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the ones who stay. Now most people can never afford an apartment like that in their entire lives. It's extremely expensive, even by the standards of New York. But in Sex and the City, it's rent controlled. Or something along those lines. For young women watching the show, it looks like a place they might realistically be able to to live. Friends had a similar idea with Monica's apartment, which would cost something like a $10,000 a month to rent in real life. But in the show, once again, it's rent controlled. So millions of young people saw scenes like this and believe that it was a reasonable approximation of life in New York. The massive apartment, the big windows for someone making a chef's salary. And many other shows at the time had a similar message. The idea, you know, that your 20s are when you're supposed to just focus on having fun. That's kind of been the drumbeat that young people have marched to in our culture for a long time. Just wait until you're 30 to get married, to have kids and so on. But does anyone at this point not realize that this is anti human, anti family propaganda? Do you think it makes people happy, leads to human flourishing? What percentage of young women living like that are on antidepressants? How are they doing when their 20s come, come and go and now it's their 30s or their 40s and they're living alone in an empty apartment. Why should we push our kids in that direction? I mean, what's the point now? The cliche Thing is to blame all this on the boomers and to say that this whole idea came from the boomers. But the reality is, cliche or not, that they do strongly believe this. And one reason boomers think along these lines is that they turned 18 in a radically different country. The median baby boomer was born in about 1955. The average cost for them to go to school in the 1970s was 500 to $600 a year. Now, even if you account for inflation, the cost of attending a major public university has more than doubled even with inflation. And the same is true for housing. In 1970, the median home price was around $23,000. And if you adjust for inflation, that $23,000 home in 1970 should only cost about $180,000 today. But that's not what happens. Today's median home is well over $400,000, so that's more than double. So while our economy is better by most metrics, it's also a lot harder for young people to own a home than it used to be. A lot harder. That's because though our economy is generating more money, it's also much more competitive for people who are starting their careers. Young people today are competing against robots, AI, tens of millions of new foreign migrants in the job market. We also have one of the least affordable housing markets in history right now with low inventory, high prices, and a lot of people who don't want to sell because they got locked into a very low interest rate during COVID A college degree, even a degree in computer science or hard science like physics, something useful, doesn't even come close to guaranteeing a job anymore the way that it used to. And all this to say the arguments in favor of, you know, telling your kids to spread their wings are, are much less persuasive now than they were in the 1950s. In response to my post on X, Mike Cernovich made a similar point. He wrote that when he was an early 20something, he was able to live in Santa Monica without spending much money. You could afford it by waiting tables and finding a roommate. Well, today if you want a one bedroom in Santa Monica, Santa Monica, you're looking at spending around 30 $500 or 1750amonth with a roommate. And throw in utilities and Internet and tax and you're looking at 2,000 bucks a month easily for one half of a one bedroom apartment in Santa Monica. So if you make 50 grand a year as a waiter, which is on the high end, then after tax and rent, you will have precisely $0 left over at the end of the month, you can't save a dime. You won't build any wealth, you can't save for your retirement, much less your kids education or living expenses. So the whole idea that you're starting out your life and building is pretty difficult because you can't build anything, you can't save any money. Now none of this happened by accident. The government began backing loans and grants for college education while also slashing taxes to fund many colleges. So students took on a much bigger burden for paying their tuition. And colleges knew that they could simply raise tuition year after year and students could get a loan to cover it. Meanwhile, zoning became more restrictive and institutional buyers purchased hundreds of thousands of homes. And the borders were opened, flooding the housing market with many more buyers. And all of this happened for the most part with the consent of the boomers, Many of whom are now aghast at the possibility that their children might want to live near home past the age of 18. So when you tell your 18 year old to leave the house, where are they going to go? Sure, there are places where they can live cheaply. I mean, do you want your kid in, to live in, I don't know, Gary, Indiana, Flint, Michigan. Are there good high paying jobs in those neighborhoods? Are they safe? Is that where you, where you want your grandkids to be playing on the playground in Gary, Indiana? In America today, even bad neighborhoods like South Central Los Angeles are expensive. And here's a, here's a 1500 square foot home that's going for $500,000. It's surrounded by a fence, there are bars on the front door. There's a half a million dollar home. Again, to afford it, you need six figures in cash. You're putting your life and your family's life in danger for a half a million dollar home in a neighborhood like this. It's far more than most people can afford. But that's what they're being asked to do. That's the situation people are facing today. Now at the same time, there are many people who understand the benefits of giving your kids a longer Runway to start their adult lives. And they don't kick their own kids out at 18. If anything, you know that that's the global norm. And many other cultures in many other countries encourage adult children to remain close to home until marriage and even afterwards. In some cases, something like 80% of South Koreans in their 20s live with their parents. 