美国"啃老族"的生活是怎样的

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.

美国最新户口普查资料证实了一个我曾经一度料想的事实：越来越多的青年人（尤其是青年男士）回家与父母住在一起了。
年龄在25-34岁的男士中，有五分之一的人是与父母住在一起的。在过去的一年里，住在父母家中的男士比例增长了2.2%。对于女士，这一比例降低了0.8%。
坦白地说，我本来早就可以说出这一事实的。因为我亲身经历了这一潮流趋势。在我比报道中提到的年龄段的人稍微年轻一点的时候（我是一个更大群啃老族中的一员），我也经历了他们的痛苦阶段。
从游戏世界的大学毕业生到带着父母剩下的烤宽面条去上班，这一转变又是怎样发生的呢？
首先是宏观方面。我们正面临一次骇人的经济不景气局面，失业人数达到9%，超过50%的青年人(18-24岁)找不到工作。这些在我2010年毕业时都显现出来，而这并不是什么好的征兆。现在的情况依然。
我已经毕业一年了。走出校门，我的选择机会很少。我拥有的双重文科学位，在四年的学习中好像能带给我一切又好像一切都没有，而到最后事实只证明了后者。甚至在匹兹堡这个就业市场比较良好的城市，我也只是勉强维持。
微观方面。我没有继续艰难的找工作，而是到了中美洲，在一个致力于把自行车转换成踏板动力机的组织中做志愿者，同时学习西班牙语。后来我为我家的一个世交看房子，在法国巴黎住了三个月，在这期间我写了一些餐馆评论，而且每天都有四个小时在悠闲的品尝咖啡。在国外的那段时间我经历了很多，也学到了很多，但是却没有带回家工资。
回到家乡，我离校已经一年了，我知道我要怎么做。我坐上出租车到了布鲁克林的母亲家里就再也没离开过。
但是在我出国期间世界形势在持续改变，我很快注意到一个现象。我的所有女性朋友都在外工作了。其中一个很努力的工作，目标是洛杉矶的一个工作机会。另一个和她的男朋友一起搬到了西部。第三个人要在出版界层层往上爬，直到和男朋友都做到一个好职位。
与此同时，年轻男士们却都呆在家里。是他们缺乏激情?还是才智匮乏？可能吧。但是他们——不，是我们——是日益增长的趋势的一分子。
而且这时候可以找出让我们呆在家里的一大堆理由。在家不必支付租金，节省食物开支，这些开支包括生活用品、家里做的饭菜以及偶尔的外出消费。
从另一方面来说，我却得付出“情感租金”。那些自己生活的日子——在大学里，在危地马拉，在巴黎时髦的公寓里——都与我现在的生活状况冲突碰撞，让我感到无比痛苦。现在的我已没有私人空间，而在以前我却把这看做理所当然。我必须像孩子一样守规矩，但对于一个成年人来说这种束缚太不合理了。
更糟糕的是，当我遇到聪明可爱的女孩子时我会感到无比的羞愧，因为我必须承认我和母亲住在一起，她给我做饭，甚至给我洗衣服、叠被子。据我所知，女孩子们是不会喜欢那么依赖父母的人。
但我不能怪任何人。我做出的选择是由实际情况决定的，而我曾经一度保持我的选择，就像其他所有的与父母住在一起的青年人一样，他们回家住也是有自己的理由的。
我感到很幸运能和父母住在一起，并不是每个年轻的美国人都有这种机会的。当我在酒吧里结结巴巴的向一个女孩解释和父母住在一起的原因，或者听到别人谈论他们在威廉斯堡的新工作室而陷入沉静时，知道有人的情况和我一样是令人倍感欣慰的。
现在我需要做的就是……这个……仍待探索。同时，我仍会住在父母家里，盼着朋友们会逐渐厌烦了住在家里所要付出的情感租金，然后和我一块开创自己的小天地。这很快就会到来的。