If you had come round to our house at any time in the last 10 years, you wouldn’t need to be told that we had two sons. You’d have guessed immediately.

As you were greeted at the front door, you’d have had to step over several pairs of trainers in unfeasibly, cartoonishly large sizes – none of the “lefts” in the same postcode as the “rights” and certainly not in the area where the rest of us put our shoes.

As you pop into the kitchen, you’d be greeted by the “dishwasher zone”. Various cereal bowls and toast plates have been dutifully collected up and placed near – sometimes very near – the dishwasher, but that last bit of the job, the part where you place the crockery inside, has clearly been abandoned because no doubt something more important has come up.

Our children’s existence would be obvious by now, but just for confirmation, perhaps you look in a bedroom and find that, due to what can only be a lack of cupboard space, all clothes (washed or unwashed) are on the floor. And there’s only room on the floor because whatever was there before has now been stuffed under the bed.

I might be exaggerating for effect but it has been a joy watching our two sons growing up and, as I’m sure they’ll tell you, we’ve always dealt with it with enormous grace and good humour. We’ve never accused them of treating the house like a hotel, for example. In short, we have loved clearing up after them. All the above will be familiar territory to anyone who is bringing up boys and seeing them turn into – as ours have – two six-foot-plus young men aged 22 and 19.

During those years, they both secured paper rounds at the age of 12, then held a variety of odd jobs including bar work and helping their school caretaker prepare the school buildings for the new intake. In other words, they aren’t workshy – even if it doesn’t always show in the house. As far as we were concerned, this was earned pocket money; it was up to them what they spent it on and good for them.

We still expected them to do their jobs around the home – some of them I even expected to be done properly – and show their courtesy to everyone else who lived with them. That was the contract.

That contract hasn’t run out but my older son is now one of the 35 per cent of young men aged 20-35 in the UK who live with their parents. That figure has been rising for obvious reasons: it’s hard to get a decent job, the cost of renting and travel – never mind getting on the housing ladder. Plus, there’s the £50,000 student debt he has.

There’s no problem with him being back at home – I love it. After graduating, he went travelling for three months (which he saved up for) and then spent the first six months of this year volunteering on a tiny volcanic Caribbean island. I was proud of him for having the guts to live thousands of miles away in a completely strange place having to make new friends. He arrived back in July seemingly more mature and even better company than he was before he went, if that’s possible. The morning he finally got home, the dogs went wild with joy and I couldn’t stop hugging him.

The question we’re currently wrestling with is whether we should be expecting more of him now he’s a grown-up bloke (most of the time)? Should we re-work the contract a bit, maybe add another couple of clauses? He’s not a lodger so we’re not expecting him to pay rent (plus he doesn’t have a full-time job yet) but should he be doing a few more chores around the house to pay his way?

Should we expect him to, for example, do everyone’s washing (which I do at the moment), or clean the bathroom every week, or be responsible for putting the bins out?

I suspect right now you’re thinking, “just ask him”. I do, and he always says yes. But then he goes off and does other things. I remind him; he says yes again, but “when I’ve finished this”. I then become impatient and often do it myself. Or the alternative is I get testy with him and it will finally get done.

When I speak to other parents in the same situation, they say they re-drew the boundaries, loosened them, in fact, to recognise their son’s adulthood: I’ve heard people say they want to make everything as easy as possible for their grown-up kid so they’ll always feel welcome – you might call it the “don’t rock the boat” theory.

There are some things I wouldn’t ask him to do – there simply would be no point – like picking up the dog poos in the garden. He’s never been able to do it because he’s always claimed it makes him feel sick.

I’m not complaining. Because he is back living at home, if we want to go out as a couple, he can look after the family dogs; it’s a happier, warmer and funnier house when we’re all in it; and I know from when he was at university or abroad, I really did miss him.

While away from home, he’s learned how to cook and sometimes he cooks for us – which is a particular delight because the food tastes good and he’s enjoyed creating it. Perhaps that’s enough? Perhaps becoming the family chef is a good deal for him and us?

Ideally, of course, parents wouldn’t have to ask their grown-up children to do anything – those young men and women would simply spot that the bin needs emptying or the recycling needs taking out, and they’d just do it.

Remind me, at what age does that start happening?