite his resistance, he is often guilt-tripped into spending a lot of time with relatives. I would commend him for all his efforts to break loose from the overload of family commitments, but I recently discovered that, to my horror, he still takes his dirty laundry to his mum’s! What is the point, I ask you, of living alone, if you won’t even do your own laundry?
Constantinides, who currently runs weekly Parents Support Groups, which are open to the public and designed to help families better relate and cooperate, clearly understands what Cypriot parents are going through. “Though the social circumstances evolved radically across one to two generations, social psychology still languished,” he says. “Parents shared their precious time/money/support across their 12-15 offspring in the previous era of subsistence. Now they have perhaps 50 times the wealth and a one-tenth of the children. What to do?”
Apparently, over-focusing and spoiling your kids is one option. I may be generalising, but I still believe that there is something distinctly strange about a society which encourages people in their thirties and beyond to be spoilt silly by their parents. Think about it: do you really need that Mercedes convertible your parents have bought you to add to your already four luxury car collection? And will you ever really mature enough to know your own worth if your father keeps using his connections to get you whatever job you want? What on earth is our generation coming to if it keeps getting the kind of attention only wealthy Hollywood celebrities are used to? Remember: there is more than one connotation for the word ‘spoil’.
It is fair to say that the fault is not always only on the parents’ side. My generation is filled with people who seldom face up to their parents, and to the fact that they have to take charge of their own lives. It is the minority who are lucky enough to have come from modern mixed marriages, where more open-minded parents have already had to adapt to cultural differences. In fact, in my social circle of friends, only some married couples are living alone, and even they are still very tied up with family. Many young Cypriot married couples still live in their parents’ house even when they have children of their own, often until their own house is finally built. In my opinion, growing up does not mean simply getting hitched and having a baby – not if you still live with your parents. Even if you do live alone with spouse and baby, how independent are if your mother is going to have you round for meals every day, if your mother-in-law is going to be your child’s new nanny, and if your father is providing you with a maid to clean your house so you have your nap in between phone calls to your friends complaining about how tiring grown-up life is. Please!
What our Cypriot generation should be asking for is the time and space to find and look after ourselves, so we can become ready to become parents. After all, don’t all mums and dads nag their own children about seeing some grandchildren? How do they suppose their offspring will mature enough to be able to look after children of their own – on their own – if they are still treated as children by their own parents? A classic case of Catch-22.
Children have to learn to tell their parents that it would be a nice change to get the opportunity to ask for help once in while, rather than be force-fed it. It is important to stand up for what you believe in and not give up, but standing on your own two feet doesn’t have to mean standing alone. It may be tough getting through to your family sometimes, (and it’s only natural that occasionally thoughts of moving to a distant continent come to mind!), but communication is necessary for growth.
Constantinides, who is a parent himself, accepts there may be downsides to such over-functioning parenting, such as over-involvement in the young adults’ life and frequent doubts over subjects such as responsibility and social clocks delays, “…but in the end,” he says, “perhaps the vulnerable search for purpose will trump the need for a cocoon. Until then let’s not be too harsh on those who compensate for their lack of vision with domestic charity; remember: receiving is a form of giving!”
When it comes down to it, the best gift any parent can give their child (and vice versa) is a little space to grow. In fact, no matter how old you are, there is nothing wrong with telling yourself to “Grow up!” once in a while.
Costas Constantinides maintains a private practice in Polemidia. He can be reached on 99 682002
