The cultural concept of moving out at 18 is a giant con

Preface - I moved out of my parents house at 16. I am also now a father of two.

Historically there was no pressure to move out of your families home until you had the prospect of a stable career and/or you were married. But in western societies we have adopted this notion that a person must be out of the house at 18 and if they aren't it comes with a tremendous amount of cultural ridicule and baggage.

I think this is a huge con that makes life unnecessarily difficult and that slowly strips away generational wealth from the middle class and erodes socio-economic mobility for the poor.

Obviously there are many people who WANT to leave as early as possible and to them I say good on you. But for those who don't.... for those family who are comfortable with extending that launch period, or who find it more financially practical or whatever... I think that is a perfectly fine and probably somewhat responsible and smart approach because it helps a person get on ther feet financially or establish some stability before having to be thrus into the world on their own.

For me, as a father, if my kids don't leave the house till 19, 20, 23 yr old I would have no issue with that at all as long as they were not just bumming around playing video games.

EDIT* It appears that maybe I was failing to account for my own generational thinking. I'm actually really happy to see so many people push back against this saying that this isn't a widespread cultural paradigm in countries outside of the USA and that even today in US its not nearly as common as it once was.

I'm 40 and when I was growing up this was definitely a thing. but maybe its not so much anymore and I think thats a good thing.