Trends: Living With Your Parents

We're all broke. The practical among us have stopped pretending otherwise and flown back to the coop. And while living with your parents as an adult surely cramps your style, at least one legendarily cool New Yorker could relate.

First, the statistics from Sam Roberts at the Times:

"Since 2000, more people in the 25-to-39 age group have been living in their parents’ homes. By 2008, before the full effect of the recession was being felt, their ranks had increased by double-digit percentages since the decade began: by 32 percent nationwide, and by nearly 40 percent in Manhattan.

In 1980, 11 percent of 25-to-34-year-olds were living in multi-generational households. By 2008, 20 percent were."

Now, the good news. Obviously, meals are free. And the fridge is likely stocked with something other than beer and month-old sesame noodles (unless your mom is Dina Lohan).

And finally, the trendsetter who influenced a generation of cool despite living in a "multi-generational" household: Andy Warhol!

That's right, Warhol lived with his mother on the Upper East Side from 1952-1971. And yet the man enjoyed his most fecund years creatively despite constant nagging from his Polish mother. In a way it makes sense. Living with your parents as a grown man or woman kind of sets you back to your adolescence and teen rebel years. Hence, acting out in creative ways (e.g. sticking it to the art world with Brillo boxes) and falling in with the wrong crowd (read: cool kids like Edie Sedgwick, drag queens, hustlers and speed freaks). The frustrating domestic arrangement also necessitates a tree/clubhouse in which to escape it for as long as you can (hello, Factory).

Just don't be too clever when mom makes you some Campbell's soup.

(Photo Courtesy of Life)