73% of Greek adults under 35 live at home. More than 70% of young Italians live with their Parents, Portugal and Spain are around 50%. But for white Americans, the situation is completely different. Only around 30% of white Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 live with their parents. And those figures include Hispanics, which skew the results much higher. According to Pew quote, white young adults are less likely than Asian, Hispanic and black counterparts to live in a parent's home. And metropolitan areas with a higher than average share of white adults among the young adult population tend to have a lower than average share of young adults living in a parent's home. And as indeed, as you can see from this map, a lot of people living with their parents are concentrated on the coast, which you can see there. In Southern California, where most of the population is Hispanic, it's very common for people to live with their parents well into adulthood. The same is true in New York, where around 40% of the population was born in a foreign country. On the other hand, and pretty much the entire middle of the country and the Pacific Northwest, which are mostly white areas, it's a different story. Again, this is from Pew quote With a couple exceptions, the 10 metros with the lowest shares of young adults living in a parent's home have a higher than average share of white young adults. For example, 4% of young adults in Bozeman, Montana live in a parent's home and 77% of all young adults there are white. In the metros with above average shares of white young adults, the Median Metro has 14% of young adults living in a parents home. Now given everything else we know about how white Americans are under attack in this country, this doesn't seem like an accident. Pretty much every other culture on the planet is focusing on family development, building generational wealth, while white Americans are encouraged to live on their own, often with roommates. Like it's better to live with a roommate than with your family is the idea. I'm not sure why that would be the case. White Americans predominantly are the ones who are, you know, going forth and taking on enormous debt in the process at, at a point in their lives when they are not able to do that. And you might say, well, white Americans have a different, different culture and we wouldn't have conquered the Americas if we stayed at home. Hence the famous quote, go west young man, and grow up with the country. But in reality, for most of this country's history, white American culture generally involved staying close with your family. I mean, there were exceptions, but that's generally the way it worked. We did kind of a deep dive into how families functioned before the boomers. And this is what we found. If you go back to the 19th century, it was common for children in rural New England to sing the rhyme big house, little house, back house, barn, as an ode to the kind of family compounds that many of them grew up in. This is very normal. This was the norm. This was common. An author named Thomas Hubka wrote a book about these connected farmstead style homes which look like this. And you know, Hudka writes that, quote, by the middle of the 19th century, Young married couples in many established farming areas could not obtain a farm and often live with their parents in a common pattern. The parents would retain control of the older big house with its older kitchen, and the younger family would use the new kitchen. He states that the ideal family unit for most farm families in the 19th century was a nuclear family. With the anticipated addition of parents and old age, it was common for households to gain related and non related members, including aged parents, orphaned young, widowed relatives and neighbors. But this kind of living arrangement has now fallen out of favor. Hubka continues, quote, today, the connected house to barn arrangement is still the region's dominant farm architecture. Yet few farms are still active and their total numbers are fast retreating. In several towns I know well, more than two thirds of the historic connected farmsteads have either lost their connecting middle buildings or have completely vanished. Now, it's a transformation that in various ways has taken place all over the country for many different reasons. Now, it's true that as of 2020, data does indicate that among U.S. adults with at least one living parent or adult child, 75% live within 30 miles of that parent or adult child. At the same time, only around 35% of US adults had all of their living parents and adult children living within 30 miles of their household. That's according to researchers from the University of Michigan. In other words, while families aren't completely separated, it's now overwhelmingly common for adults to live far away from at least one of their parents or children. And that wasn't always the case. Far from it. Take a look at this census data beginning in 1850. That was a significant year because it was the first time that the census tracked the total number of people in a household, as opposed to simply tracking the head of the household. And the top graph shows the total number of households, which