Empty nest? Now keep it like that

But wait, the good news: That's less than the 60% who returned home during the last three years, according to MonsterTRAK, an online career resource for college students.

So what's the deal? Are some parents just saying no?

There is a slow dawning among parents, some experts say, that despite high rents and typically low-paying entry-level jobs, kids in the past managed to forage for themselves, sharing cramped spaces and eating instant ramen while finding out what life on a shoestring is all about.

Now some of those same experts who once advised that parents offer a sympathetic ear (and a rent-free bed) are advising them to cut the cord, cut their losses and reclaim their lives -- before real damage is done.

"It starts out as a money-related issue," says Susan Newman, a social psychologist in Metuchen, N.J., and author of "The Book of No -- 250 Ways to Say It and Mean It." "The kids can't afford to pay rent, so they come home. But then it blossoms into something else. From the kids' point of view, it's nice to have a well-stocked fridge and a free laundromat. But more important, it's nice to have someone who loves you unconditionally. No one cares more about you than your mom and pop."

What's wrong, she says, is that young adults must learn to function in a world that couldn't care less, among people whose respect or love they have to earn. Living at home does not afford them that chance.

In some cases, parents are the culprits, she says. They are so happy to have the returned prodigal's companionship -- no matter how limited and argumentative it is -- that they offer too much help, and too little urging that the kid get his or her act together and take it on the road. "That's a flaw in the parent. It's their dependence as much as the child's that keeps him or her from leaving home. But we tend to blame it all on the kids."

James Myers' parents were having none of that. Myers, who grew up in La Canada Flintridge and graduated from Brown University in May, says he knew from childhood that his parents would pay for his four-year college education, and that he'd be on his own after that. "They're very loving and supportive, but I always got the sense from my dad that four years of college was the limit of what he and my mom would do. The rest would be up to me. Grad school, living arrangements -- any of that would be my responsibility."