Parent Tips for a Young Adult Still at Home
Your kid still lives at home. When did that stop being temporary? It isn't laziness — it's that nothing hurts yet. I was that kid for eleven years.
One page. Nothing to join, and no advice at the end.
Start here, and it is free
There is an order, and you are somewhere on it
Everything you do for him sits somewhere on an order. Three heights. They come in sequence, and each one is harder to stop than the one before it.
Most people are not where they think they are. Not higher. Not lower. Just somewhere nobody has ever told them, because nobody in that house ever checked.
One printed page. It goes on the fridge.
The three heights, in the order they cost you — and what each one actually means in a house like yours.
And one thing to try this week. Not advice. A test — and it is built so it cannot fail.
It will not tell you your own height. I can't do that from here. It tells you the order exists, and that is the thing nobody has ever told you.
No score. No number out of seven. A total is something you compare. A height is something you stand on.
An email address, and nothing else is asked of you.
What I worked out, after
I was thirty-four when I left that house. Here is what I know now.
I am not a therapist. I am not a coach. I have no certificate of any kind and I am not going to pretend otherwise.
I was the son. I lived at my parents' house from twenty-four to thirty-four, and I let my mother pay for it. She died in 2019 without ever knowing that I understood what I had done.
The years since have not been grief. They have been work — going back through it properly, one piece at a time, until I could say where it went wrong instead of only that it did.
It took about thirty seconds, and nobody saw it happen
1995. I was twenty-four. My company closed my department. That same month the lease ended and my roommate moved to another city.
I went home for three months. Everyone agreed it was reasonable. My father helped me carry the boxes in.
The boxes did not go to the basement. They went straight into my old room. I told myself that was what made it temporary.
Two of them were still sealed in 2005.
The whole eleven years were decided by where those boxes were put. Not by a conversation. Not by a decision anyone announced. By a floor.
Here is what I would have done, if I had been my mother. Not a talk. Not a deadline. The boxes go in the basement. A room you have unpacked into is a room you live in, and everyone in that house knows it without saying so.
Watch where my reasons travelled
At twenty-six I said I was saving for a deposit. I believed it. I also spent it. That reason was about me, and somebody could have checked it. Is there money in the account. There was an answer, and the answer was no.
At thirty I said the market was bad. Not the time to sign a lease. Now the reason had moved outside me, where nobody could prove it wrong.
At thirty-three I said she would be alone if I left.
A reason I could be wrong about. Then a reason nobody could check. Then a reason that made me a good son.
And that last one was false on its face. My father was in the next room. Forty years of marriage. He was still alive at eighty-nine.
A reason does not have to survive inspection. It only has to never be inspected. Nobody in that house ever inspected anything.
The worst thing I did, and I did not plan it
She wanted to move closer to her sister. I blocked it three times. That was 2003 to 2005.
Those are the same years I was telling myself she would be alone if I left.
I made the loneliness. Then I used it as my reason for staying.
I want to be exact about this, because it is the part people get wrong. I did not sit down and work that out. Nobody does. It assembled itself, one small convenient thing at a time, over two years — and I would have denied every word of it.
There was nothing to look at
There are things you have done that he will never know about. I know they happen. They happened in my house, and the woman doing them was my mother.
And there was an entire life of mine she was never going to see. Eighteen hours a day of it, in a room with no door into it.
She was not failing to look. There was nothing to look at.
Two people in one house. Invisible to each other, in opposite directions. Both of us thought the silence was kindness.
And I know why you stopped asking when he plans to move out. Not because you gave up. Because the last time went badly, and the next one might end with him gone from that room for good.
That is not you being passive. That is a price you have been paying for years, and every renewal buys the same thing: not finding out. Nobody has ever said that back to you, and it is the single most important thing on this page.
What actually got me out
It took years and it looked nothing like a plan.
I ran a game server for seven years. I moderated two hundred people. I built a website alone across the same seven years. None of it was worth one dollar — until a man who had never seen my face recommended me to somebody real.
Thirty-one thousand a year. I was thirty-four. That is a starting line at forty.
The room that trapped me was the only thing I walked out with. And it was worth nothing until someone outside made it count.
What your son does all night is probably not nothing. It is just not legible to you. And it does not become legible on its own. My mother did not know how to make it count. She also did not know there was anything to know.
I do not know your son. You do. Whatever moves for him will look like his own thing, not mine.
I am not a method. I am proof that something moves.
Why I am the one saying this
Nothing in my life is registered on anyone else's account. Not the phone. Not a subscription. Not a joint account, not a guarantee, not a family plan. Not one thing.
It is not a principle. It is a scar. At thirty-four I could not rent a flat, because no account anywhere had ever been in my name.
She died in 2019, thirteen years after I left. We were close. She called every Sunday — always her, never me, not once in thirteen years.
