I was visiting my family when the new chest freezer arrived. I soon worked it out. No longer was the original icebox big enough to contain my brother Michael's ready-cooked meals. Now that my parents spend a few weeks at a time in warmer climes (Dad has bad arthritis, which is made worse in cold weather), Mom has up to a month's worth of sausage casserole, steak and kidney pie and chicken curry to label and freeze.
That's right; my younger brother, Michael, 41, has rarely cooked himself a meal and never operated a washing machine, because he still lives at home with our mom and dad.
Currently in Britain, 58 percent of men between the age of 20 and 24 still live with their parents, the numbers having doubled in the past 15 years. There are far fewer fortysomethings, however, living with their parents. My brother is a rare breed.
Michael is no social misfit. Handsome, bright, popular and hard-working, he prefers living with Mom and Dad to branching out and living independently. I interviewed Michael and our mom, Maureen, a fit, healthy 70-year-old, at the family home in Darlington in the northeast of England. I have long been curious about Michael's choice to stay at home, but in all these years we had never had a proper conversation about it.
As a feminist who is critical of any man "freeloading" from women, I have managed occasionally to get the odd dig in at Michael, asking if he knew where the cooker was or if he could boil an egg. He would take it good-humoredly, and has never been defensive. Our family is a close one, but we are more likely to sit and laugh together than have deep and meaningful conversations.
Our older brother, Paul, 46, and I left home in our teens. I moved away at 16 to look for work and adventure (anyone familiar with Darlington in the 1970s would know why), and Paul married his childhood sweetheart at 18. As children, Paul and I were remarkably similar: boisterous, talkative, naughty and generally high-maintenance.
Michael, who is much quieter and more reflective, was unplanned.
"I had just got a job in an office, which was perfect," Mom says, "and then found out I was pregnant. I wanted the baby, but was in a real turmoil."
As a baby, Michael was clingy and whinging. My earliest memory of him is Mom holding him under one arm while peeling potatoes with the other.
"He cried every time I put him down, right up until he was five," Mom says. "But after that he was the most self-sufficient of all of you."
So one theory -- that Michael has never moved away because he is still not ready to cut the umbilical cord -- does not stand up.
Michael maintains that his choice to stay at home is motivated by circumstances. Working on a short-term contract as a fork-lift truck driver, he is badly paid. His hours are long, with him leaving the house at 6am and returning at 6.30pm.
"I'm so shattered at the end of the day it is great coming home and having everything done for you," he tells me. "I have all the privacy I need, all the company I want. It is a bit like a hotel but at home."
The main reason for not leaving, Michael tells me, is money. He is not alone. Recent research by the Halifax Bank found that first-time buyers cannot afford to get a mortgage on a semi-detached house in 92 percent of towns in Britain. For Michael, it is particularly important to have decent housing as he has legal joint custody of his 13-year- old son, Jake.
My old room is now occupied by Jake, who stays at the house three or four nights a week. Michael had a brief relationship with Jake's mother, who lives on the same housing project, which ended before Jake was born.
Since Jake was eight weeks old, Michael has had him to stay half the week. What that has actually meant, however, is that our Mom did most of the practical parenting. Michael has been in full-time employment since leaving school, and, like many single working-class parents, could not afford childcare.
"Michael would have been a McDonald's dad if he hadn't lived at home," Mom says, "and if he had been living with a girlfriend she would have ended up looking after Jake."
For Michael, having his son stay with him and his grandparents is ideal.
"I work long shifts," he says, "and would have found it hard to have Jake part-time if I lived on my own, especially when he was younger."
I remind him that most single parents are women, and that many of them have full-time jobs, as well as doing the household chores.
"You can't win with you feminists," he teases, "Would you rather I was chaining a wife to the kitchen sink?"
At 13, Jake can do a lot for himself, but Mom still washes his school uniform, cooks for him and performs countless other practical tasks on his behalf. She is as unperturbed about this as she is about her role as hands-on parent to Michael.
"I love having him home," she says. "It's hard when all your kids leave, and it's just the two of you again."
She admits, however, that had Michael initially left home and then returned, she may not have been so ready to cook for him and do his washing up.
"I have done it since he was a baby," she says, "so it feels completely natural to me to carry on, because he has always been here."
Men are a third more likely than women to stay at home until they buy a house of their own. Almost one third of young people return to live at home at least once after initially moving away, and one in 10 go back four times before finally leaving for good. It seems that British men are more reluctant to leave their mothers than women are.
Mom, who was the first feminist I ever met, has resisted male dominance all her life, and brought her sons up to respect women. She told me, when I was 12, that I should never get married, "because all it will do is take your independence away," and fought tooth and nail with my dad, an unreconstructed alpha male, when he tried to get me to cover the household chores when Mom was at work.
What makes her compromise her feminist principles by running around after a grown man?
"I did it for your dad when he was working," she says, "and Michael doesn't have anyone else to do it for him."
Neil Blacklock, who specializes on issues of men and masculinity, believes that there are very different expectations from mothers about sons and daughters, with sons being allowed to do much less around the house.
"This trend probably indicates how fragile the achievements around men sharing domestic work actually are," Blacklock said.
Many women deride men who still live with their mother and they can get a bad press.
The central character in the recent film Failure to Launch, a thirtysomething man who still lives with his parents, is portrayed as lacking in motivation and ambition. The common perception of men living at home is that they are inadequate mommy's boys. I ask several women in my office if they would consider a relationship with a man in Michael's circumstances. Almost all reacted with, "Oh no! He can't be right," and "how weird."
There is a certain irony when women who openly admit that they live with men who do far fewer domestic chores than they do are so scathing.
Michael is aware of the negative way that men living at home are portrayed but is not bothered by it.
"People who know me don't think twice about it," he says. "To them it makes sense, and doesn't mean I'm a weirdo."
Although Michael is living a very comfortable and privileged life at home, where he wants for nothing and does even less, there are things he is missing out on. I have always suspected that one of the reasons he does not have a partner -- although lots of casual girlfriends -- is because all his domestic needs are met by Mom. Or perhaps Michael is fundamentally lazy and does not wish to put any energy into an intimate relationship.
"Some men compartmentalize what they think they need from a relationship," Blacklock says, "and if some of those needs are being met by their mothers, they can put less effort into looking elsewhere."
Paul and I own our homes, we are both in long-term relationships and have secure incomes. Although Michael adores his son and has many close friends, Mom has always worried about him having "less" than me and our brother.
"I worry that he has no one" is a common mantra from Mom whenever the issue of Michael still being at home is raised.
What does Dad think of it?
"I've never once asked Michael why he's still here," he says. "It's your mom who has to fetch and carry for him."
Dad actually loves having Michael at home, but in the time-honored tradition of "proper" men hiding their feelings, he does not admit it. I have seen him pack Michael's sandwiches for work, if Mom has not already done it, and heard him ask Mom what she has made him for dinner, as if checking it is sufficient for a hard-working laborer.
All good things come to an end. Because of Dad's failing health, our parents are looking to sell the house and buy a bungalow. When this happens, Michael will have no choice but to move out and find accommodation for him and Jake. Mom and Dad will miss him, but I think the biggest loss will be his. For his birthday this year I am going to buy him Household Hints and Handy Tips.
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