‘I moved out of my parents house at 17. I didn’t expect to be living here a decade later’

Heather Morton, 26, is part of the ‘boomerang’ generation. Research suggests two thirds of young adults in Britain are living with their parents as a result of job insecurity, unaffordable housing and Covid-19

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Growing up in the small peninsula town of Dunoon on the west coast of Scotland, accessed mainly by a 20-minute ferry to the mainland, I was sure to get out as soon as I could. Little did I know I’d be catching that same ferry back almost a decade later; and not just for the weekend.

Like most people my age, I imagined that by 26 I’d be married, have my own house and be a high-flying business woman, probably with my first child on the way. The reality is that I’ve been in a relationship for just four months (although quite the achievement during a pandemic); am on furlough from my job in events management; and have had to move back in with my parents. Only a slight deviation from my simplistic 17-year-old vision of life then.

Before Covid-19 snaked its way into the UK, I had just moved into a friend’s gorgeous new tenement flat in Glasgow’s east end, and was looking forward to an exciting year of work projects, travelling and an upcoming promotion. Unfortunately, 2020 had other ideas. 

Overnight, all of my work was cancelled, and time I should have spent travelling turned into time spent trying to get refunds on flights. Most notably though, an anticipated salary increase quickly turned into a very real threat of losing my job. With lockdown in place and no real sense of when things would be back to normal, our whole company was asked to take a pay cut in order to keep it afloat against the oncoming tsunami.

Things weren’t looking good. Losing my job wouldn’t have been a total disaster if it weren’t that my backup options of hospitality and retail hadn’t been in the exact same boat. So, I did what any confident, self-sufficient person would do and I phoned my parents for advice. 

I packed enough to last me  three weeks, because I thought pandemics generally had a life cycle of about that

One short phone call later, and I was packing a bag, collecting my brother from his flat and driving home. Naively, I packed enough to last me about three weeks, because I thought pandemics generally had a life cycle of around that...

Fast forward seven months, and I’m still living at home with my parents, brother and pet labrador. Just like old times. Except that instead of being asked to tidy my room, the thing that annoys me most now is someone putting the kettle on whilst I’m in the middle of a Zoom call. Zoom calls didn’t even exist when I last lived at home. 

Luckily, it is a lot more relaxed at home than during our younger years. My mum is no longer flying around the house at 8am trying to wake us all up for school and is instead telling us not to make a noise when we get up so as not to wake her. I managed to keep my job by moving into a different role, so now my family and I each talk to our computer screens all day in our respective corners of the house, then reconvene over dinner to catch up.

Living back in your childhood home is a strange experience. Sometimes I literally feel like an overgrown human sitting in a teenager’s bedroom, but I guess the reality is that that is exactly what I am. The remnants of my teenage self still adorn the walls and drawers like some sort of weird “past Heather” museum, with “present Heather” packed into boxes and stored in the loft - ready to be unleashed on the world when coronavirus no longer exists. 

 It seems that the pandemic has pulled the rug out from underneath a lot of people my age…

I’d probably feel slightly embarrassed about having to move home aged 26, if it weren’t for the fact that everyone else my age seems to be doing the same. A quick trip to the local chippy on Sunday night felt like a high school reunion. It seems that the pandemic has pulled the rug out from underneath a lot of people my age, who spent their early twenties figuring out what they wanted to do, their mid-twenties starting to try and establish a career, only to be told they were going to have to try a whole lot harder.

I can’t imagine my parent’s envisioning their lives like this either, still having to support both their full-time working children well into their 50s. And I hate relying on them financially again after only really gaining my financial freedom a few years ago, but I am hugely grateful. 

Although this year has shown us that we can live and work in different ways, I know it’s not sustainable for me to live at home long-term (for me or my parents). Small-town living was bad enough as a teenager, and although coming home is nostalgic, that quickly wears off.

Let’s be real: I’m a millennial, and there’s not a poached egg or avocado to be found in this town. The town’s amenities are limited (to say the least), and with the ever changing lockdown restrictions it’s hard to know what you can and can’t do outside of staying at home. It does sometimes feel a little like I’m living in Groundhog Day.

By 2021 I’m hoping that I’ll be in a position to move back to Glasgow, and start to get back to whatever “normal” life will look like in this ever-changing world.