How Do You Do: Moving Back In With The Parents
You tried your hardest, but you’re just not a grown up. You decided to follow your dreams, but your dreams don’t pay well. You said it was just going to be for a few weeks. Just until you get back up on your feet. Maybe you moved home just before you went travelling, saying to yourself “After my OE I’ll move right out and get that job I know I can get”.
Grow up. No wonder you’re living back with your folks. You’re clearly still an idiot.
Luckily, your parents don’t know how much of an idiot you are. They’re naturally programmed to want to look after you and love you. Plus they don’t know how much of a creep you are at bars, how much you hit on your friends girlfriends/boyfriends, how many drugs you’ve been taking and they don’t know about that STI that you still (stupidly) haven’t got checked out. Good news – it’s not herpes. Bad news – it’s all the other ones.
Now you’re back at home. You’ve already lived out of home, so you know what freedom is. You long for it once again. But when you live in their house, you follow their rules. That’s not just a cliché. It’s a fact of life. If you were living with me, you’d follow my rules too. But you’re not, because I’m one of the friends you’ve pissed off when you’ve been skeeving off my booze, my smokes and my generosity.
Just kidding, I’d never do that. I’d never give you shit. I know how much of a fucktard you are. But that’s my point - your parents don’t.
Unfortunately you’re not grown up enough to realise that perhaps you shouldn’t take advantage of that fact. You’re going to steal the small change you see floating around the house. You’re going to go up and “get the milk”, but you’re also going to keep the change. You’re going to bitch and moan that your parents are telling you that you need to do something with your life and that your dreams might have to go on hold. You tell them that you’re an artist/writer and that you won’t sell out. Here’s a question: When was the last time you wrote something? Was it when you thought of a good idea, put a note in your iPhone (which your parents bought you) and then completely forgot about? Sound familiar?
You’re young. You’re under 25, probably. It’s okay to be back with your folks. What they don’t understand is that it’s not actually all that easy to go and get a job, even at a cafe. What you should be doing is volunteering. You love puppies and kittens? Go work at the SPCA. Oh, that’s too far away? Okay, how about you go volunteer at a radio station. They’re full up, not taking any more vollies? Maybe try asking them again next week. Show how you actually want to do that sort of thing. Oh, turns out you don’t? Maybe go work on a student film set for free. Network and learn about things. Oh, you don’t like working collaboratively? Here’s what I’ve got from you:
· You like puppies and kittens as long as they’re on the internet and you can play with them but not actually help them / you’re selfish
· You want to work in radio because you’re really “into music” except you’re not willing to put the hard yards in / you’re lazy
· Your dreams of working on a film will never come to fruition because you say that you don’t like working with others who don’t know what they’re doing and don’t take your constructive ideas to heart / you just realised you don’t know a thing about film
Thank God you’ve moved back in with your parents. You’ve got a lot of growing up to do, young man/lady.
But it’s not all bad. Home cooked meals are great. Since you’ve got nothing to do, eventually you’ll stop watching television and decide to start exercising. You’ll start to experiment with cooking and baking. After your parents really give you that grilling you so sorely need, you’ll realise that the world doesn’t owe you shit.
Do you think your grandparents had dreams? They worked jobs that suck so much now robots have been invented to do it because those jobs caused cancer. They didn’t moan. They just did it. You lack work ethic, and you’ve watched far too many indie coming of age flicks where the protagonist got that job interview.
At best, you’re a supporting character in someone else’s film. It’s far more likely that you’re an extra, or not even in the film at all. Really, you’re just an audience member for life.
So be thankful you’ve got your parents to look after you, make you a hot chocolate and a Sunday roast, because if anyone’s watching the straight-to-dvd film you call your life, it’s them. And they’ll give you rave reviews.