My son Jake called last week to say he’s struggling financially and needs to come home while he gets himself straight. He’s 32, and earns a good salary working in sales. Yet his immature attitude towards money means he still hits his overdraft limit before payday each month and now can’t afford to live in his flashy rented flat any more.
From the tone of the call, Jake wasn’t asking if he could move in – he was merely informing me of his plans. What annoyed me even more is that this would be his fifth time boomeranging back home after continuing to live beyond his means. And I’ve heard various versions of this same sob story from both my adult children.
I’ve only recently been able to call my home my own again after getting rid of Laura, 29, a retail manager, who moved back for the fourth time after falling out with her housemates.
Like her brother, she earns good money but has a talent for overspending and seems incapable of managing her finances sensibly like the adult she is. Twice she’s come back after running up credit-card debts.
This is the fifth time my 32-year-old son has boomeranged back, and I only recently got rid of my daughter Laura after she came back for the second time, anonymous reveals
In fact, both of them treat the family home as a free hotel they can check into whenever they fancy it – housekeeping included.
They mess up my kitchen, leave damp towels on the bathroom floor and wake me up when they roll in drunk, as well as expecting me to cook their favourite meals and do their laundry like I did when they were children.
So, much as I love them, I don’t enjoy living with them as adults, particularly having discovered how peaceful life is when they have their own places. The problem is, I hate confrontation; instead of telling them I resent the way they use my home – and me – I just quietly seethe. But this can’t go on.
And so, I’ve taken drastic action that will force them both to finally grow up and stand on their own two feet: I’m downsizing.
I’ll shortly be swapping my beautiful 1930s three-bedroom detached home, with its airy rooms and the large garden I’ve always loved, for a tiny one-bedroom cottage with a lounge so cosy you couldn’t swing a cat in it.
Which is entirely the point. This new place is big enough for me, and me only, which means there can be no more flying home to Mummy every time life in the real world doesn’t work out for my kids.
My new home will not only be child-free, but I’ll be evicting all their possessions too. For as any parent who’s ever accommodated a boomerang child knows, it’s not just them I’m expected to make room for.
They invariably turn up with bits of furniture, suitcases full of clothes plus endless boxes of kitchenware, cushions and goodness knows what else.
Half these boxes don’t ever get opened again. I’m expected to absorb it all — to make room in the garage, the loft and under various beds. Then they move back out, unencumbered, to start afresh, expecting me to store their junk indefinitely.
Well, no more. There’s only room for my stuff at the new house. If they don’t take theirs away now, it’ll all end up at the tip. So when Jake rang last week, confident he’d be able to slink back home again, I told him the days when he could rinse his mother for free bed and board were over.
I had earlier warned him and Laura that I was planning on downsizing – a plan they had both railed against, saying it would break their hearts to think of someone else living in their childhood home.
Rather than giving them the real reason, I lied and told them I needed to sell up because, with their father having moved out five years ago after we divorced, I couldn’t afford to run a family home by myself any more. I don’t think either of them believed I’d ever really do it.
But a cash buyer offered the full asking price within days of the For Sale sign going up. And my own offer on the cottage I’ve fallen for has just been accepted. With no chains involved with either sale, I could be moving in a matter of weeks.
I could almost hear the cogs turning in Jake’s brain as he processed this information – and its implications for him.
Stunned silence quickly gave way to apoplexy. ‘But that cottage has only got one bedroom,’ he spluttered. ‘Where will I sleep? Where will I put my stuff?’
He sounded upset. But instead of feeling guilty, I felt relieved that I was getting out just in time. I could never have done this with one of them still living with me.
Not that selling up was an easy decision to make. At 62, I’m downsizing years before I really want or need to. I love this house, which I’ve lived in for more than three decades – it’s where I raised my family and is full of happy memories.
My neighbours are lovely, the mortgage is paid off, and my teacher’s pension means I can comfortably afford to heat and light the place. Tending the garden has always been such a pleasure.
