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This just in from the Brits: a theory on why an increasing percent of grown kids are moving back home with mom and dad–and staying there. Evidently, a record 3.3 million young adults in Britain are still "reliant on their parents."It's not because they can't pull their lives together or find the road to financial independence. No. It's because mum and dad like having them around and don't want them to leave.

“Things can become very quiet and a little staid when children leave home," the authors of Later! A Guide to Parenting A Young Adult, say. "Parents sometimes feel truly middle-aged, and miss the energy."

Parents perpetuate this co-dependency "by giving their children things like lifts and money." They tend not to ask their children to pay rent, do their own laundry, "tidy" their bedrooms or help out with food shopping. “They’re not stupid," these British authors say. "They [the young adults] know they’re getting a good deal by living there." To say nothing of nicely stacked and folded clean clothes.

If I read these comments right, some of us may, in effect, be bribing our young adult children to live at home and keep us feeling young and fresh. Would forcing them to do their own laundry or clean up their room be the way to encourage them to take flight?

Just sharing a point of view from across the pond. With this add on from Robert Browning:

Oh to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware….

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