increased from just 3.5 million in 1850 to well over 90 million by 1990. And the bottom graph is almost the complete opposite, which you can see here. It shows the average number of persons per household in the United states beginning in 1850. They actually included a data estimate from 1790 as well. But otherwise, it starts in 1850. In 1850, there were an average of 5.39 persons per household. By 1900, the number had dropped to 4.55. By 1950, that number was down to 3.38. And by 2010, it was down to about 2.6. What this means is that in the middle of the 19th century and beforehand, it was common for adults to remain in the household they grew up in or on the same property rather than move away and start their own household. And that was how most people, many of them on farms, but not all of them, live their lives. But in every single Census, beginning in 1850, the average number of persons per household has dropped. It's become less and less common for households to contain entire families, including adult children. And the decline intensified around the turn of the century, from 1880 to 1900, and then it picked up again, as you'd expect, in the 1950s and 1960s. Now, it's no secret what happened here. First, there was the. The Industrial Revolution, which meant that many young people left the family farm to secure more lucrative jobs at textile mills and steel plants and slaughterhouses and so on. The farms didn't need as many people due to the invention of new machinery, and crop prices were often unstable. So there was an economic reason to move out. Add in plenty of foreign migration, as well as the freed slaves, and you have the recipe for one of the most significant demographic transformations in the history of the United States. In 1870, only around a quarter of the U.S. population lived in urban areas. By 1900, that number had increased to nearly 40%. And these numbers resulted, in many cases, from the departure of young people from their hometowns. By the 1950s and 60s, you had many other factors. The GI Bill, the rise of the suburbs, the interstate highway system, air travel, and so on, which made it even easier for families to grow apart. But it's important to emphasize that in the 1800s and 1900s, adult children who left home weren't going off to college to join a fraternity or hang out with roommates. They were getting jobs and getting married. For the most part, in 1900, men got married at 25 and women at 21. On average. In 1960, the average man got married at 22. For women, it was 20. Now, as of 2026, the numbers are completely different. The average age of marriage for men is around 31, and 28 for women. Now, you can see the General trend from 1890 to 2017 in this chart. From the Census Bureau, which shows the, the median age when men and women are getting married. So what's happened is that, you know, young adults initially moved away from home in order to raise families of their own, you know, on their own property, in their own cities. And that was the case for decades after the Industrial revolution began. But now young people are moving away from home for a very different reason. You know, they're, they're leaving in many cases to experience a kind of extended adolescence where they delay marriage in favor of hanging out, attending an expensive, expensive college, experiencing city life and all that sort of thing. Now, none of this is historically normal or good. I mean, the idea of having adult children move away, not get married, not actually start adult life, but just kind of like hang out with roommates for 5, 10, 15 years. It's never worked that way in the history of humanity. I mean, this is all very, very new. And it doesn't, it doesn't work. Now, as the historian Stephanie Koontz has pointed out, this is a, is a very new phenomenon in the context of American history. Quote, the 1950s was a historical fluke. For the first time, young people could afford to move away from home, marry early, and buy a house on a single income. That brief period created an unrealistic expectation that this was the traditional American way, when in fact, multi generational living and delayed independence had been the historical norm for centuries. In other words, the perspective that I'm talking about, that I prefer my kids to live near me or even on our property, was the norm throughout most of this country's history, not to mention the history of human civilization generally. There was a period beginning in the late 19th century, accelerating in the 1950s, where that norm was suspended. But that was a unique period when the economy was booming and you could buy a house for 25 cents, and everybody was expected to get married very soon after leaving home. Now, to be clear, you know, maybe you do have a very strong argument in your particular situation for encouraging your children to leave your community in your household. But whatever that argument is, you have to recognize that it's completely different from the argument that people could make in the 1950s or even the 1880s or any other point in American history. What you're supposed to think now is that if your kids settle down far away from you, then they've achieved independence and they've succeeded in life. At the same time, the children of the elites, they're not settling down far away from their mansions and compounds. You know, the Kardashians, the Hemsworth, Brothers, the Kennedys, the Bush family, the Rockefellers, they all bought massive properties so they could remain in close proximity to their families. And there's a reason for that. You know, barring some sort of economic necessity or some very unusual circumstance, it's good to live around people you care about and who you have something in common with. It's a very good and healthy