Boomeranging

‘boomerang kid’ (also boomerang child) noun an adult child who returns home to live with his or her parents after being away for some time.

Wave goodbye to fun and frivolity, real life is rearing its ugly head.

University is over, the over-draft is full, friends are heading home and you have to do the same. Unfortunately this may also occur at a later date, just when you thought you’d made the break for good. I decided a month spent in the tranquillity of my parents’ dining room would be the perfect revision haven to turn me into a journalistic machine. This also, sadly, turned me into a ‘boomerang kid’.

This entails familiarising yourself with rules from your teenage years, although a few adjustments have been made. Feeling rusty? Let me ring a few bells for you.

1. Coming and going as you please is a no-no. All movements to and from the place of residence need to be relayed to a parent, as failure to do so may result in the front-door chain not being secured before bedtime and the porch light being left on unnecessarily.
2. Washing clothes may only occur on designated days not ear-marked for parents, namely Friday to Tuesday, as they do work don’t you know and only have time at the weekends (and the following days for drying. And flexibility.)
3. Eating will occur at set meal times, not late at night after forgetting to eat due to watching Heroes back-to-back.
4. Your consumption of milk and bread will be monitored, with any increase in loaves or pints being purchased being brought to your attention.
5. Mornings will be met with at least one sticky note instructions for the day. “Empty dishwasher”, “don’t forget recycling”, “clean bathroom”, “chop vegetables”…
6. Tabs will be kept on the tidiness of both bedroom and bathroom. Helpful reminders will be at regular intervals, preferably before your morning coffee or when you’re running late.
7. The remote control is out of bounds. Emmerdale will be followed by Coronation Street, followed by EastEnders, followed by ITV crime drama. Bed is at 10.00pm.
8. The heating is for emergencies only.
9. The cupboard space in your bedroom is designated for the A-Z of parents’ fashion faux pas, so prepare to smell like lavender and sandalwood from stuffing your clothes into a dresser.
10. Getting up later than 7.30am will result in a barrage of comments and anecdotes from when your parents were your age, worked from dawn till dusk, walked 10 miles in knee-deep snow and all for half a shilling.

There are a number of obvious perks, but at 25 you feel you should be living with peers, not parents. Your career might be precarious, marriage and kids at the peripherals of your mind and travel is sadly on a backburner, so a little independence goes a long way.