WHEN I left home for university I was certain that, short of an unforeseen catastrophe, I would never again live there.

In the years that followed, life was not always easy. When, aged 22, I started work full-time, I didn’t earn much. Some months it was a struggle to pay rent, but it never entered my head to go back home, despite its comforts. It was the same for my friends.

In those days, having reached their late teens, kids were eager to flee the parental nest and strike out on their own.

Nowadays many young people are less keen. Increasingly, 20-somethings and even 30-somethings don’t leave or if they do, they soon come back. Research in 2020 found that almost two-thirds of adults aged 20-34 in the UK have either never left or have moved back into the family home.

It’s not only a feature of British life - In Spain the government proposes to offer young people 250 euros (£212) a month as an incentive to them to move out of their parents’ house and rent. People aged between 18 and 35 years old, earning less than 23,725 euros (£20,161) a year, would be eligible for the rental bonus.

I wonder how well a scheme like this will work. In the 21st century, young people don’t seem to crave the independence we were so keen to embrace.

I can be hard to establish yourself in the big wide world. Finance is a major issue, and in many places, especially London, rents are prohibitively expensive.

But, once they leave full-time education, young people seem to give up too easily. Once they settle back at home, they find their low rent or rent-free lives, with no bills and meals provided, is too much of a cushy number to find their own place.

Parents don’t help matters, many making it far too easy for their grown-up kids. Catering for their every whim, they make their ‘tenants’ lives ultra- comfortable. Not that they should house them in the shed and feed them bread and gruel, but they don’t have to fuss round them.

I had a conversations with one mum who moaned like mad about her son still living under the same roof in his mid-20s, yet confessed to still making his bed.

I know there are plenty of young people who are living in their parents’ home to save money, desperate for a deposit for their own property. Others may have been forced to do so due to job loss or a relationship breakdown.

Sometimes there is no other option but to return, and my children know that they have a home here if they ever need it. But there are many more grown-up kids who have their feet firmly under the table at their childhood home and, despite earning enough to support themselves, have no intention of leaving.

When I was in my twenties and living in London, I had a period sleeping on friends’ sofas. And one of my husband’s mates spent six months - five-and-a-half months too long in our opinion - kipping on ours. However bad our financial situation, none of us contemplated returning home.

It seems a very generous offer from the Spanish government, but maybe things have reached desperation point. Adults in Spain tend to move out of their families’ homes around age 30, almost four years later than the European average.

It must be stressful, for parents and children - few will cohabit in Waltons-like harmony. It may seem a little harsh, but maybe the solution is for parents to downsize, so there’s no room for kids to come back.

But what’s the betting any profit from the sale would be given to the kids for another effortless leg-up?