Still Living at Home? You're Not Alone

Victoria here, Girlboss’ executive editor. 👋

I’m so excited about today’s main story! We're introducing a new contributor, Hadiqah Khalil, with a very raw, very honest guest essay about still living at home at 22, and why she's questioning the idea that moving out is proof you've "made it." 🏡 I hope it makes you rethink what independence and success actually look like (spoiler: it's not always an apartment with your name on the lease).

Other stuff the Girlboss team is talking about on Slack:

RIP Dolly Parton, we’ll miss you forever. 💔
Friendly reminder that there's more to you than your to-do list.
Your Pap smear could take less than five minutes—from the comfort of your couch—with Teal Health's at-home screening kit.*

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GET SCREENED AT HOME

When Did Moving Out Become Proof I'd “Made It”?

By Hadiqah Khalil

Leaving home has become a milestone we associate with success. But for a generation balancing ambition, affordability, and family responsibility, adulthood is not as simple as having a place of your own.

I’m 22 years old and still live with my parents. And some days, that fact alone makes me question whether I’m where I’m supposed to be.

As a recent journalism graduate, I've always carried ambitions that felt too big to fit within the walls of my childhood bedroom. I imagined myself chasing leads through a teeming city with an iced latte in hand, or even travelling the world to work directly with underprivileged communities, writing stories that expose injustice and push for change.

Yet despite reaching many of the goals I set for myself over the last four years—from graduating university to pursuing the creative work I’ve always dreamed of doing—I still find myself caught between the life I have built and the life I thought I’d have by this age. The version of “success” I’ve been conditioned to chase (more on that later) still feels just out of reach.

Somewhere along the way, I’ve begun to question why moving out has become synonymous with success—as if having a place of my own could prove that I had “finally made it” (if I even knew what that meant).

Turns out, I’m not the only one feeling this way.

Many young adults are discovering that moving out on their own—let alone buying a home in their 20s—is becoming increasingly out of reach in today’s economy.

Case in point: A record 25.2 million U.S. adults under 35 lived with their parents in 2025, and of that, 70% are employed 25- to 34-year-olds. These numbers reflect a reality much more complicated than simply choosing independence over dependence.

If having a job is no longer enough to leave home, why do we still treat moving out as proof of success?

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