Mother says she'll do anything to stop her adult son moving back home

Why we’re shutting the hotel of mum and dad: As the cost of living bites, one mother says she’ll do anything to stop her adult son following his sister back home

Caroline Stott says she is prepared to do anything to stop her son moving home
Up to two million adult kids could soon be sleeping in their childhood bedrooms
This is because the cost-of-living crisis has left many wanting to cut on rent

When my 26-year-old son turns up for lunch this Sunday he’ll find the house inhospitably cold. I’ve taken to flinging open all the windows the minute Jack texts to say he’s on his way over, sneakily closing them again when Find My Friends shows he’s just around the corner.

That way — especially with the heating kept off — the house feels like an icebox when he walks through the door.

This sounds counterintuitive at a time when we’re all looking for ways to keep the warmth in and our energy bills down. But I’m playing the long game.

It’s one that has seen me strike off the weekly shopping list runny cheese and olives — Jack’s favourite snacks. It’s why I’ve started letting the dogs sleep on the sofa despite knowing the hairs they deposit will set my son off sneezing the minute he sits down.

My goal is to make the place seem cold, uncomfortable and unwelcoming, hopefully just for the time being. But why on earth would I want do that at all?

The unmotherly truth is I’m trying to reduce my risk of facing the question every parent of a millennial is currently bracing themselves for: ‘Is it OK if I move back home?’

According to a new survey, one-fifth of adults aged between 18 and 34 who currently have their own places intend to boomerang back to the parental home in the near future in order to cope with rising living costs. That suggests up to two million adult kids could soon be sleeping in their childhood bedrooms.

A further 8 per cent are mulling the idea over with their parents, while another 8 per cent are quietly thinking about it — they just haven’t got round to broaching the subject yet with poor unsuspecting Mum and Dad.

Fearful that Jack, an assistant supermarket manager, might fall into the latter category, I don’t want him feeling too cosy when he visits.

In fact, I’d rather live off baked beans, delay retirement and even contribute to Jack’s rocketing energy and accommodation costs myself than have him back living here.

It’s not that we don’t love him; of course we do. The minute the economy settles we will go back to giving him the loving welcome he’s always enjoyed.

But I’m worried about far more than losing our spare bedroom. Or having to absorb all his stuff and clutter, and return to the days of being woken in the early hours each weekend as he noisily returns from yet another party.

No. What fills me with dread is the thought that if Jack does come back he might Never Leave Again!

And I’ve good reason to be concerned. Six months ago, our 24‑year-old daughter, Annabel, an administrator for a utility company, moved back home after splitting up with her boyfriend. They’d been renting a flat together for two years; the lease came up for renewal at a point when they were questioning whether they wanted to be together at all.

Faced with committing to another year in a house neither could afford to pay for alone, they broke up.

Caroline Stott: The unmotherly truth is I’m trying to reduce my risk of facing the question every parent of a millennial is currently bracing themselves for: ‘Is it OK if I move back home?’ (File image)

My husband and I welcomed Annabel home with open arms. We’d enjoyed the peace and quiet of an empty nest — and had started thinking about downsizing. But we wanted to help our daughter.

Annabel was adamant this would be a short-term arrangement, saying she would miss the freedom of her own place and felt like she was making a backward move.

Feeling sorry for her, we agreed to charge only token rent — £100 a month, with Mum’s homecooked meals thrown in. The understanding being that Annabel would use this massive reduction in her outgoings — she had been paying almost £1,000 a month on bills, food and rent — to save up a deposit to buy a house. Or at least get enough money behind her to be able to rent a place of her own and get her freedom back.

The problem is that the freedom she once coveted quickly slid down her list of priorities when she discovered what a cushy number, financially speaking, living back at home could be.

Now Jack is looking at his own ever-increasing living costs and making pointed comments about how he’d quite like a piece of the boomerang action, too. Hardly surprising when he can see how flush his sister currently seems to be.

It’s six months on from when she moved in and, by my reckoning, Annabel should have at least six grand in the bank by now. But no. Her savings account is empty.