I could almost hear the cogs turning in Jake’s brain. ‘But that cottage has only got one bedroom,’ he spluttered. ‘Where will I sleep? Where will I put my stuff?’
And while I’ve lived alone here (some of the time, anyhow) since my ex-husband, Andy, moved out, I don’t feel as though I rattle around. I regularly entertain family and friends in my dining room. I’ll miss having the space to do that.
But at my age I need to be able to call my home my own.
Especially as I’ve recently tentatively dipped my toe in the dating waters, and would like to have the option to bring someone home without the risk of having adult offspring waiting up for me if I do. Laura came with me the first time I viewed the new place and was horrified by how tiny it is. ‘It’s not for you, Mum,’ she told me, taking in the cosy sitting room, the galley kitchen and its one bedroom (the current owners used the second to extend the bathroom, which suits me fine) with dismay. ‘You’d be much better off staying put.’
She must have reported all this back to Jake, with both of them presuming I’d just taken her word for it, because no one asked me about downsizing again. Meanwhile I quietly got on with putting my house up for sale.
I knew the selfish so-and-sos weren’t concerned for me – all they cared about was being deprived of the comfort of knowing they always had my house to fall back on.
And the way I see it, that mindset is stopping them from getting a proper adult understanding of how the world works.
The first time Jake came home, seven years ago, aged 25, it felt right to welcome him back. He moved out at 23 to live with his girlfriend. They got engaged but split up two years later, thankfully before any wedding plans were put in place.
He was heartbroken. Andy and I were still together then and we were glad to be able to help him get back on his feet.
But we made things too cushy, because it seemed to set him off on a pattern of leaving and returning, overspending instead of saving for his future – a habit he can’t seem to break.
And since I was the one who stayed in the family home after the divorce, while Andy moved too far away for the kids to be interested in living with him, I’ve had to bear the burden of it.
Today, Jake’s idea of eking out a living would insult anyone who is genuinely struggling.
He eats out at least three times a week, and goes clubbing with his mates most weekends – sometimes abroad during the summer.
Six months ago he bought a car on finance – a nearly new BMW – despite there being nothing wrong with the five-year-old Audi he’d finally paid off.
I questioned whether he could afford the repayments, which must be substantial, on top of his rent on a luxurious canal- side apartment.
‘I’m a grown-up now Mum,’ he sniped. ‘I think I know what I can and can’t afford.’ Clearly not.
Now, the contract is up and he can’t afford to renew it. Judging by that phone call, he’d sooner live with me than downsize himself or cut back on socialising so he can live independently. How depressing.
Laura first moved out aged 24 to live with a boyfriend she met two months earlier, but was home again after three weeks when she realised they had nothing in common. I didn’t mind her coming back after what felt like a life lesson.
She left again a year later, only to spend her way into trouble. She came home, moved out, then did the same thing all over again.
Most recently, she took on a house share with some girlfriends, but there was some sort of fall out so she came home for three weeks to cool off.
She’s back in her own place again now, but if things go wrong I doubt she’ll look to fix them herself if she knows it would be easier to come back and live with me.
My friends have had mixed responses to me selling up. Some think it’s a genius move – less housework and more financial security from the considerable profit I’m making through buying somewhere so tiny.
I’ll be able to afford some fantastic holidays with the money I bank. M&S food hall, here I come.
Others are certain I’ll miss having so much space. ‘What about when grandchildren come along?’ one asked recently. ‘Where will you put them?’
‘Fat chance of those while my kids are such babies themselves,’ I replied.
Although I do have a Plan B in that respect. Unless I absolutely love living somewhere so small, this needn’t be a permanent move.
I’ve got a good financial adviser and will carefully invest the profit I make through this move so that, if I do crave more space, I can buy somewhere a bit bigger.
Surely, a few years from now, Jake and Laura will have learned they can navigate life’s challenges without boomeranging home to me every five minutes.
And I’ll be able to have a spare bedroom without them eyeing it up.
Now that I’m downsizing, what other choice do they have than to finally grow up?
