I tried to understand, I really did, but it was difficult after reading the latest report on adult children still living at home: almost three million of the UK's 20-34-year-olds: approaching one in three men and one in seven women.

I could barely suppress the urge to grab someone, perhaps not the 20-year-olds, but certainly the thirtysomethings and scream: "What are you playing at? You get one life and you're living it in your parents' house, as a strangely tall child, presumably with secondary sexual characteristics. Whatever it takes, whatever it costs, however much your standard of living falls, you must save yourself and leave. At once!"

But then I'm funny like that. I've always believed that people should have one of those things that start with a birth, end with a death and have lots of stuff going on in the middle. You know, a life.

Studies such as this always amaze me. Not because I'm nasty or stupid. I know about high rents, low wages, no wages, exploitative landlords, travel costs, dangerous areas, debts, student or otherwise, and the housing ladder. I also understand that, in different cultures, adults live at home before marriage. But come on. For Britons, if you've always been healthy but you're still living with your folks in your late-20s, never mind mid-30s, something has gone wrong. And no amount of defensive yammering about high rents is going to change that.

There's an argument that older generations have screwed over the young and I sympathise. Certainly, I find it repulsive that generations who went to university for free got away with imposing crippling fees on the young. After that, my sympathy wanes a tad. "All they could afford would be dumps." So what? I spent much of my youth in dumps.

"They can't get on to the property ladder?" Boo-hoo. Most young people in previous "luckier" generations weren't anywhere near the property ladder. "The cost of living… blah, blah." Again, so what? When are young people going to realise that roughing it and feeling permanently broke when you're starting out has always been with us. It's not some ghastly new concept exclusively devised to torture the youth of 2012.

More specifically, why aren't their parents refusing to house them for a period of, say, nine months, but no longer? Why aren't parents clammy with fear that, without the priceless hurly-burly of cash-strapped independence, their children will turn into cosseted, emotionally stunted freaks? Their hopes of attracting a partner will wane with each second they live at home. In my day, this was up there with halitosis, syphilis and alphabeticised music collections as a dating no-no.

These days, while there is always much talk of neglectful parents, increasingly there seems to be the opposite problem of over-parenting. Parents are making themselves slavishly available to their offspring, well into adulthood, with disastrous long-term results.

Bar exceptional circumstances, this level of over-parenting is approaching child abuse. While it is one thing to help adult children through a short-term crisis (catastrophe, debt, relationship breakdown), surely the endgame is their successful autonomy. For most people, independence is the magic ticket to self-reliance, self-esteem and the future. Take it away and what's left? A place in their parents' life? That gilded cage, that domestic prison. It simply isn't enough.

Instead of over-parenting at close quarters, how about over-parenting from a distance? Bung them a few quid to get started, sub them endlessly, with the proviso that they must move out. What these homebound "kids" are saving in monetary terms is far outweighed by what they're losing.

If you are one of them, my advice is – get out, be broke, endure that crummy flat share. At least you would be living your own life. Above all, accept the terrible truth – it's time for you to run away from home.

Make my day, Ms Eastwood – do something really edgy

Clint Eastwood's daughter, Francesca, and her photographer boyfriend, Tyler Shields, have destroyed a $100,000 dollar Hermès Birkin bag – chain-sawing and burning it – as a commentary on consumerism.

Sadly, for them, this was markedly less disturbing than their ensuing pretension. "Destruction is a beautiful version of freedom," gasped their website, going on to ask such questions as: "Are you sad to see me destroy it?" To which the only sensible reply could be: "Nah, not really."

Ms Eastwood appears to be positioning herself as: "The Paris Hilton Who, Like, Totes Knows Who Andy Warhol Was". Other than that, do they seriously think anyone cares?

But then, anti-materialist gestures have a habit of imploding.

I liked sometime band KLF's infamous burning of a million quid, but it was still funny to hear how some of the "media representatives" entrusted to lay cash on the pyre ran off to the pub with it instead.

Truth is, most people are too far removed from Birkin bags and millions of pounds to become emotionally unsettled by their destruction. Try burning their weekly travel pass or nicking their latte in Caffè Nero – then you might get more of a "heated debate" than you'd bargained for.

What a novel way of selling Stephen King's new novel

Stephen King has opted to initially publish his new book, Joyland, in print format only, despite having been an ebook pioneer with 2000's Riding the Bullet. Meanwhile, in Hay-on-Wye, bookshop owner Derek Addyman wants Kindles and e-readers banned from the literary festival, saying that users are "like robots". To this end, he's erected a window display featuring a Kindle with a tombstone next to it. Yeah, in your face, electronic reader devils!

To a degree, I sympathise with this uprising of the literary luddites. I like a real book and the Kindle looks a bit too much like a grown-up Etch A Sketch. Then again, people who use them love them and what's really so bad about building a hinterland via a mains-charged Etch A Sketch, with print-enlarging feature?

What I don't understand is why e-readers suffer constant harangues for being the death of literature. I'd have thought that books were the real culprits.

From what I can glean, it's difficult to share books on Kindle; mostly, everyone has to buy their own copy, which surely neutralises any initial difference in price.

By contrast, books can be shared into infinity. Some people even dump them on public transport for strangers to read ("Excuse me, I believe you just sat on a Margaret Drabble"). Then everyone wonders why so many writers are broke and must dine forlornly on beans in cans or on canapes at launches of books written by more successful authors they've just spent all afternoon anonymously slagging off on Amazon.

Either way, there's no need for techno-panic. Just as with the music industry and vinyl, paper books will never be allowed to die. Maybe Hay-on-Wye booksellers could adapt their shops to include both real books and discreet downloading terminals.