Writing -- Baby Talk: Flying the nest

The following article featured in a weekly column on parenting in the Women on Wednesday supplement of The Evening Echo, one of Ireland's leading regional daily newspapers. It appeared in the 14 July 2004 issue.

There are swallows nesting in our garden shed this year. Whenever I go to get out the lawn mower or to pick up the watering can I'm greeted by the insistent clamour and demanding yellow gapes of four little swallow chicks.

The eggs hatched about a week ago, and the chicks started off as tiny, naked little creatures barely able to raise their heads. Since then they've acquired a downy grey fluff, and their punk-like hairstyles, bright black eyes and enormous yellow maws combine to give them a really comical appearance.

They remind me of the girls in many ways: demanding, noisy, pushing and shoving all the time, completely oblivious to how hard their parents work just to keep them fed... well, you get the picture. One big difference, of course, is that the swallows will be done and dusted with all this parenting malarkey by the end of the summer (until next year at least). These chicks will fly the nest in about another fortnight or so, and a week or two after that they're on their own. Mum and dad will be rearing the next brood, and in a few months the lot of them will be winging their way south across the Sahara. I guess you grow up fast when you're a swallow.

In contrast our parenting endeavours will have to go on for much longer: if current trends are anything to go by we could easily have all three girls still living at home in their late twenties. Now there's a scary thought!

More and more adult children are staying at home with mum and dad instead of heading out into the big, bad world on their own. It's putting incredible pressure on parents, and it's no picnic for the youngsters either. Ludicrously high rent, spiralling house prices and the astronomical cost of living in this country means that they simply can't afford to leave. Where would they go?

In Dublin, and increasingly in Cork and other parts of the country, it's a struggle even for professional couples who both have well paying jobs and no children to afford their first house. We were lucky that we bought our house four years ago… because the way the market has risen, and with the children around now, I doubt we'd be able to climb onto the property ladder now. It must be an incredibly daunting prospect for young people leaving school and college today.

And what about their poor parents… after a lifetime of supporting and rearing their children they now find themselves digging ever deeper into their pockets to support the young adults they have become. At a time when they should be enjoying some of their hard-earned cash they find they have to be more frugal than ever - and even dip into the retirement fund just to get by. It's a crazy situation.

We were talking about it the other evening and decided that if the girls were still hanging around at home by the time they reached their mid-twenties that we'd be the ones to fly the nest. They could live in the house, but would have to support themselves - and we'd be off enjoying ourselves somewhere exotic.

It was a sentiment expressed only partly in jest: my wife's a great traveller, and given half the chance would jump on the first plane anywhere. With a house overrun by adult offspring it wouldn't take much convincing to put me in the seat next to her!