My husband says I'm too soft - but I like having our grown-up son around

A reader asks

Our son is 26 and has lived at home with us since finishing university five years ago. He works in a local pub part-time and has a girlfriend locally (who also lives with her parents). He shows no urgency about getting what my husband calls a "proper job" and moving out.

This has become a source of rows: my husband says I’m too soft and that we should charge him market rent and kick him out if he doesn’t pay. But as I’ve pointed out, if we do that, he’s even less likely to be able to afford to rent his own place. To be honest, I like having him around – he’s good company and looks after the dog when we’re on holiday.

If we lived in Italy or Spain, no one would think twice about adult children living with their parents, would they?

Anne Robinson replies

We are living in an era of great change. Our world leaders are stressing the importance of artificial intelligence and how it will transform our day-to-day lives and the way we work. On a simpler level, today’s youngsters are already aware that a good education no longer guarantees an interesting, financially rewarding job.

Instead, the gastro pubs round my way, and maybe yours, are filled with clever twentysomethings with impressive degrees, being paid to ask me if I want still or sparkling water.

Therefore, your husband’s argument that your son should get a proper job and the only thing preventing this is his lack of purpose is wholly unrealistic. What job exactly is your husband wishing your son sail into?

Could he perhaps spell out how this will come about, because right now he is sounding very much like a tiresome old fart.

Even if your son was set on a particular career, one for which his degree made him more than suitable, he still could be sitting in his bedroom with his email inbox crammed full of rejection notes and having no choice but to earn pin money by pulling pints.

It is also worth noting that those in your son’s generation are not as hell-bent on conquering the job market as their parents might have been. Indeed, they are increasingly disdainful of what they see as naked ambition. Instead, they value their leisure time and are resolutely unprepared to risk their wellbeing for a career that promises punishing hours and lorry loads of stress.

Equally important, or maybe most importantly, you love having your son at home with you. That is the most touching sentence in your letter.

Just think how many hundreds of thousands of mothers whose children have moved to faraway continents because of their careers and are raising grandchildren on the other side of the world will envy you. They don’t have what you have on your doorstep.

It’s a very real saying that a mother is as happy as her unhappiest child. Please don’t undervalue having a happy child – one who appears quite content with a local girlfriend and a job sufficient for him to get by.

Frankly, I think it’s your husband who needs a good talking to.