This week on So You Think You’re an Adult, one woman asked whether she should ask her adult sons to move out of the family home so she can better enjoy her retirement.

“Both myself and my husband retired early this year and we were so looking forward to a new phase of life,” she told Moncrieff.

“A few weeks before I finished work, my older son moved home from Australia and came back to stay ‘temporarily’.

“Over six months later, he’s still here and shows no sign of moving.

“Then about six weeks ago, our other son’s relationship broke down.

“His partner kicked him out while she stays in the family home with their children.

“We’re devastated by the split and have no issue being a soft landing for him, but it’s not a permanent solution.

Children listening to parents argument (Wavebreak Media ltd / Alamy Stock Photo)

“We’ve taken to booking weekends away just to be alone because our house is too cramped for four adults.

“I feel like I’m constantly cooking and cleaning up after them and we’ve reverted to childhood, but with grown men it’s infuriating.

“I know it’s a dire situation for everytone, but at what point can you legitimately tell your adult children they need to move out?”

Housing crisis

TV personality Declan Buckley said that given the ongoing housing crisis, these two men may have no other option than to live at home for the foreseeable future.

“This problem needs to be split into two component parts,” he said.

“One is the backstory of people not being able to find starter homes or whatever they are.

“Or people dealing with broken marriages and having nowhere to go, so therefore moving back home as a stopgap.

“The other part of the problem is the mother, in this instance, acting like her adult children are still children.

“The bit that kind of rotted me was where she was saying, ‘I’m constantly cooking and cleaning after them’, and ‘we have reverted’.

“Not, ‘I have reverted’, or, ‘I have allowed this reversion’.”

Stressed woman at desk. Image: Kateryna Onyshchuk / Alamy Stock Photo

Broadcaster Barbara Scully agreed and said that while mothers often feel obligated to take on the burden of household chores, this woman needs to put her foot down.

“As Declan rightly pointed out, the mistake she is making is she’s reverting to being mammy and doing all the cooking and cleaning,” she said.

“That’s where you’ve got to change your mindset from being mammy in a house with children to being in a house share with adults and setting down rules and boundaries.”

Main image: A retired couple on a beach. Image: MBI / Alamy Stock Photo