This single mom entrepreneur ignored the ‘stigma and shame’ and moved back in with her parents age 37: ‘It has been truly life-changing’

Eleanor Pringle

Entrepreneur Olivia Howell speaks to me from her sister&#8217;s childhood bedroom. The single mom of two never expected to be living with her parents—her two sons in tow—at the age of 38. <div class="paywall-selector"></div><div class="paywall">



But that&#8217;s where circumstances led her after she separated from her husband in 2019—and it&#8217;s turned out to be one of the best decisions she&#8217;s ever made.



Howell is one of millions of Americans living with their parents or grandparents. According to data from the <a href="https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/families/adults.html">United States Census Bureau</a>, one in three adults aged between 18 and 34 <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/03/in-the-u-s-and-abroad-more-young-adults-are-living-with-their-parents/#:~:text=One%2Din%2Dthree%20U.S.%20adults,Census%20Bureau%20data%20from%202021.">live in their parents&#8217; home.</a>



And despite the number of children living with their parents more than doubling over the past 50 years, those moving or staying at home are still looked down upon. 



A <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/08/24/americans-more-likely-to-say-its-a-bad-thing-than-a-good-thing-that-more-young-adults-live-with-their-parents/">Pew Research Center&nbsp;study</a> published last summer found that 36% of Americans think it&#8217;s bad for society if adult children live with their parents, while just 16% thought it was good for society. 



But what if you don&#8217;t have a choice? 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">&#8216;The security is priceless&#8217;</h2>



When Howell&#8217;s divorce went through, the entrepreneur wanted to help other families going through major life transitions—her dream was to launch a company that could provide basic necessities in a time of flux. 



But as the founder of a New York–based marketing agency, Howell knew she&#8217;d need some capital to get the initiative off the ground and provide her sons—age 7 and 9—with some financial stability. 



So she sold her three-bedroom Long Island home in May 2022 and moved 15 minutes down the road to Huntington, back into the family home she had first lived in age 10. 



Howell&#8217;s evenings have morphed into late-night chats with her mom and stepdad; school pickups, and the duty of looking after the children on sick days, rotate between the adults.



&#8220;I knew that moving in was going to be an adjustment, I just wasn&#8217;t sure how,&#8221; Howell said. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t realize how lonely I was as a single mom in my own house until I moved in here. Having the extra support is truly life-changing.



&#8220;When you&#8217;re a single mom you don&#8217;t have the chance to live life, you&#8217;re constantly hustling, but now I know I&#8217;ll always have a home for us and that security is priceless.&#8221;



Howell no longer has a mortgage and doesn&#8217;t need to pay rent—every week at the grocery store she battles her mom to pay for the food shopping: &#8220;I sometimes let her win,&#8221; Howell laughs. 



The founder added that there&#8217;s a great deal of &#8220;shame and stigma&#8221; around multigenerational homes, but said her sons are flourishing with the support: &#8220;They&#8217;re proud of it. For them this is very normal, they get to show off their grandparents.



&#8220;It does take a village to raise kids and we&#8217;re all worthy of support, so why not take advantage of support if you can?&#8221;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Career freedom</h2>



Forming a multigenerational household has also been a game changer for Howell&#8217;s career—it meant she could launch <a href="https://www.freshstartsregistry.com">Fresh Starts Registry</a>, a website that puts together bundles of items that can be purchased for families going through upheaval. 



Moving in with her parents has allowed Howell to take professional risks she has &#8220;never&#8221; been able to before: &#8220;There&#8217;s no way I could&#8217;ve launched Fresh Starts without this. There&#8217;s got to be some financial support—some people look for investors, some people look for raising a friends-and-family round. For me, it was selling my house.&#8221;



Howell has no plans to leave her parents&#8217; home—and her parents don&#8217;t want her to leave either—but she&#8217;s aware not everyone is so lucky.



&#8220;I don&#8217;t really know what our next step is at this point,&#8221; Howell said. &#8220;My big thing is giving people permission to think outside the box—maybe you could live with your grandparents or a cousin, there&#8217;s always other options and sometimes we don&#8217;t realize that.&#8221; 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">It&#8217;s normal in Europe</h2>



Unfortunately for Americans, the stigma of living with parents is diminished across the Atlantic—in some European countries, up to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/03/in-the-u-s-and-abroad-more-young-adults-are-living-with-their-parents/#:~:text=One%2Din%2Dthree%20U.S.%20adults,Census%20Bureau%20data%20from%202021.">76.5% of adults</a> age 18 to 34 live in their parents&#8217; homes. 



This is most common in southern Europe, namely Croatia (76.5%), followed by Greece (72.9%), Serbia (71.3%), Portugal (72.3%), and Italy (70.5%). 



In the U.K., 4.9 million adult children were living with their parents in 2021, up from 4.2 million a decade before, according to <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/moreadultslivingwiththeirparents/2023-05-10#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20around%201%20in,4.9%20million%20in%20Census%202021.">the Office for National Statistics</a>. 



Among these millions of people is West London–based journalist Éilis Cronin, whose parents purchased a new home in order to accommodate Cronin, her younger sister, and her grandparents last summer. 



For the 28-year-old, a critical part of the decision to live in a multigenerational home is financial. 



Cronin didn&#8217;t want to spend money on London rent—which on average costs more than <a href="https://hub.rightmove.co.uk/rental-trends-tracker-q2-2023/">£2,500 a month</a> ($3,211)—and instead chose to save up for the sizable deposit needed to buy a home, which in the British capital is on <a href="https://www.zoopla.co.uk/discover/property-news/whats-the-average-first-time-buyer-deposit-by-region/">average £144,500</a> ($185,608).



By paying her parents rent instead of a commercial landlord, Cronin hopes to start her property search when she turns 30 next year—3.8 years before the average first-time<a href="https://www.money.co.uk/mortgages/first-time-buyer-mortgages/statistics"> buyer in London</a> makes their purchase.



But for Cronin living with her relatives goes far deeper: It&#8217;s given her a wealth of insight and a connection to her heritage. 



&#8220;My grandparents are Irish and moved to the U.K. in the ’60s,&#8221; Cronin explained. &#8220;We sit down for dinner on a Sunday and the stories come out: the people they knew, the places they lived. It&#8217;s helped bring us closer and understand each other more. 



&#8220;Living with my parents has also meant any questions I have about bank accounts or savings or interest, they&#8217;re there. We can have open and honest conversations about it because they understand. It does do wonders.&#8221;



Cronin&#8217;s grandparents and parents sold their two homes in the suburb of Hillingdon to purchase a larger house that allowed each adult their own room, as well as living spaces for each couple and a large, shared kitchen.



One of the reasons for the move was to support Cronin&#8217;s grandparents as they got older, a reasoning Cronin says is always met with respect: &#8220;Every time I explain it to people they say: &#8216;How lovely.&#8217; It&#8217;s something you hear more about in other cultures, but every time I talk about it, it&#8217;s really positive.&#8221;</div>

New York's Olivia Howell and London's Éilis Cronin discuss living with parents and grandparents in their 20s and 30s.

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