Leaving home isn’t necessarily a prominent canon event associated with adulting, at least not in my part of the world. In fact, children growing up to look after the home and their parents is more or less the cultural norm in most Nigerian communities.

However, this is only one side of the narrative that young people of Nigeria hear today. On the other side is the Western ideal of individualism and self-sufficiency, in which leaving the family home is associated with freedom.

The expectation, at least in the version of adulthood I had observed from afar, was that college marked the beginning of a separate household and financial independence. Leaving the family home is seen as a rite of passage as much as a living arrangement. Yet even in the US, the reality is less tidy than the cultural script suggests. In 2025, 58 percent of adults aged eighteen to twenty-four lived in their parents’ home, while 16 percent of those aged twenty-five to thirty-four did.

What the Western narrative calls independence, the rest of the world may call separation. Growing up in Nigeria, home was home. No one was in a hurry to leave, and no one was willing to let you go either. Families typically stayed together until they “grew enough” to branch out, meaning someone only moved out when they got married, whether male or female. Until then, the family stuck together.

The only other common reason for moving out was the search for “greener pastures,” meaning better jobs or working conditions, which sometimes necessitated living in a different town, state, or even country. A young person living alone in the same city as their family invited negative assumptions about their relationship with that family.

In the Nigerian setting, then, adulthood and independence have little to do with separating from one’s family. They mean being able to take on responsibilities within it.

The more I looked outside the cultural assumptions I had inherited, the stranger the Western expectation began to seem. Across Asia, living with family seems to be the norm. In India, for example, multigenerational households are far more common than not, with the family home serving parents, kids, grandparents, and all sorts of relatives at once.

This way of living is also evident in parts of southern Europe. In 2025, young people left home at an average age of 30.2 in both Italy and Spain, almost four years later than the EU average of 26.3.

This way of living also has real benefits. For one, living together allows the family to pool resources. Another obvious benefit is the presence of loved ones. There is the downside of having people in your business 24/7, though one may argue it adds to the charm.

With the definition of independence looking increasingly culturally constructed, the Western idea that living with one’s parents signals dependence and failure looks less like a universal truth and more like one cultural preference among many.

What’s more, given current economic realities, the Western model is also becoming harder to afford. According to Pew, US median home prices rose 30 percent between 2019 and 2024, while the median income of households headed by someone under forty rose just 9 percent.

Still, not everyone living at home is there because they can’t afford to leave. What was once framed as a failure of independence is increasingly a rational response to economic conditions. Pew also found that among US young adults living with parents, 72 percent contribute financially to the household, and 64 percent say living with parents has helped their personal finances. For many, living at home has become a strategy.

However, this article would not be complete without acknowledging the bitter side of the conversation: not every house is a home, and not every household is a place of refuge. Some homes are neither safe nor supportive, and family relationships can be strained. Then there’s the age-old problem of privacy and autonomy, which is often a huge factor in choosing to move out.

Everyone’s circumstances are unique, so treating any one cultural narrative, any one bubble, as the standard would be to overlook the individual entirely. So maybe independence and adulthood shouldn’t be defined by where you live or who you live with. Maybe none of us should get to define it for anyone else. ‘Cause who knows? You just might be in a bubble of your own.