There’s something important going on in the homes where adult children live at home, and it’s something parents often don’t want to talk about. It’s the conflicted feelings many parents feel about having their kids at home, what it says about their success as parents (why is the adult child not able to live independently), and their emotional connection to their kids. These are all very real and important concerns, and it’s okay for parents to share these thoughts out loud.

Elizabeth Meakins, writing in The Independent, shares some of these thoughts in the context of her experience with her own two twenty-something sons, both living at home. She starts her piece by describing a dream, in which she initially feels she is being crowded out of her own home by the boys and their friends.

For any parents feeling emotionally unsure about having their kids move back in, or who are struggling after they’re already home, it’s an important read. You can find Meakins’s piece on The Independent’s website.