She died without knowing that I knew. I cannot tell her. So I am telling you.
The book
Forty-two things you do, and what each one actually costs
Every one of them is a real, ordinary thing that happens in that house. You look up what you did today, and you find out which one it was.
Ten of the forty-two say leave it alone. They are the first thing in the book, and I mean them. Consideration in a shared house is not a cage.
Twenty-two are the ones he did not feel. Something happened, it was going to land on him, and it landed on you instead.
Ten are the ones he could not see. They absorbed it and hid that it had been absorbed — so he could never see the total.
Thirty-two of them carry four lines: what it looks like, what you tell yourself about it, what he did not feel or could not see, and one thing to try for a week. The other ten say leave it alone, and they tell you what it would cost you to stop.
Most of those have two halves: something you stop, and one sentence you say while you stop it. A few are the other way round — something to ask, once. Not one of them is a thing he has to agree to.
You cannot push him out. You can stop blocking the door.
What this is not
- It will not get him out of your house. I am not going to tell you it will. I cannot sell you a thirty-one-year-old man's decision. Nobody can, and anyone who says otherwise is selling you another year of waiting.
- It will not tell you it is not your fault.
- And it will not tell you it is — if something is actually wrong with him. A diagnosis. An addiction. I am the wrong man and this is the wrong thing to be reading. I am not qualified and I will not pretend I am.
- If you are afraid of your son — not worried about him, afraid of him — none of the tests in this book are for you. A house where someone is afraid does not need an experiment. It needs help, and I am not the one who gives it.
Here is what I will tell you. You will know which of the things you do are keeping him, and you will stop paying for those. What he does after that is his.
You are done when there is nothing in that house that happens because you are afraid of what happens if it stops.
And what you get back is your own years. The week at your sister's. The appointment. The trip you keep not booking.
One payment · Delivered by email in a minute · Read it on your phone · 30 days to change your mind
One week. One thing. It cannot fail.
The Decoder
You do not read it front to back. You look up the thing you did last night, and you read four lines about it. One of them tells you what to try for a week.
- The whole book. Forty-two entries, the expiry date, the ten that are fine, the handover, the conversation, the ledger. Nothing is held back for a higher price.
- The Height Card. One page, printed, for the fridge. Included.
- A PDF you keep. No app and no subscription. You confirm the email address you paid with, and the file is yours.
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One payment. Not a subscription.
Card, PayPal or Apple Pay. You are not sent to another website.
Thirty days, and I will not ask you why
Read it. If it doesn't describe your house, ask for your money back, any time in the first thirty days. You don't need a reason and I won't ask you for one.
I'm not promising you what your son will do. That isn't mine to sell. I am promising that this book knows your house.
Before you decide
What usually stops people
“I have tried everything already.”
Then you have tried everything at the wrong height. The order is the product. Most people start at the hardest thing in the house, it goes badly once, and they never go near it again. This starts at the easiest.
“I don't have the strength for another argument.”
There is no argument in here. Every test is something you stop doing, and one sentence you say while you stop it. He is not asked to agree to anything, so there is nothing for him to refuse.
“What if I do it and nothing happens?”
Then that is your result, and it is a specific one. A test cannot fail. If you can't do it, that tells you which rung you are actually on — which is the thing you came here not knowing.
“Is this going to tell me it's my fault?”
No. And it will not tell you it isn't, either. Ten of the forty-two say leave it alone, and I mean them. The rest are not charges. They are prices, and a price is something you can stop paying.
Questions, answered
How do I get it?
An email, within a minute of paying, with a link straight to the book. Nothing is posted to you, and nothing arrives at your house.
Do I need an app, or an account?
No app, and nothing to install. You confirm the same email address you paid with, and the book is there — on a phone, a tablet or a computer. Use the address you paid with, or it will not find your copy.
Is it a printed book?
No. It is a file, and that is deliberate — you look things up in it at eleven at night. The one page worth printing is the Height Card, and it comes with it.
Where do I start?
The first chapter, and it takes about five minutes. After that you stop reading in order and start looking things up. There is a list at the front, sorted by the thing itself.
Will he know I bought it?
Not from anything in here. Nothing gets sent to your house. Nothing in the book asks you to show it to him or tell him about it.
What if I want my money back?
Email hello@davidleeus.com within thirty days and say so. You do not have to give a reason, and you will not be asked for one. See the refund policy.
Not ready to buy anything
Then start with the free reading
Thirty-two pages, in ten steps, and one thing you can try tonight without buying anything and without asking him for anything. The Height Card comes with it — one page for the fridge, the three heights in the order they cost you.
It will not tell you where you stand. I can't do that from here, and neither can a card. It will tell you that there is an order, and that you are somewhere on it.
One email with the link. You can leave the list from the bottom of anything I send. What I do with your address is on the privacy page, in plain words.