This morning I woke up to a familiar sound. The thud, thud, thud as my oldest son runs down the stairs to eat breakfast. I have heard this noise for many years. It’s part of the routine.
I loved listening to it. When he was younger, he would tuck me into bed and I knew all was right with the world when I heard him around the house. But I don’t feel that way now that he’s 29 years old. Now what I feel is bitter resentment.
On the eve of his 30th birthday, I assumed he would be long gone, creating his own life, seeing his own friends, making his own mess, and spending his own money. But not. Like many “kids”, my oldest son still lives with me at home.
Earlier this month, when I saw the latest Office for National Statistics showing that a staggering 33 per cent of young men aged 20 to 34 (one third) live at home with their parents, I breathed a sigh of recognition. The equivalent for women is 22 percent, still a surprisingly high figure in my opinion.
On the eve of his 30th birthday, I assumed he would be long gone, creating his own life, seeing his own friends, making his own mess, and spending his own money. But not.
I don’t think parents have yet understood what this great social change means. Has the term “empty nest” become obsolete?
Personally, it means that the relationship I have with my son is deteriorating. Instead of waves of unconditional love, I more often oscillate between anger and sadness.
I also question my paternity: is it my fault he hasn’t left yet? Have I made him too dependent on me?
My parents were children during the war and encouraged my siblings and me to fend for ourselves from an early age. When we were teenagers, we had newspaper rounds and took the bus to meet friends. I don’t remember my mom helping me with homework once.
By contrast, my generation of 50-something parents were the first to “helicopter” their kids, always flying over them, taking them to clubs, finding lost PE supplies, and doing homework with them. I’m afraid we spoiled them so much that they never developed the thicker skin you need for the world beyond home.
It is very easy for them to stay curled up under our wings. I worry about that all the time.
When I was my son’s age, I lived in Bristol in a house I had with my now ex-partner. In fact, she was pregnant with my son. How tempted I am to blurt out: ‘When I was your age…’ . .’, but I do not do it. I know it would hurt.
The truth is that living with a grown man who is also my son is full of problems.
I also question my paternity: is it my fault he hasn’t left yet? Have I made him too dependent on me?
It’s not just that he makes so much mess (he makes an inordinate amount of mess), but also the emotional burden that all of it entails.
I find myself seething with frustration when I get up after him in the morning and there are crumbs all over the kitchen and debris on the stairs (socks and sneakers mainly).
I don’t want to clear things up and at the same time feel mutinous and irritable. It makes me dislike myself and myself.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. At 19, she left for college after a year away and I thought that would be it.
I assumed he would graduate and then make his way in the world. Maybe you would move to a city (we live in a fairly rural area) and share a flat with friends. I knew I might come home for the summer, but it never occurred to me that I’d want to live here in the middle of nowhere. Surely you would like to be in the beating heart of a city, full of career opportunities, nightlife and other young people?
But not. He seemed delighted to be back home, all 6ft 4in.
And at first, of course, I was also delighted to see it, thinking that this was a temporary thing.
He returned with his student suitcase, unpacked it in his childhood wardrobe and quickly ate everything in the fridge.
I ask him a million times a day not to leave empty pizza packages in the kitchen, to clean his room. However, this falls on deaf ears.
He prepared a huge bath. He threw me a big bag of dirty clothes, which I did for him happily, even joyfully, because I am his mother and, as I say, no one at this point had said that his return would be forever.
But this seemed to set a precedent, and frankly, not much has changed in the seven years since then.
He still eats large amounts of food. He complains when we run out of milk (of which he drinks gallons). He is constantly in the bathroom or using the washing machine. Plus, he always turns on the dryer, which drives me crazy because it costs a lot of money to maintain. But it’s not, your money, and that’s a big part of the problem too. If you were paying the electricity bill, I could guarantee you would stop drying your socks incessantly.
It’s not that he doesn’t have a job: he works for lawyers at a nearby law firm. He’s a good role and has promised that he will move out as soon as he has saved enough money, but he is currently paid a little more than minimum wage, so it will take some time. And, if I’m being completely honest, I don’t know if he’s trying really hard to save it.
