I am a first time Mum at an age when most of my friends are already grandparents. I don’t really have any friends in the same position as me, so I am hoping that you might be able to help me out with some of the questions I would feel silly taking to my GP.

My boy is getting very grown up in some ways, but in others he is still a real baby, and I wonder whether he is ever going to be ready to ‘fly the nest.’ I do try to encourage him to be independent, but he shows no sign of being interested in making new friends, and is very reluctant to share me with anyone else.

I have been trying to encourage him to look after himself, rather than expecting me to do everything for him, but with rather mixed results. He is happy enough to primp and preen, as long as I am there with him to encourage and admire him, but he completely refuses to take a shower, and will only bath as long as I sit on the toilet and talk to him the whole time. His personal hygiene is coming along, I feel, but he has no concept of keeping the bathroom tidy: he just splashes water and mess all over the floor and walks off, leaving me to mop up after him. His room is a disgrace, and I regularly have to throw away half eaten food and piles of litter he leaves all over the floor.

We have always refused to let him sleep in our bedroom with us, but from the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed for the night, he follows me around the house, wanting me to take him with me wherever I go. The neighbours are beginning to look at me a bit ‘funny’ when he insists on helping me water the flowers, and my friends think it odd that he still wants to go to the pub with his parents, when he should be getting out and about with friends his own age.

To be honest, I find it awkward trying to cook and keep on top of the housework with him constantly under my feet, and his insistence upon accompanying me to the loo is wearing a little thin. When I try to read a book, he sits on the floor at my feet, resting his chin on my lap, looking up at me. It is very distracting, and when I suggest he might like to read a book of his own, he just tips his head on one side and gives me a baleful glare.

I am even writing this letter to you with some difficulty. When I picked up the laptop, he tried to squeeze his head onto my knee to stop me ignoring him. This might be cute in a baby, but in an adolescent?!?!? It’s not even as if he really wanted to talk or share anything important with me. He is perfectly content to have a snooze, while I struggle to type with his head stuffed under my armpit and him sitting on my left hand.

Please don’t get me wrong: I love him dearly, and his funny ways are quite amusing. Just this morning I caught him watching the washing machine, as if it was a television. He clowns around to make me laugh if I am feeling low, and is unreservedly affectionate. He clearly worships the ground I walk on, he always eats whatever I put in front of him (although his table manners could do with some improvement) and he has a delightfully sunny and uncomplicated disposition. I just feel that at my age I should not be expected to spend my whole life with my boy following me around, and that I have other things to experience. Surely I cannot be expected to spend my declining years chasing around clearing up his mess and catering to his every whim.

I did wonder whether asking him to contribute to his keep would encourage him to spread his wings and find a few others his own age to share a flat with, but youth unemployment is at 25% in our area, and it hardly seems fair to put that sort of pressure on him.

I have heard that when boys start taking an interest in the girls, their attachment to their mothers’ apron strings decreases. Do you think I should try to encourage him to get a girlfriend? He doesn’t like going out on his own at all, so unless I enrol him in some sort of evening class, or sign him up for online dating, I am not sure how to go about it.

I know you probably get hundreds of letters from over-anxious mothers and clingy, immature boys, and I would hate you to get the impression that my Dick isn’t the most wonderful and loving boy a mother could wish for. I just need some advice to help me to help him become more independent, without making him feel rejected and unloved. I hope you understand, and that you will be able to give me some advice. If you would preserve my anonymity, for my boy’s sake, I would be most grateful.

Thank you very much.