21 Living in My Parent's Basement

When I thought about what my life would be like at 21, living in my parent's basement was not a part of that picture. Yet here we are. My husband and I (and soon to be our daughter as well) currently live in my parent's basement.

If I had heard this even nine months ago, I would be embarrassed and ashamed. Definitely feeling like I failed. I was supposed to be living alone with my husband in a house we bought with plenty of space. Maybe I was just naive, but that's how it's supposed to go, right?

Yet, here I am, currently living in an unfinished basement at my parent's house. But I couldn't be more grateful. My dad is working his tail off to redo the basement so we have our own apartment down here. My mom will be upstairs to help me with childcare nearly whenever I need it. My husband and I are able to save more money for our future.

There are lots of strong benefits to living here, but that didn't keep me from being embarrassed when asked where we're living. That is until I spoke with some of my mom's friends and my friend's moms. There are more people who did this than I realized. Knowing that I'm not alone in this really helped me and I hope it can help others too.

It's been a pretty serious struggle mentally, between the feeling of failure and some of the struggles that come along with living with family. I think that aspect though is going to get better once the basement is actually done. We'll have more space and it'll be ours. We'll get to decorate it how we want, have people over when we want, and just have some more privacy, and time together.

I'm also just so much harder on myself than other people. If someone else were to tell me this was their plan, I would be so supportive and wouldn't think twice about it, but because I'm in the situation, it's like it's the end of the world. Why can I not give myself the same grace that I give other people? To be completely honest, it's a really great financial decision right now. And it's not like we're just riding off my parent's. We pay for our own groceries (and most everything else we need), make our own food, do our own house work, I'm full time in school, and my husband has one full time job and one part time job. I even help my mom homeschool my younger sister. It's been a mutually beneficial situation for our little family and my parents.

I am so blessed and grateful to be living in my parent's basement at 21. I'm excited to see what the basement turns out like and to have the extra space. Hopefully, this will allow us to buy our own home soon. But I wouldn't be able to do any of this without my parents and their home.

The goal of this post is to show another girl (or guy) who may be in the same situation, that it's okay to move back into your parent's home. If they are willing and able to help you in this way, it's a huge blessing and might be the smartest thing you can do. Also, I think there's a lot of value in multigenerational living. Through college, I've done a lot of studying into different cultures and many other cultures live this way. So while it may be taboo where you live, it's not taboo for a lot of the world. You're most definitely not alone.