In the materialistic West, a child who does not leave home early enough is often considered to be afflicted by the failure-to launch syndrome. Yes, Asian parents may pamper their kids a bit much and hamper their self development somewhat

The Washington-based Pew Research Center is like a light house for seekers and analysts of changing public opinion on a diverse range of subjects.

Most of its surveys set us thinking afresh about the world around us. Pew’s surveys are known to be free of political or ideological bias. They offer unadulterated information without taking any stand.

A Pew Center report released this May-end has come up with unexpected revelations about the changing patterns of relationship between young American adults and their parents.

It instantly prompts us to draw a comparison with family values in Asia, particularly Nepal. But first some salient features of the Pew survey as documented by economist Richard Fry.

For the first time in USA’s modern history, youth aged between 18 and 34 years are likely to live with a parent than with a spouse or romantic partner.

Describing this change as “seismic”, Fry wrote, “By 2014, 31.6% of young adults were living with a spouse or partner in their own household, below the share living in the home of their parent(s) (32.1%).”

Notably, young men staying with parent(s) outnumber women – 35 %. Just 29 % women in the 18-34 years age bracket live in the homes of their parents.

Why is this happening? After all, till the 1960s most US youngsters married very early and set up their own homes. As much as 62 % of such young adults were living with a spouse or partner in their own household, and only one in five, that is 20 %, were living with their parents.

The median age for marriage then was 20 for women and 22 for men and just one in 10 persons remained unmarried beyond 25 years of age. Now the median ages stand at 27 and 29 respectively and one in five adults above 25 has never married.

Pew had projected in another 2014 report that a quarter of this millennial generation might never marry.

It is not a sudden surge of love for parents that is driving these young adults to mom and/or pop. Rather growing disenchantment from the institution of marriage and rising unemployment are being seen as the root causes behind the return of the so called lost generation.

The millennial adults have seen their parents’ marriages falling apart again and again. Individualism, a core value of the American life highly glorified by the likes of Ayn Rand, has been ripping social ties apart.

Commitment to the sacred vows of matrimony is at an all time low. Divorce is a norm. Marriage in the US no longer guarantees continued emotional support because the spouses are more apart than together.

No wonder, a very large number of young adults live together but choose not to marry. Commitment sounds calamitous.

In fact, employment for young men has been dwindling over the last several decades in the US. According to reports, the share of young men with jobs was at its highest at 84 % around 1960.

But 2014 witnessed just 71 % men in the 18 to 34 years age group with jobs. Adjusted for inflation, their real money wages have been sliding since 1970. The fall from 2000 to 2010 was far more hurting.

This explains their rush to parental home and security. Love for parents and family values are hardly evident. But this is hardly surprising considered the unbridled spurt in individualism, greed and consumerism, and unstoppable decline in social and family values leading to poor parenting.

Subversive writer Lee Daniel Hughes has aptly correlated individualism, narcissism and psychopathy in Western society where only mutual self interests matter and there is no place for altruism and natural empathy for family and fellow beings.

And what a contrast we get to see in Asia and our very own Nepal. Parents dedicate their lives to bringing up their children and the children consider it a bounden duty to take care of their old ones.

Yes, many in our our society too are falling prey to Western values that cause social disintegration, but the situation is still well under control. Our society looks down upon those, whether parents or their progeny, who violate eternal values of family bonding.

In the materialistic West, a child who does not leave home early enough is often considered to be afflicted by the failure-to-launch syndrome. But children are humans not rockets.

Yes, Asian parents may pamper their kids a bit much and hamper their self development somewhat. But aren’t Asian children emerging more proficient and successful in their careers and lives both at home and even abroad? Isn’t Asia rising?

Moreover, is the West offering license to adolescents to leave home to be on their own and hasten their self development? On the contrary, kids-out-of-home seem good riddance for parents in the West.

No wonder then, ageing parents in care homes are good riddance for children-turned-adults. ‘It’s my life’, they hum till things turn gloomy and glum and the psychiatrists’ couch becomes the regular haunt.

West’s desperate quest for ‘love’ thereafter seems ludicrous and pitiable. One broken marriage after another becomes the norm.

Trophy wives can be easily procured. Sugar daddies too are available by the dozen. Money is there aplenty but love is out of stock. As the Pew Survey shows the kids too are returning when the chips are down.

Once the economy kicks in they will fly away again like they were allowed to when they didn’t know good from bad.

The author is a poet and writer.