Moving to Independence: Leaving Home, Leaving Institutions

Leaving the parental home is normal; most of us do it sooner or later, usually in adolescence or young adulthood. But it can be a protracted and difficult process. Leaving home is not only a matter of finding somewhere else to live, although that can be hard enough. It also entails a loosening or severing of family relationships and the assumption of a more autonomous lifestyle. Following the typology which was outlined at the end of chapter 1, one theme running through this chapter will be parent/child relationships between adults: the changing dependent and caring roles between generations in families, and how tension in these relationships interacts with difficulties in access to alternative housing. A second theme will be the meaning of independence and how this is presented as a main objective in current social policies.