美國"啃老族"的生活是怎樣的

New U.S. census data (via NPR) tells a story I have long since suspected: More young adults — and particularly, young men — are living with their parents.
Almost one in five young men, ages 25-34, lives at home. And in the past year, the percentage of men living with their parents rose 2.2 percent. For women that number dropped 0.8 percent.
Frankly, I could have told you this a long time ago. It's a trend I've noticed in my own life. And while I'm a little younger than the age group stated in the report (I fall into a slightly larger pool of "losers"), I share their pain.
How did I go from a college graduate with the world at my fingertips to bringing my mom's leftover lasagna to work for lunch?
First, the macro. We are going through an incredible recession, with nine percent unemployment for the general population and over 50 percent of young adults (18-24) without a job. None of this boded well for me at graduation in 2010. It still doesn't.
You'll notice that it's been over a year since graduation. Coming out of school, I was low on options. My dual liberal arts degrees, which for four years had seemingly promised everything and nothing, were delivering only the latter. Even in the relatively sound job market of Pittsburgh, I was grasping at straws.
Then came the micro. Instead of continuing a frustrating job search, I traveled to Central America, volunteering with an organization that turns bicycles into pedal powered machines and learning Spanish. Then I lucked into house sitting for a family friend in Paris, France for three months, which gave me the opportunity to write hip restaurant reviews and sip coffee casually for four hours a day. I took away incredible experiences and lessons from my year abroad — just not a paycheck.
So upon returning to the city of my youth, now over a year removed from college, I knew what I had to do. I took a cab to my mom's apartment in Brooklyn and I haven't left since.
But the world continued to turn while I took my year off, and I soon noticed a pattern. All of my female friends were out the house. One worked hard and capitalized on an opportunity in Los Angeles. Another moved out west with her boyfriend. A third did both, working her way up in the publishing world before getting a place with her boyfriend.
Meanwhile, the guys were still at home. Were they less driven? Dumber? Perhaps. But they — no, we — are part of a growing trend.
And there are plenty of reasons to live at home at this point. We don't have to pay rent, and we save money on food, from groceries to home cooked meals to the occasional night out.
On the other hand, I do pay what I like to call "emotional rent." The memories of having lived on my own — in college, in Guatemala, in my own swanky Parisian apartment — clash painfully with my current living situation. I lack the privacy I once took for granted. I must follow the rules that made sense as a child, but now seem crimping as an adult.
Perhaps worst of all, there's the overwhelming feeling of shame upon meeting a cute girl and having to admit that I live with my mom, that she makes me dinner, that I sometimes come in and find my shirts neatly folded on the nicely made bed. In my experience, women don't find that kind of dependence sexy.
Still, I don't blame anyone for my situation. The choices I made were based on the circumstances, and they were still my decisions, just as all the other young people around the country have their varying circumstances and decisions that brought them back home.
I am thankful for having the opportunity to live with my parents, which not every young American has. And it brings comfort to know that, if I find myself stumbling through an explanation of living with my folks to a girl at the bar, or going quiet when people discuss their new studio apartment in Williamsburg, that I'm not alone.
Now all I need to do is ... well, that's still TBA. In the meantime, I'll keep living at home and hope my friends get fed up enough with the emotional rent they're paying to join me in getting our own place. It's about time.

美國最新戶口普查資料證實了一個我曾經一度料想的事實：越來越多的青年人（尤其是青年男士）回家與父母住在一起了。
年齡在25-34歲的男士中，有五分之一的人是與父母住在一起的。在過去的一年裏，住在父母家中的男士比例增長了2.2%。對於女士，這一比例降低了0.8%。
坦白地說，我本來早就可以說出這一事實的。因爲我親身經歷了這一潮流趨勢。在我比報道中提到的年齡段的人稍微年輕一點的時候（我是一個更大羣啃老族中的一員），我也經歷了他們的痛苦階段。
從遊戲世界的大學畢業生到帶着父母剩下的烤寬麪條去上班，這一轉變又是怎樣發生的呢？
首先是宏觀方面。我們正面臨一次駭人的經濟不景氣局面，失業人數達到9%，超過50%的青年人(18-24歲)找不到工作。這些在我2010年畢業時都顯現出來，而這並不是什麼好的徵兆。現在的情況依然。
我已經畢業一年了。走出校門，我的選擇機會很少。我擁有的雙重文科學位，在四年的學習中好像能帶給我一切又好像一切都沒有，而到最後事實只證明了後者。甚至在匹茲堡這個就業市場比較良好的城市，我也只是勉強維持。
微觀方面。我沒有繼續艱難的找工作，而是到了中美洲，在一個致力於把自行車轉換成踏板動力機的組織中做志願者，同時學習西班牙語。後來我爲我家的一個世交看房子，在法國巴黎住了三個月，在這期間我寫了一些餐館評論，而且每天都有四個小時在悠閒的品嚐咖啡。在國外的那段時間我經歷了很多，也學到了很多，但是卻沒有帶回家工資。
回到家鄉，我離校已經一年了，我知道我要怎麼做。我坐上出租車到了布魯克林的母親家裏就再也沒離開過。
但是在我出國期間世界形勢在持續改變，我很快注意到一個現象。我的所有女性朋友都在外工作了。其中一個很努力的工作，目標是洛杉磯的一個工作機會。另一個和她的男朋友一起搬到了西部。第三個人要在出版界層層往上爬，直到和男朋友都做到一個好職位。
與此同時，年輕男士們卻都呆在家裏。是他們缺乏激情?還是才智匱乏？可能吧。但是他們——不，是我們——是日益增長的趨勢的一分子。
而且這時候可以找出讓我們呆在家裏的一大堆理由。在家不必支付租金，節省食物開支，這些開支包括生活用品、家裏做的飯菜以及偶爾的外出消費。
從另一方面來說，我卻得付出“情感租金”。那些自己生活的日子——在大學裏，在危地馬拉，在巴黎時髦的公寓裏——都與我現在的生活狀況衝突碰撞，讓我感到無比痛苦。現在的我已沒有私人空間，而在以前我卻把這看做理所當然。我必須像孩子一樣守規矩，但對於一個成年人來說這種束縛太不合理了。
更糟糕的是，當我遇到聰明可愛的女孩子時我會感到無比的羞愧，因爲我必須承認我和母親住在一起，她給我做飯，甚至給我洗衣服、疊被子。據我所知，女孩子們是不會喜歡那麼依賴父母的人。
但我不能怪任何人。我做出的選擇是由實際情況決定的，而我曾經一度保持我的選擇，就像其他所有的與父母住在一起的青年人一樣，他們回家住也是有自己的理由的。
我感到很幸運能和父母住在一起，並不是每個年輕的美國人都有這種機會的。當我在酒吧裏結結巴巴的向一個女孩解釋和父母住在一起的原因，或者聽到別人談論他們在威廉斯堡的新工作室而陷入沉靜時，知道有人的情況和我一樣是令人倍感欣慰的。
現在我需要做的就是……這個……仍待探索。同時，我仍會住在父母家裏，盼着朋友們會逐漸厭煩了住在家裏所要付出的情感租金，然後和我一塊開創自己的小天地。這很快就會到來的。