The move is made easier, as Margo points out, by the fact that the older generation still own large properties. They’re the ones who benefited from the property boom — so they are able to house their children.

The desire to return to the bosom of one’s family — if allowed to do so by benign parents — may also be driven not just by prudent fiscal plans, but by the security that the parental home represents.

“The present economic doom and gloom seems to be making people want to regress to a time when they felt emotionally safer, more protected and without financial responsibility — when they were living with their parents and ‘mummy and daddy could fix it’,” says Donna Dawson, a psychologist.

It’s not always easy to go back to mum and dad, of course. “We’re going home with our tails between our legs,” says Henrietta Dale, 24, who, with her boyfriend, Ed Martin, is returning to her parents’ house in Chiswick, west London, where the pair had been living before going it alone.

They have been renting a one-bedroom basement flat in Mile End, east London, since last December, but when their contract came up for renewal, they decided they couldn’t afford to continue their tenancy because of job uncertainty — Dale works for a not-for-profit organisation and work is not guaranteed. Her parents don’t mind, she says, but “it will be a new dynamic”. The couple will pay their way, but whether they will be able to save for a mortgage and buy their own place is increasingly uncertain.

“Three months ago, we thought we’d move home, save up and get on the ladder when the time was right,” Dale says. “Now I’m thinking nobody’s going to lend us any money and I’m probably not going to have a job, so living at home looks like it’s going to be more long-term. Still, I’m sure Mum will be glad to have help with the Christmas cooking.”

Nor is this solely a London phenomenon: Terry Seager, 25, who lives in Canterbury and is currently doing manual labour work until joining the police force at the end of the year, has found that the only way he can afford to save for a place of his own is to live with his parents. He returned to the nest a few weeks ago.

“I was living in a flat in Canterbury, but the outgoings were so considerable, I couldn’t do it any more,” he says. “Then I moved into a room, because I thought it would be cheaper, but it was still too expensive, so I moved back in with my parents.”

There are, of course, ground rules to moving back into the family home — doing your fair share of household chores being one of them. The Sunday Times columnist Cosmo Landesman, 52, who calls himself a “credit-crunch kiddie”, has recently moved back in with his parents, aged 89 and 80.

“The peculiar plight of the credit-crunch kiddies is simple: we’re too old to go back to mum and dad — and too desperate not to,” he has written. Landesman, who returned to the parental nest in Islington, north London, after his marriage collapsedearlier this year, offers a few pointers: “Stay out of the kitchen. Stay out of harm’s way, stay out as much as you can, stay sane — and do not give in to the urge to kill them.”

Rehouse rules

Back in the nest? Don’t move into the room you grew up in: you’ll regress to adolescence. Sleep in the guest bedroom or commandeer a sofa

Set the terms clearly before you move in — define your length of stay, curfews and bathroom etiquette

Do not expect lifts back from nights out. Nor should parties be invited to carry on at “yours”

Don’t fall back into being cooked, washed and cleaned for. Your mother isn’t a skivvy

Parents: to encourage your child to leave again, criticise their expanding waistline, set chores, charge rent. If that fails, resort to bribery

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