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Discussion » Questions » Family » What were the circumstances under which you and/or your siblings left your parents’ (or parent’s) household to live on your own?

What were the circumstances under which you and/or your siblings left your parents’ (or parent’s) household to live on your own?

 

My elder sister at age 17 moved into an apartment with our cousin who was a year younger and an emancipated minor. My sister never again lived with my mother, she later got married around age 19, and moved into another apartment with her husband.

Both my elder brother (13 months my senior) and younger brother (13 months my junior) were removed from the household at ages 15 and 13 respectively due to problems surrounding and leading up to our mother‘s divorce from our stepfather. They are placed in a group home, and as far as I remember, never permanently returned to live with our mother between then and their 18th birthdays. Both of them eventually joined the US Army, neither of them made a career of it.

At age 18, in the wintertime, I signed up for the Delayed Entry Program to enlist in the US Marine Corps. That program allowed me time to finish high school, and after my senior year of high school that next spring, I reported for boot camp in the summer, never again lived under my mother’s roof. In the Marines, I truly grew up from a boy to a man, I saw the world, I served three tours of duty, and to this day, I consider my time in the Marine Corps to be some of the best chapters in my entire life story.

My younger sister, who is the only biological child of my former stepfather, was the only one of my siblings who fell under any custody question when he and my mother got divorced. My former stepfather was extremely wealthy, and became even more so after the divorce as he expanded his business/financial portfolio (real estate on the side in addition to working for over thirty years for the same federal agency), wealth that he excluded from imparting with my mother with the exception of any court-ordered rulings. My younger sister, bring his biological child, spent about half her time between my mother’s house and his house, and he lavished her with every luxury, comfort, and any other type of spoiling imaginable. He had never adopted the four older children, we didn’t even have his surname, and as such were not legally his responsibility. The myriad of problems he had with our mother also led him to deem he had no moral or ethical responsibility to us either. My younger sister eventually left home at age 18 to attend a four-year, left win, liberal arts college a couple of hours away from our hometown, where she moved into the dormitory, tuition and all other expenses paid for 100% by her father.
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Posted - July 15, 2021

Responses


  • 581
    I don't have siblings.  I was going to the University when they died.  I inherited the house.
      July 15, 2021 9:55 AM MDT
    2

  • 52905

     

      I’m sorry to learn of your loss. 
      

      July 15, 2021 10:06 AM MDT
    2

  • 19942
    I was 24 and felt it was time to be living on my own.  
      July 15, 2021 10:09 AM MDT
    2

  • 44175
    My oldest sister was sexually abused by our step-father and disappeared. I have no seen her in over 50 years.
    My other two sisters left in their late teens to avoid what happened to the oldest.
    I joined the Navy.
    A younger brother....I have no idea, other than he joined the USMC and got kicked out after spending 18 months in prison for burglary.
    My youngest brother joined the Army.
      July 15, 2021 10:29 AM MDT
    2

  • I left at age 18 to attend college and live on campus (and then, in a house or apartment off campus but in town for the next three years). I did not live at home again (but regularly visited) until last year when the pandemic hit and I decided to leave my apartment since I could not attend school or teach in person anymore. 

    I am now living away from home once again.
      July 15, 2021 1:52 PM MDT
    2

  • 1893
    My oldest Sister left for University at 18, met her husband etc.  Standard story  Died of a stroke last year

    My next oldest sister, same story  Died of Covid this Spring

    Myself, joined the Marine Corps at 17 never to return home.  I did visit occasionally
      July 15, 2021 2:47 PM MDT
    1

  • 10037
    My condolences on the loss of your sisters.
      July 16, 2021 9:15 PM MDT
    3

  • My younger sister left home at 18 because she couldn't get along with my father and stepmother.  She ended up raising her boyfriend's children after their mother abandoned them.  They lived together until they divorced several years later.

    After my mother died when I was 18, I lived with my Dad and then he and my stepmother until I was married at 22.  I moved out with my new husband.  I never needed to or wanted to move back in with them.
      July 31, 2021 9:28 AM MDT
    0