Desperate measures

Thousands more young adults are living with their parents because they can't afford to live indepen-dently. Property prices and rental fees have rocketed while salaries have barely risen, and if they're living on their own they just can't make ends meet.

I'm glad I never had to consider living with my parents. When I was a young adult there were still plenty of affordable rentals and I could live on my own quite easily. I did so for 6½ years, and most of the people I knew were equally self-reliant.

I couldn't possibly have moved in with my parents, they had very different personalities and opinions, and we'd have fallen out rapidly. As it was, I was estranged from my father for many years so living with him was never a realistic option anyway.

Apart from anything else, if  I'd been under my parents' roof, I'd have had a very restrained existence. I couldn't stay out late and get back in the small hours as it would have woken them up. I couldn't get drunk as they didn't approve of alcoholic excess. I couldn't have had friends round as they were somewhat anti-social. It would never have worked.

Some parents are happy to have their children living with them again. They don't like being "empty-nesters" and can't adjust to a half-empty house. Other parents are glad to have the house to themselves and only reluctantly allow their children to return. My parents would definitely have been the latter.

Hotel Mum and Dad has never been more popular.

Letting go

One of the hardest things about being a parent must be giving up the constant supervision of your children and trusting them to make their own decisions - hopefully sensible and intelligent ones.

When you've been keeping an eye on your children 24 hours a day since they were born, it must be quite a wrench to be less vigilant and stop constantly checking up on them.

I'm reminded of this by yet another teenager dying of a suspected drugs overdose at the Leeds music festival. The 17 year old girl had taken not just one drug but a whole cocktail of drugs. She trusted whoever gave them to her and assumed they weren't dangerous.

And every so often kids decide it would be hilarious to wreck the local children's playground or daub graffiti on the wall of the parish church.

At some point a parent has to allow their child to go out on their own and be responsible for their own actions. You have to make a judgment as to whether they'll be safe or whether they'll get into some kind of trouble - drug abuse, sexual harassment, a car accident, shoplifting.

I imagine the farther your child goes, and the longer they're away, the more nervous you get. If they're backpacking in Australia for two months, for example. Or maybe it makes no difference.

Of course at a certain age a child is legally entitled to do whatever they want and their parents can no longer stand in the way.

When I was a teenager I generally made sensible decisions, but not always. I remember driving my girlfriend home once when I was very drunk, as people did in those days. Luckily I didn't have an accident.

Just let go, they say. Easier said than done.