That’s because she’s blown all the cash she vowed to put away each month on new clothes, trips to the hairdresser, weekends away with the girls and various beauty products. Her brother must feel like he’s missing a trick.

As the cost-of-living crisis bites for the rest of us, it feels like Annabel is living on a different planet.

She shops with gay abandon, while I’m selling the clothes I don’t wear any more on eBay. I’m considering growing my roots out because of the ever-increasing bills my own hairdresser is charging; Annabel has started getting blow-dries before increasingly frequent big nights out.

Meanwhile, our energy direct debits have gone up to as much as our mortgage; every spare penny we have is going on overpayments so that when our fixed rate comes to an end it’ll go up to a level we can still afford. So, no meals out and the food shop adheres to a strict budget.

It’s hard to see where the money for a holiday will come from next year. And yet Annabel seems oblivious to it all.

No wonder the seemingly endless parade of delivery drivers at our front door, laden with online orders that arrive most days (always for Annabel, never for me) is galling.

This weekend, things came to a head when I walked into my own bedroom to find Annabel parading in front of my full-length mirror in the second pair of winter boots she’s bought in the last fortnight.

‘I reckon these’ll look great with the coat I’ve just ordered,’ she cheerfully told me. Knowing she already has three decent coats taking up room in the hall cupboard, I finally erupted.

‘What are you playing at?’ I asked, demanding to know when she plans to start saving instead of blowing her wages on boots that cost at least as much as I’ve spent on this month’s food shop. ‘How will you ever have the money for a deposit if you keep buying all this stuff you don’t need?’

I followed her into her bedroom, which has so much expensive make-up lying around I felt like I’d just walked into Selfridges’ beauty hall.

‘You don’t want me here,’ Annabel wailed, but I told her that simply isn’t true. ‘I do want you here,’ I insisted. ‘Just not for ever.’

And that’s what this all boils down to. It’s all very well our twentysomething kids returning to the sanctuary of home because they can’t make ends meet. But it needs to be part of a long-term plan.

If they end up cushioned from the harsh realities of these difficult times — so much so that they fritter away their wages while the economy burns — they’ll pay for it later.

They can’t let this crisis infantilise them; seeing their earnings as pocket money instead of their passport back to independence, blissfully ignorant as to how their parents are frantically doing all they can to shore up their own finances and stay afloat.

Of course, you could argue that while we cut back, their splurges are keeping retailers going. But I still feel resentful.

At this point in our lives my husband and I deserve to have our home as our own, not cheap accommodation for our adult offspring.

I’m shocked by how short-sighted Annabel is being. When the novelty of living at home wears off, when she meets someone new and wants to get a place with them only she can’t afford it — what then?

I know I’m far from alone in having these worries. One of my friends put her house on the market last week so she can downsize.

Her old plan was to stay in the family home so that when she eventually gets grandchildren, there would be plenty of room for them to stay over.

Now she’s more concerned with the present than the future and doesn’t want her brood of twentysomethings moving back, their own plans for adulthood put on hold.

Another has pre-empted any ideas of boomeranging home by texting her kids a breakdown of what she will charge them if they do. It’s on a par with renting a one-bed flat, meaning they’ll think hard before giving up their freedoms because it’ll cost them far more than they were probably thinking.

Once things thaw between Annabel and me, my husband and I plan to sit her down and explain some hard financial facts — mainly that if she wants to enjoy a secure future, she needs to return to the original plan and get saving.

Meanwhile, her rent’s going up by a couple of hundred pounds a month, to cover what living here is costing us, and to keep things real for her — something we ought to have done when she first moved in.

We’re also going to have a frank conversation with Jack instead of, quite literally, freezing him out. We will urge him to hang on in there and help him find practical ways he might cut back to make things easier.

It’s time our adult kids realise that the Bank (and Hotel) of Mum and Dad is going to have to pull down the shutters while we get ourselves through this crisis. Frankly, their own financial futures may well depend on it, too.

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