For Mum and Dad I’ll always be 12

Since returning at Christmas after six months abroad I've been living with my parents while low on cash. Before you mutter the word "loser", remember this: with the recession biting, I'm lucky they have a room to spare.

Many thirtysomethings will need to crash with their parents as they lose their jobs and homes. For me, it's been an extremely irritating but warm and occasionally hilarious experience — like living in a Punjabi episode of the Royle Family.

With my presence, the whole family has regressed 30 years. My mum cooks lavish meals each evening. My younger brother, who also lives there, says, "Since you came back, it's been like living in a hotel."

But she treats us like toddlers, making me wear slippers (in case I catch a cold) and snatching knives from my hand lest I hurt myself.

Family dynamics never change. I was a chunky kid so am still habitually subjected to fat jokes and comments about my weight.

My younger brother is an adult with a good career but I still patronise him like the little boy who was once in awe of me. Our PlayStation games of football are as bitterly contested as ever.

Likewise, I have had to readjust to my parents. Like Barbara Royle, my mum says whatever comes into her head when sat in front of the telly.

Watching Jurassic Park, she pondered the brontosauruses roaming across the screen and asked: "Ooh, is that Australia?" Later she wondered: "How did people ever survive, with all the dinosaurs and the King Kongs around?" My friends call this "mum-speak", saying their mothers also switch off their brains in the company of their adult children.

My father's eccentricity is equally entertaining. Hearing him emit a loud monotone "mmmmm" while showering, I enquired what the humming was for. "I'm meditating," he said, "like how they chant Om in India." When I asked why he only uttered the tail end of the holy syllable, he replied: "Because I'm an atheist."

Living with your parents as a thirtysomething isn't ideal but perhaps it might help my generation to remember how important their folks are. Having said that, when friends offered me a chance to live with them, I grabbed it.

However old you get, whatever you achieve, your family relationships are the same as when you were 12. Grateful as I am to my parents, they're strictly the safety net of last resort.