Parenting was never simple, but at least there was a timeline.

Mothers and fathers would raise their children through diapers and childhood and then adolescence.

Today, more and more parents are subsidizing their children into their 20s and even later. These aren't the grown children who moved back home to crash on Mom and Dad's couch.

They are off to work and on their own but still getting financial help from home.

Research from the University of Michigan indicates that 56 percent of young adults are living a life of quasi-independence. They have jobs and their own homes but they still get help from their parents when the bills come in.

These young people - a generation of "kidults" - are getting assistance for a variety of reasons.

A historically bad economy has made this a particularly bad time to enter adulthood. Jobs are scarce, wages are down and opportunities are limited.

Young people are staying in school longer and marrying later than ever, blurring the distinction between childhood and adulthood.

They are also the first generation raised by "helicopter parents" who have always been deeply involved in their children's lives.

"Parents want to have more control, they want to be involved, and in general young people welcome it," said Patricia Somers, an associate professor of education at the University of Texas-Austin who studies family dynamics. "They have been making decisions together since early in grade school."

Needing the help

Kassie Shirey, 28, starts each month with a series of envelopes spread across her kitchen table in Scottsdale.

She puts cash inside each envelope to better manage her spending. It's an old-fashioned way to stretch a budget and avoid debt.

There's one envelope to pay down credit-card bills, one for gasoline, one for groceries, one for savings.

But some envelopes are missing. Shirey's mother has been paying for her cellphone bill and her car insurance. Her husband's parents gave him a car and have been paying for its insurance.

"No, I never thought it would be this way. Who does?" Shirey said. "I don't like that we need help, but we do."

This month, the couple will have a new envelope.

Her grandparents gave them a 1998 Honda Accord, but the young couple will insure it.

"I'm glad we can do it," Shirey said. "We'll have to make adjustments, but I'm glad. That's one more step towards independence."

Shirey is nobody's idea of a slacker.

She graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in elementary education and started working as a teacher.

But, she says, after two years, the federal funding for her position was reallocated.

"I had the least experience, so I lost the job," Shirey said.

After losing that job in May of last year, she now works days as a nanny for a family in Scottsdale and nights as a receptionist at the Franciscan Renewal Center in Paradise Valley.

"Yep, I'm a receptionist," she said.

Young workers

The recession has been difficult for all workers but brutal on the young.

In October, the magazine BusinessWeek called young Americans "The Lost Generation." The cover showed a young man standing at the bottom of a broken ladder.

Full-time employment among 18- to 29-year-olds has dropped significantly in the past four years.

According to the Pew Research Center, the share of 18- to 29-year-olds employed full time declined 9 percentage points from 2006 to 2010.

In the same period, Pew says, the employment rate for older adults, ages 30 to 64, remained steady or inched upward.

And the jobs young people are finding are lower-paying.

The annual earnings of all full-time workers ages 25 to 34 have decreased since 1980, when adjusted for inflation, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Young college graduates are doing better than their less-educated peers but at a price. The debt load for college graduates has been marching upward for some time. The average loan debt for a graduating senior in 1993 was $9,297, the Education Department says. In 2000, it was $17,297. In 2008, it was $23,118.

All of these factors have contributed to parents helping their children financially at unprecedented levels.

"There is an increase over the last three decades," said Robert Schoeni, a researcher and professor at the University of Michigan. "The data shows that parents are helping children with full-time jobs and places to live."

Schoeni directs a survey of U.S. families that has been chronicling trends since 1968.

The wage regression and debt acceleration for today's young adults stand in contrast to the economic fortune of their parents who, despite the latest recession, enjoyed economic good fortune for most of their adult lives.

"Agree with it or disagree with it, it makes sense for these parents to help their children," Schoeni said. "They have the money."

Unexpected outcome

Being 28 is not exactly what Kassie Shirey thought it would be.

When she was 18, the economy was booming and the future looked bright.

"I thought me and all my friends would have great jobs and we would work and fly and travel everywhere," Shirey said.

