Unlike in the U.S., legal adulthood in Japan doesn’t begin until the age of 20. But while that means an extra two years to enjoy the benefits and protection society affords to minors, everyone has to grow up sometime, and for one Japanese Twitter user the transition was especially abrupt. 
 
 On his 20th birthday as his parents presented him with a written notice congratulating him on graduating from childhood and celebrating his newfound freedoms, while spelling out exactly what they, and the world, now expected of him as an adult. 
 
 Twitter user @zamayuma1004’s birthday was last weekend, and this year he hit the two-decade mark. On his special day, his parents presented him with this festive-looking envelope. 
 
 Normally when someone hands you something like this on your birthday, you expect a birthday card, and the envelope did indeed have “Happy birthday” written on it. What was inside, though, was a little less orthodox. 
 
 The paper reads: 
 
 Happy 20th Birthday! Notice of Expiration of Child-Rearing Services As of October 4, 2015, your father, Yoshikazu Hasegawa, and mother, Chiaki Hasegawa, have completed their duties of raising their child: you, Yuma Hasegawa. Going forward, please become a proper and responsible member of society, like your father and mother. In addition, should you continue living in the Hasegawa family home, please make a monthly payment of 20,000 yen [US$168] for rent, utility, and grocery expenses. Also, please be aware that should you ask for a loan from your parents, interest will be charged. Points to note upon reaching the age of 20 
 
 ● You must make compulsory national pension payments. If you put this off it will cause problems, so make the payments. 
 
 ● Should you commit a crime, your face and name can now be shown on television and in newspapers. You will also have a permanent criminal record. 
 
 ● You can now buy alcohol and tobacco products. Do not drive while intoxicated. 
 
 ● You can get married without your parents’ permission. However, they may not emotionally accept your wife as their daughter-in-law if you don’t discuss the situation without them beforehand. 
 
 ● Think responsibly about the future and set aside an adequate amount of savings from the money you earn. Please enjoy your life as an adult. 
 
 Although the document might sound the like the grumblings of a pair of exasperated parents who’ve reached the limits of their patience, @zamayuma1004 says they’ve got their tongues firmly planted in their cheeks. He’s actually been paying the monthly amount mentioned for rent and expenses since last year, and he hopes to do even more to help his parents out in the future. 
 
 That said, this is a documented case of pretty tough love by Japanese standards, considering that at the age of 20 much of the population is still attending college or trade school, and that it’s customary to continue living with your parents until getting married or school or work takes you away from your home town. Still, it’s hard to argue with any of the things @zamayuma1004’s parents are saying as they tell him not to let the door of his childhood hit him in the butt on his way out of it. 
 
 Source: Curazy 
 
 Top image: Twitter/@zamayuma1004 (1, 2) (edited by RocketNews24) ||||| Image caption Japan's elderly population continues to grow, with more than a quarter of the population now of retirement age 
 
 Japan's government plans to end the tradition of giving centenarians a silver commemorative gift, because the growing elderly population has made it too expensive, it's reported. 
 
 Since 1963, a silver sake cup - or sakazuki - has been presented to everyone who reaches 100 years old. The cups, worth 8,000 yen ($65; £40) each, are a thank you for centenarians' contribution to society. But as Japan's elderly population has expanded, so too has the gift bill, Kyodo news agency reports. Last year, the government shelled out 260 million yen ($2.1m; £1.3m) on the items, a figure officials say isn't sustainable. 
 
 As a result, they want to replace the gift with something less pricey. Options being considered include using cheaper materials or choosing something completely different to mark the occasion - possibly just a letter of congratulations, officials tell Kyodo. 
 
 There were more than 29,000 new centenarians in Japan last year, compared to 153 when the scheme began, the report says. Life expectancy in Japan is among the highest in the world, and the number of people seeing their 100th birthday has grown every year since 1971. 
 
 Next story: No hats or sunglasses for S Korea cash machine users 
 
 Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter. ||||| Members of the graduating class at the Savannah College of Art and Design commencement in Atlanta. For the first time on record, living with parents is now the most common arrangement for Americans age 18 to 34. (John Amis/ASSOCIATED PRESS) 
 
 It’s true: Kids Today are more dependent on their parents than Kids Yesterday. 
 
 At least when it comes to housing. 
 
 Nearly a third of Americans age 18 to 34 were living with their parents in 2014, according to a new analysis from the Pew Research Center. That’s the highest share since the Great Depression. 
 
 It was also the first time since at least 1880 that young adults were more likely to live in their parents’ homes than in their own households with a spouse or other romantic partner. 
 
 Crusty old pundits will surely declare this a sign of millennials’ failure to launch. They will bemoan young people’s insistence on mooching off of beleaguered boomer parents rather than going into the real world and getting their own grown-up jobs, spouses and mortgages. Millennial basement-dwelling — along with millennial musical tastes, millennial slang and millennial fashions — is thus clear evidence of a generation-wide crisis of character. 
 
