I HAVE got to stop. Making the children's beds, tucking them up at night, cooking special meals, washing their clothes, tidying their rooms, buying them treats.

I must stop because I have glimpsed the future and it is scary.

I must stop doing these things because I don't want my children to turn into 'kidults.'

Government figures show that more and more twentysomethings - or 'kidults' as they are known - are refusing to fly the nest. Nearly 60 per cent of men aged between 20 and 25, and 42 per cent of women, still live at home with their parents.

Experts believe this is mainly because house prices have soared well beyond wage rises, making it hard to get a foot on the property ladder. But many young people simply enjoy the comfort of having their parents cook for them, clean up after them and take care of the bills.

I can relate to that. Every time I go 'home' to my parents' house, the house I grew up in, I am looked after to the point where I never want to leave. Returning after a weekend, even, is hard.

There is no single thing to make me feel that way, it's the whole package - the delicious home-cooked meals, the table always beautifully laid (unlike ours, with tomato sauce bottle, plastic milk carton and more than a few sticky, crumb-coated patches gracing it most days), the beds invitingly made up with lovely crisp, clean cotton sheets (ours may be cotton, but as for crisp and clean, well maybe on the half dozen or so occasions every year when I get around to changing them) and the fact that I don't have to lift a finger (although I always help out).

My husband sometimes asks me why I still call it 'home.' I tell him that despite moving on, to me, it will always be my real home. As he spent much of his youth at boarding school, I can't hope for him to understand.

Home is just so comfortable, so nice, always warm and snug. I can see why so many people are reluctant to leave. My visits are usually confined to a couple of nights but, struck down by bronchitis over Christmas, I spent almost a week there, being looked after, sitting in front of the fire sipping mugs of tea, and could easily have stayed on for another year or two.

Home is also a stress-free haven because, unlike my own house, I don't pay the bills. I don't have to stump up to fix broken guttering, cracked paintwork, leaky washing machines and other house-related things in need of repair.

No wonder young people are putting off the move into the big wide money pit that passes for the real world - at least it does for anyone who has left home.

They may not be able to bring masses of friends home at 3am after a night out, but at least they can afford a night out. And probably more than once a week too.

That's why I've got to make sure things aren't too cosy, too snug, too much like easy-living for my children.

And I've already started saving for a down-payment on their first homes. There's 28p in it already.

Updated: 10:44 Tuesday, April 19, 2005