Now, she is stuck in this period where she is close to complete independence but not quite there.

Shirey grew up in Phoenix, graduating from Sunnyslope High School before heading to ASU.

She and her husband live in a townhome in Scottsdale. It is handsome and filled with personal touches. But it is not theirs.

The couple rented the home last year. The owner, Shirey said, was glad to lease it out after many of the other units in the development went into foreclosure.

Nearly every piece of furniture in their home was a gift or a cast-off from family or friends.

"The only thing we bought was the kitchen table," Shirey said, placing her hands on the wooden top. "It was the last thing I put on my credit card. I bought it at J.C. Penney."

The couple are working to get out of credit-card debt - she says she used to shop a lot - despite the fact that neither of them is making what they thought they would be making at this time in their lives.

Her husband, Will, 24, graduated with a degree in construction management from ASU right about the time there was no more construction to manage.

Until there is, he is do- ing contract-maintenance work at the Mayo Clinic near their home.

"We're both looking everywhere. And we are not greedy," Shirey said. "The job doesn't have to be perfect."

Delayed adulthood

This generation of young adults is on the slow side of attaining the milestones usually associated with growing up.

The Times in London started calling people in this stage "kidults."

The Pew Research Center, which studies social trends, has been looking at what it calls the Millennials - defined as people ages 18 to 29 - and comparing them to previous generations at a similar age.

"The 20s are very different now than they used to be," said D'Vera Cohn, a researcher with Pew.

"It used to be that young people went directly from adolescence to adulthood. They graduated high school or college, began a job or career path, and married by their mid-20s."

Not for this generation.

Pew found that these young adults are the most educated ever, meaning they are students longer.

They are also less likely to have full-time jobs than the Generation X or Baby Boom generations did at a similar age.

They are marrying later and having children older.

They are not buying homes as quickly as their parents or grandparents did.

"The launching process is lasting longer than it used to," Cohn said. "It's a prolonged adolescence or partial adulthood."

Able to help

Shirey's mother, Victoria Vaughn, is happy to help her daughter.

"Well, because she is a really good girl," Vaughn, 50, said. "She is trying very hard, and I am able."

So she pays her daughter's phone bill and her car insurance. The money could probably go to Vaughn's retirement account, but this seems more urgent right now.

In fact, she has always been there for her.

"I was pretty involved. I went to her swim meets and her school activities and all the regular school stuff," Vaughn said. "We went shopping for prom dresses. That's what moms did."

Vaughn knows parenting has changed since her parents raised her in Phoenix.

"My parents supported me, but they never went to any of my stuff. It was just different then," she said. "They never went to a swim meet."

Vaughn is not rich, but she is comfortable. She knows that her daughter - her only child - just happened to hit adulthood when the wheels were coming off the economy.

She wants her daughter to have a reliable car and a cellphone for trouble and so they can chat.

For her, raising an independent child is important, but helping her daughter through a tough stretch is paramount.

"It's not just hard out there; it's very hard," Vaughn said. "It's been a while since there was hardship in America. This is way worse than anything but the Depression."

A tethered generation

Although impossible to measure, the emerging adults now in their 20s might be more connected to their parents than any previous generation.

"This is the 'tethered generation,' " said Patricia Somers, an associate professor of education at the University of Texas-Austin. "Their parents never missed a soccer game; they have always been there on the sidelines."

Somers has spent much of her career researching the helicopter parents who hovered over their children as they raised them.

They were very involved in their children's schooling and social life, and now these parents see their children trying to make it in a very difficult economy.

"There is a lot of anxiety about this for parents, and they want to help," Somers said. And they can afford to. Their adult children, meanwhile, may feel they cannot afford to say no. So, Somers says, a phone bill gets paid here, and a rent check gets mailed there.

It's possible, or even likely, that when the economy turns around, and these young adults in their 20s reach their 30s and start families of their own, the financial bonds may begin to dissolve. But it's no sure thing.

"It's not just the economy," Somers said. "It's all the interconnected factors. So we'll see."