 The millennial generation is now the largest, most ethnically diverse generation in American history. (Daron Taylor/The Washington Post) 
 
 But there are a few reasons all this re-nesting may not be such a bad thing. 
 
 For one, consider the macroeconomic and social conditions that today’s young adults face. 
 
 Their unemployment (and underemployment) rates remain relatively high, as do their student debt burdens. Their wages have stagnated. 
 
 Young adults want to live on their own and aspire to purchase homes. But homeownership remains far out of their reach. National home prices today are not so far below their pre-recession peaks, with some metro areas even reaching all-time highs. 
 
 Meanwhile, rents, too, have skyrocketed, fast outpacing inflation. 
 
 Young people are also living with their parents in higher numbers in part because they’re delaying marriage. This is a consequence of both precarious job prospects and a growing perception that financial security is a prerequisite to tying the knot — which the vast majority of singles say they still very much want to do. 
 
 In this context, swallowing their pride and living above the family garage rather than frittering away money on rent looks rather financially prudent. 
 
 Second, the growth of intergenerational households shouldn’t be so alarming given how common this living arrangement is everywhere else in the developed world. In fact, the share of young adults here who live with their folks is still relatively low compared with the rate in many of our peer countries. 
 
 According to a recent census survey, 42 percent of Canadian adults age 20 to 29 live in their parents’ homes. Across the European Union, nearly half of young adults age 18 to 34 live with their parents. In Japan, about half of unmarried 20-to-34-year-olds (dubbed “parasite singles”) live with their parents, too. 
 
 But, you cry: American exceptionalism! We don’t want to be like everyone else! 
 
 It’s not clear, though, why a society in which young singles live on their own is more desirable than one in which the same demographic errs on the side of doubling up with relatives. This norm is especially puzzling in the United States, where for decades the tax code has incentivized home buyers to purchase as much house as possible, whether or not they need the space. 
 
 Perhaps it makes sense to use the housing stock we already have more efficiently, rather than insisting that young people move out as part of some artificial adulthood milestone. 
 
 Of course, boomers may object to bunking up with their boomeranging offspring, even on occasions when they do have ample space. 
 
 Well, boohoo. 
 
 Today’s boomers have benefited for decades from huge public intergenerational transfers of wealth. Is it really so much to ask that they make some much smaller private intergenerational transfers to their own children? 
 
 The public infrastructure that boomers have enjoyed all their lives was largely built by their elders. Those who went to college paid very low tuition and received much more generous public subsidies for their schooling. For decades they have paid tax rates far too low to actually fund the government services they receive. They have racked up trillions in federal debt and handed the tab to their kids. 
 
 As boomers increasingly age into Medicare eligibility, those intergenerational transfers will further balloon. 
 
 Take a two-earner couple who worked every year of their adult lives, with both spouses receiving the average wage until turning 65 and retiring last year. For every $1 that they paid into the Medicare system, they will receive $3 back in benefits, according to estimates from the Urban Institute. 
 
 Guess who has to pay the difference? Yup. Their good-for-nothin’, basement-dwelling, parasitic boomerang kids. 
 
 In this light, the return home of young adults should be seen less as an act of morally bankrupt mooching and more as a step toward balancing the intergenerational ledger.
– When young adults in the US reach the age of majority, they take on full legal responsibility for themselves and can do fun things like vote, sign contracts, and open bank accounts. In Japan, the same milestone means they get hit with rent charges and manifestos from their parents on how they're pretty much on their own now. At least, that's the case for Japanese Twitter user @zamayuma1004, who tweeted photos last week of the special gift his mom and dad presented him on the occasion of his 20th birthday (the Japanese age of majority). Beautifully wrapped in an envelope tied with red and white string was a letter titled "Notice of Expiration of Child-Rearing Services," and its contents proved the parents weren't messing around, RocketNews24 reports via Curazy, Japan's BuzzFeed-style site. "As of October 4, 2015, your father, Yoshikazu Hasegawa, and mother, Chiaki Hasegawa, have completed their duties of raising their child: you, Yuma Hasegawa," the letter reads, per a RocketNews24 translation. "Going forward, please become a proper and responsible member of society, like your father and mother." It then offers a bulleted list of advice for the new adult, including that Yuma pay into his pension, "not drive while intoxicated," and discuss any future possible wife with them or they "may not emotionally accept" her. They also mention the $168 they expect for rent and other household expenses and note that "should you ask for a loan from your parents, interest will be charged." "Please enjoy your life as an adult," the note ends. Meanwhile, Yuma insists his parents are just joshing (kind of) and that he's been contributing monetarily to the household since last year. (Centenarians probably won't be getting fancy birthday gifts in Japan anymore.)