practice to build out a support structure so that you aren't living entirely around strangers who don't know you or care about you. Because even when you do move away and you move away from your family, you move away from your parents, you're just going to be looking for someone else to fill that you have. Then you have kids of your own. And traditionally, if you live around your parents, you live on the same property, live in a compound, you live in the same town. Well, your parents can help you with your kids. Well, if you don't have that, then what do you end up doing? Well, you put a drop them off in daycare, so you're still getting help. You're not entirely, quote, unquote independent. It's just that in this case, you're getting help from someone you're paying and who is a stranger and who doesn't care about you or love your children, which obviously seems like an inferior arrangement. The goal of every major industry in this country, from Hollywood to the universities, has been to separate you from those people, your family, the people who love you. At a young age, they'll tell you it's the way things have always been. But that's not true. It was never true. And that's why in my own life, I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Now let's get to our five headlines. Anywhere worth going is worth going in good boots. And if you walk in wearing flimsy sneakers with your suit, people notice it looks ridiculous. With the Cobas, you look like you're meant to be there and you feel it the second you pull them on. To Covis crafts quality western boots for everyone from generational ranchers and lifelong cowboys to first time boot buyers. Each pair is handcrafted in over 200 steps for broken comfort right out of the box. I have a pair and I love them. They're great quality, hold up super well against dirt, mud, you name it. And they're comfortable. Comfortable enough to wear all day, no matter what you get. They're timeless and tasteful. Anticovas uses premium genuine leather from cowhide and goat to exotics like ostrich and Cayman. So Whether it's your first pair or your 50th, they've got you covered. It's not just boots either. From premium apparel to elevated leather goods like wallets and belts, everything is made with the same attention to detail and classic western style. Right now, get 10% off@toas.com Matt when you sign up for email in Texas. 10% off@t c o v a s.com Matt to cova.com Matt cipher details to Kovas. Point your toes, West. All right, here's a story I certainly wouldn't normally pay attention to. This is a show the existence of which I have never acknowledged and. And hadn't planned. Planned on acknowledging, have only been vaguely aware of. But it's worth noting that the next season of the Bachelorette has been canceled by abc. So if you're looking forward to that, unfortunately you're not gonna be able to watch it. And now I genuinely didn't know they were even still doing this show. I knew that it existed, but I. But apparently they're still still doing it and I wouldn't be sharing any news about it except that the reason behind the cancellation is kind of interesting. So the Bachelorette this year was supposed to be some woman named Taylor, Frankie, Paul, and she was the woman who, I guess what the 30 men or whatever were gonna on the show, the contestants would be competing for. I think that's the idea now already. This is bizarre. Even before we get to the source of the controversy and the reason the season was canceled. It's bizarre because this woman, if we put a picture up on the screen and you know, I'm not trying to be mean, although as we'll see, she would, she would deserve it. But she's not very attractive at all. You know, she's not, there's, she's not hideous. She's just kind of a normal looking woman. She's also a divorced single mother. So the idea was that 30 men would be vying for the heart of an average looking, divorced, 31 year old single mom. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the original premise of the Bachelor was that the Bachelor was a man who was like successful and rich. I think that was, I don't know, I think that was the premise. And you know, that was probably fake. I'm sure it was, but, but the premise made sense. Like in theory, a bunch of women competing to marry the rich guy. Okay, well, that makes sense. I mean, it's trash tv, but it makes sense logically. But then they rolled out the Bachelorette and the show's been on now for a million years. And now we're at the point where dozens of men are locked in a death struggle for the right to marry a woman who is basically in every way less desirable than the average IHOP waitress. And I get that it's reality TV and it's fake and all the guys are really just there because they want to be on TV and they want to grow their social media brands or whatever, but it's just too much suspension of disbelief. Like I can't. And we haven't even gotten to the crux of the issue, which is that this woman also has been arrested and charged with domestic violence. She pleaded guilty to aggravated assault related to her domestic violence arrest. That was back in 2023, so not that long ago. And this was all known. This was, this was known before the season was. Had even been filmed. I guess it's already been filmed now they're not going to air it. So actually this was a bunch of men competing to win the heart of an average looking, divorced, 31 year old single mother and domestic abuser. And again, all this, this was all known. ABC brought this woman on cast her knowing that she had very recently been arrested and pled guilty to domestic violence. And then yesterday, a video of the domestic violence incident was leaked. And I'm not sure how much of this we can show because it is violent, but here it is.
