Parasite singles
Youthful enough for the Gossip Girl set yet mature enough to dispense nuggets of wisdom, Scott Pape can be considered the Jamie Oliver of finance. And with a book (The Barefoot Investor: Five Steps to Financial Freedom in Your 20s and 30s), a CNBC show (Barefoot Investor) and a Herald Sun column on his CV, it’s easy to see why the multi-tasking Australian is becoming the go-to money guru for newly-minted young adults.
A few years ago, the teenage me would’ve probably dismissed all this talk of financial responsibility as old-people hoo-hah, something as scintillating as the latest steel prices. But now that I’ve been formally ushered into the world of eight-hour workdays — goodbye lost weekends, hello taxes! — sorting out the cash situation has become less a personal-choice option and more of a non-negotiable. Say it with me: Growing up is annoying!
Anyway, during one of Scott’s podcasts for Sydney’s Top Shelf Radio, a 25-year-old woman calls in to ask for advice on what to do with the A$2,000 (US$1,800) she managed to save up: Go on a holiday or start paying back her A$5,000 credit card debt. As it turns out, she still lived with her parents, whom she also owed A$4,000. (In his column, he says an Urban Market Research survey found that 50.2% of kids under 30 were still living with their folks in suburbs.)
The finance whiz and his co-host are aghast but immediately switch to Suze Orman mode; this was their specialty after all. Amid the candid chatter and friendly finger-wagging, Scott Pape briefly mentions the “parasite single effect.” I was intrigued, and so I Googled.
It Came From A Horror Movie
It’s hardly the politest of expressions, but “parasite single” does the job. First used by Tokyo sociologist Masahiro Yamada in his 1999 book The Age of Parasite Singles, the term refers to young people who sponge off their parents and use their rent-free incomes to splurge on designer goodies, expensive dinners, and trips abroad. The professor got the idea, aptly, from the 1997 Japanese horror movie Parasite Eve.
In an interview with USA Today, Yamada says the most carefree of the parasite singles tend to be women; the men are more serious about establishing careers and moving out on their own one day. It seems the phenomenon is to blame for a drop in the number of marriages and births in Japan.
Other words to describe stay-at-home adult offspring: twixters, as in betwixt and between, neither adult nor child; adultescents, or young people who refuse to settle down and make commitments, and who would rather go on partying into middle age; or kippers, an elaborate acronym for “kids in parents’ pockets eroding retirement savings.” Try saying that five times.
Merry Band Of Moochers
This merry band of moochers isn’t limited to the Land of the Rising Sun. In Europe and North America, leaving the nest to experience full Baudelairian decadence in college is a rite of passage. What happens after graduation, however, is another matter. The lucky ones find gainful employment and continue the independent streak. Those who are unsuccessful with the job hunt, however, often return home to live with their parents, boomeranging back to their place of origin.
I could’ve easily been one of those carefree freeloaders except I made the conscious decision not to. Having lived on my own since my late teens, I can’t imagine it any other way. On average, you lose 2/3 of your disposable when you live independently but the rewards, as cheesy as it sounds, make it worthwhile. (Juggling all the things I do to sustain my quote-unquote lifestyle, I’m quite surprised at my ability and agility to roll out into my office building following the squalors of the night before, still possessing the pep of a Vampire Weekend video.) It’s true what they say: You tend to find ways to make things work when you really want to.
The 2006 movie Failure to Launch may have presented the parasite single effect in all its unbelievable romcom glory. That doesn’t mean, though, that it’s not happening. I’m a fan of neither Matthew McConaughey nor Sarah Jessica Parker, but I have a wee crush on Zooey Deschanel. Watch it for her and take the rest of the film as a lesson on how not to become part of the epidemic when you finally hit that fork in the road.
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