Figured I'd share my story since I see a lot of posts about people lamenting their being forced to move back in with their parents. I'm relatively new to this sub, but I figured I'd share my story.
Twice in my adult life I've been forced to move back in with my parents. To this day I'm still living with them, with no end in sight.
My first career was to be a gigging musician, and to toot my own horn I think I was pretty damn good at it. After getting my associates in science I dropped out of college to pursue playing full time. When I wasn't getting gigs through the local union I was getting studio time all over the place, and while I wasn't getting rich by any stretch of the imagination I was happy because I was independant and doing exactly what I wanted to do.
Then 2008 came and the housing market crashed. Suddenly none of the venues and local restaurants had the money for live music anymore. Most never returned to having live bands, mostly settling with the one man act with a singer playing guitar. As a drummer I couldn't find gigs anymore, and most of the local studios shut down.
Age 20. Moved back in with parents.
For the next few years I taught as a third party contractor in middle schools and high schools as a percussion instructor. Not a glamorous gig, doesn't pay particularly well, and a far cry from what I wanted to be doing. I didn't hate the kids per say, but you never know how stressful and exhausting it can be working with preteens until you actually do it. It was then I met a mobile musical instrument repair shop who visited the school I taught at, and that's when I learned I had a knack for instrument repair. It was legitimately fascinating to me, and I decided that I would enroll in a tradeschool so I could get into the career.
Long story short, I finished my schooling in a couple years and got a job with the same mobile repair company that introduced me to the career. I managed to get my own apartment and got to work.
It did not go well, and very quickly I learned what it meant to be taken advantage of. When it comes to the trades, just getting the schooling isn't enough to make you good at it, you need training on the job as well. They provided absolutely no on the job training and threw me to the wolves. I busted my ass and did everything I could to learn what I needed to learn on my own, but that didn't prevent me from getting fired after a year.
From there I jumped job to job in instrument repair, most places giving me the same line of “We want to train an apprentice” but not actually wanting to do the “Training” part of it. Even though I did manage to find the place of employment I work at now, my finances completely dried out.
Age 28. Moved back in with parents. Again.
Fast forward to now, into my 30s. I've been working for this company for 5 years, and for the most part the work environment is fine. Not great, but I can't complain too much. Nobody fucks with me, nobody breaths down my neck, and nobody sets any strict deadlines so long as I get the job done in a reasonable amount of time. I've been at this long enough to where I'm reasonably good at my trade and there's few repairs that I can't do.
Unfortunately I chose the wrong career. It's a deadend. As a woodwind repair specialist, the only way to make a living is to fix school horns, since wind instruments in a live setting has been on the decline for years.
Twice I've dedicated myself to a career path. Twice I've done everything I was supposed to, get my name out there, network, get the proper schooling, work my ass off. Twice I've been told that nothing I did was good enough, and here I am back at square one again.
Despite all this, I'm one of the lucky ones. Despite Covid I still have my job and have managed to negotiate a couple raises, but I've all but given up on the idea of being able to own a house of my own or retire. I'm lucky that my family is understanding of my position and is willing to support me while I try to figure out a third career change. I take what comfort I can in the fact that roughly half of working millennials have had to move back in with parents at some point. But at times it's really hard to escape the feeling that you've failed, somehow.
The system was never meant to work for people like us. I can't afford to go back to school, so I'm resorting to self-study courses to see if I can somehow get into IT. I've resigned myself to the idea of “If I'm gonna do work that I fucking hate, I might as well make money doing it”. I can't see where I'll be in 10 years, let alone tomorrow, but I've just told myself to take it one day at a time. Because that's about all I can do at this point.
So I'll end this with a TL;DR message to every millennial in their 30s living with their parents:
You're not a loser. You're not a failure. And you are certainly not alone