Confessions of an Adultolescent

By Nichole Tomkeal

Note:  As part of The Babbler's commitment to the greater Chicago community, we're introducing a regular column for the estimated 20,000 Chicagoland adults who still live with their parents. 

They say that every journey begins with a small step.  That being said, I hope that this new column is step on a journey to becoming a new person. 

First I have a confession to the readers of The Babbler.  I am an adultolescent, an adult who lives with their parents for so long that they have regressed back into adolescence.  Our numbers our increasing.  A sizeable portion of my friends live with their parents, and when Newsweek writes about us, it shows that we have reached a critical mass. 

Dr. Phil may mock us, but he does not truly understand the plight of the adultolescent.  We do have jobs, but they are low paying jobs that we cannot use to support ourselves with.  Society compels us to buy the coolest gadgets, then wonders why we haven't been able to save enough money.  We are an under-employed generation!

Not only that, but our Baby Boomer parents hold back our independent spirit.  They grew up in a world with unheard of freedom.  Our generation is the result of their experimentation with free sex and cheap drugs.  So to speak.

Since they grew up without boundaries, they knew the kind of trouble we were capable of getting into.  So the Baby Boomer parents became overprotective.  They kept us in baby safe rooms as infants.  They over-scheduled our time as children.  They put us on guilt trips as adolescents to keep us from having sex.  They didn't even let us schedule our own college classes!  Now they wonder why we lack the independence necessary to get a good paying jobs!

I grew up in the same conditions as most adultolescents.  From age 7 to 13, my parents enrolled me in every after school activity.  At 13, my dad made me feel guilty if deviated in slightest from his strict instructions.  I know he loves me, but he also retarded my ability to be independent.  Even in college, I had to live with my parents.  They said they couldn't afford to put me in the dorms, but I suspect that they really wanted to keep me close by so I didn't do any partying.

After graduation, I tried to find a job as a courtroom artist, but no one wanted to hire me.  The only job I could get was a floor person at Meijer.  But I kept hoping for better.

The months turned to years, and the years turned into a decade.  My father says I will never amount to anything now that I'm 34. For a while I started to wonder if he was right.  This only retarded my sense of independence, which kept me in the same low paying job that inspired my father to say that I would never amount to anything.  What a vicious circle!"

Now that The Babbler has hired me to write this column.  I feel that I have a chance to break the cycle.  The money will help, but importantly, it will give me the chance to do something that doesn't involve stocking shelves.  And I am starting to feel a slight bit of independence.

Just the other day, my father asked my column.  I told him that I was going to write about my life, and it would be published on the Internet.  (I didn't mention the newsstand editions.)

He scowled at me, like he usually.  "Nichole!"  He said, "You're not going to post about me on your Internet Bog!"

Technically, I'm not posting about him on an Internet bog.  I'm posting about him in a tabloid that just happens to post some of their stories online.  So I'm not really disobeying him.  But I feel like I am violating the spirit of his order.  Last year I wouldn't have done that.  But this month, I did!  It's a first step.

I hope I can inspire others to take that first step as well!

|

Please note: All stories and characters on this web site are works of fiction.