Andrea Yoch loves her adult sons, but would also love not to live with them. This is especially true in the 2, 200-square-foot rental in St. Paul, where she and her husband moved after the boys left their childhood home (a 5,000-square-foot property with a pool). But now Ben, 20, and Ryan, 23 are crammed with their parents in a house where a movie playing in one room can be heard in almost any other.
After her sons showed up due to the lockdown after the Coronavirus crisis struck—Ben from Boston, where he is a college student, and Ryan from New York, where he was starting out as an assistant advertising account executive—Ms. Yoch rushed to set up temporary offices in a bedroom and a basement that now also functions as a super crowded gym. "I would give anything for them to restart their lives," she said.
As the pandemic continues, Wall Street bankers, Uber drivers, academics, artists and many other adults have given up their independent lives and migrated home. Some fled heavily populated cities for the rural suburban houses where they grew up and for the promise of home-cooked meals and free laundry. Others ended up in downsized spaces designed for empty nesters or in apartments already shared with other family members, such as grandparents or teenage siblings.
Parents caught by the increase of layoffs and canceled contracts found themselves feeding grown children who were in the same position. Mothers who had grown accustomed to freedom were suddenly expected to go back to cooking and cleaning.
"Some parents see this as a welcome surprise, but it can also add a lot of financial stress," said Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at the investment bank Stifel. "You can't assume that parents are necessarily in a better-off position than their adult children: a lot of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and don't have enough savings to accommodate extra people living in their households."
