Preteen girl looking at a cell phone with her parents

Personalized picks at your fingertips

Get the mobile app on iOS and Android

Parents' Guide to

How to Live with Your Parents (for the Rest of Your Life)

By Joyce Slaton, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 13+

Great cast and funny dialogue in coarse family comedy.

TV ABC Comedy 2013
How to Live with Your Parents (for the Rest of Your Life) Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this TV show.

Community Reviews

There aren't any parent reviews yet. Be the first to review this title.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

How to Live with Your Parents so clearly wants to be Modern Family, and it does share some of the same DNA: Veteran actors (it's great to see Elizabeth Perkins again!), a mix of funny and heart, snappy comic lines: "It was great to hear about your orgies," Polly ironically complains to her mom. "Oh, orgy, please, it was some half-hearted groping and then we ate a wheel of brie," Perkins breezes.

Unfortunately, also like Modern Family (particularly in later seasons), How to Live inserts a lot of wacky hijinks into the goings on, such as having Polly's ex drop by when she's on a date and then forgetting to put the brakes on his car, which rolls into a ditch. It doesn't work. If a show is going to have hijinks, it has to also give up on the idea of making us misty-eyed. Think Arrested Development, which never went for schmaltz. If How to Live wants the audience on-board for tender moments, it'd be wise to cut down on the sitcom-style over-the-topness. But with a great cast equipped with sharp dialogue, How to Live has potential.

TV Details

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

See how we rate