We agreed he would pay me my rent (£300 a month) but that often doesn’t happen because he doesn’t seem to have it available. I ask, but then I start to feel annoyed.
There’s a part of me that suspects this is all a bit manipulative. We know each other’s strengths, but also our weaknesses. He believes I will love him unconditionally no matter what he does, and that includes being unstable about rent.
I don’t think he sees it as a problem like I do. He says that all his friends live at home (and I don’t doubt it), but in reality that exasperates me.
The problem is that it is an agreement without clear rules. Sometimes, yes, I take care of him, but sometimes we are more like housemates, we just share the same space.
I don’t do his laundry anymore (at least that’s changed), but of course we “share” the refrigerator, so it often happens that when I get home from work and feel like making dinner, I find that I’m my food is gone.
When I ask him about this, he seems offended. —It’s probably our food. he says. Then he leaves. I have patiently tried to explain to him many times that we need some kind of order in the house, but he still clearly has the idea that what is mine is his too.
He could almost stand wet towels on the floor and dirty socks strewn across the landing when he was a teenager, but now?
I ask him a million times a day not to leave empty pizza packages in the kitchen, to clean his room, to remember to buy toilet paper, to pick up his towels, to not have his friends around at all hours, so he can get something. sleep. However, this falls on deaf ears.
We’re in a weird situation where he feels entitled to do whatever he wants because, in a way, nothing much has changed for him.
But everything was supposed to change for me.
At 58, he looked forward to the time when he would have more freedom. His father and I separated many years ago and since then I have been essentially single, dedicating my life to raising him and working.
I have endeavored to give him the best possible start in life. But I thought that eventually he would leave home and I could focus on myself and my life.
It’s not that I haven’t dated, it’s just that now I’ve had to keep everyone at arm’s length while prioritizing my son and my income.
But now I would love to have a partner with whom I can spend some time and be at my house. How can I bring a man home with my 29 year old son sleeping right next to me? Just thinking about it makes me feel terribly self-conscious. And yet, my son often brings friends home and I never complain. I just put in earplugs.
I’m actually surprised that I apparently have no desire to move on to the next phase of life.
I couldn’t wait to leave the house: I went to Edinburgh University and never returned home after graduating. I got a job there, found a shared flat and started living my life: a wonderful, independent existence.
Of course, rents are much higher these days and young people can’t even think about getting on the housing ladder in their 20s.
But what about getting a room in a real apartment shared with friends (you could afford it) or slumming it for a while in a less desirable zip code, like we all did in our youth? It may be more difficult to leave the house now, but it is surely not impossible.
I have friends who are in similar situations with their older children and I think it’s because we make living at home so comfortable. In my day, I had a single bed and there was no privacy in my childhood home. And my parents certainly had no interest in helping me financially or letting the ‘kids’ stay over.
In contrast, our kids have big rooms, king-sized beds, and friends all the time. It looks too much like a hotel.
I also wonder if it would have been different if his father and I had stayed together.
In my darkest moments I feel like my son hasn’t moved on in part because of our failed relationship. Maybe he imagines himself as the man of the house and that it is his role to be here?
I torture myself thinking that after the divorce I must have spoiled him, and maybe I still do. Maybe underneath everything he feels he can’t leave me.
But then I make sure that many children still living at home are not products of single-parent families. They just look at the exorbitant rental costs out there and wonder why anyone would give up their comfortable life in the family home.
I love my son, of course, it goes without saying, but when I see him using all my detergent and eating all my food, I fear my love is turning into resentment. Sometimes I just want to yell at him.
And then other times, I love that it’s here. When I’m tired and just want to hang out with someone, he can be very easy and very fun company.
But this situation is not suitable for any of us.
Every few weeks, I promise myself that I will have an intense conversation with him and give him a deadline to move out. It’s for his own good, I tell myself. And then I put it off again and pick up his socks from the stairs.
