I have always tried to avoid introducing new men to my parents, believing it was something for serious partners only. Bringing someone back to a childhood home offers context that not everyone wants to give on a third date. People typically dispense their personal history in increments, depending on how much trust they’ve built. Introducing a new partner to parents yields control of that narrative.

Many of the adults I spoke with who had moved in with parents were quick to offer an explanation—a loved one’s health issues, a desire to be near family—to separate themselves from people who had to live with their parents. Of the adults who moved home because of the pandemic, one in five reported that they simply wanted to be closer to their family.

“A lot of coresidence is by choice,” Karen Fingerman, a professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, told me. Financially, at least, living away from parents isn’t necessarily a sign of independence, nor is living with them a sign of freeloading. Most adult children living with parents contribute to the household expenses—84 percent of women and 67 percent of men, according to a 2012 Pew study. Conversely, about 40 percent of adults ages 22 to 24 living away from family received rent help from their parents in 2017.