Taking the dirty washing downstairs, I notice a pile of crystals outside the landing window. The coloured rocks are flecked with ash. A curl of singed paper clings to an amethyst. I don’t know what it means, but I know who to ask.
“Lily, why are all your crystals on the window sill? And what have you been burning?”
“Affirmations,” she says. “It’s a full moon, so I’ve been telling the universe what I want and need. Then I burn the paper to let them go. You should try it, Mum. Just write down stuff you want to draw closer or push away.”
When it comes to my four grownup, stay-at-home children, I’m caught between wanting to push them away and wanting to draw them closer. Ed and I often discuss ways to help them move out, but a corner of my heart feels bleak at the prospect of an empty house.
I am at the centre of a whirling cosmos. My opinion is asked for on every subject under the sun, from personal relationships to politics to whether a pair of trousers should be worn rolled. The annoyance of having Woman’s Hour interrupted is outweighed by the company of my offspring. They bring home friends and partners. Dramas unfold around me. Music plays. Our kitchen is busy with guests and chatter. There is always someone to feed the cats, cook dinner, or water the garden. I am never lonely.
Ed and I are out to supper with a couple of friends one evening when the conversation turns to the subject of children. One of theirs is travelling, and the other has just moved into a new flat. “How about your lot?” they ask. “Any of them flown the nest yet?”
We shake our heads and they exchange meaningful glances, before telling us of a programme they listened to recently about parents of adult children who refuse to leave home, even in their 30s and 40s. “Kids who have become aging cuckoos, more Baby Janes than postgrads, their poor, desperate parents, now in their 70s, trying to pacify their offspring,” they say.
“How awful,” I murmur.
Ed says nothing, pouring another beer and looking pale.
“In one case,” they say, “the adult children – flush with money not spent on living expenses – went off on a long, exotic holiday. When they came back, they found the house was sold and their parents had gone into hiding, moving into a narrowboat somewhere.”
Driving home later, Ed and I look at each other. “That’s not going to happen,” I say. “Not to us.”
Ed makes a strangled noise in his throat.
I don’t believe they will be living with us in 10 years, or that there is a narrowboat with our name on it. But I do worry that our children are not prepared for survival in the real world. They are practical in many ways, can cook up a storm, but they simply don’t have experience of budgeting, paying bills, dealing with landlords, or holding down a job for more than a few months.
Maybe we should at least be forcing them to pay proper rent, just to get them used to the idea. But it feels odd to make them pay to live in their own rooms, turning our children into lodgers. In Japan, kids who refuse to move out are called parasaito shinguru (single parasites). In Italy, they are bamboccioni (big babies). There are adult children all over the world stuck in their childhood bedrooms. Allowing them to stay there should perhaps be considered a form of enabling, like giving money to a drug addict.
I think about Lily burning her affirmations, and the idea of drawing some things closer and pushing others away. As a parent, my instinct is to draw my children close, so I didn’t protest too much when, as young adults, they remained at home for practical reasons. But allowing them to stay might become a harmful habit, pushing them away the real act of love; except I’m so used to them being here that I’m as dependent on their company as they are on the security of home. My life will be so dull without them. But wonderful as it is to be needed, I have to let them go.
Some names have been changed
