The Traditional Family (House)

By Rod Dreher • September 3, 2012, 8:39 AM

When journalist Jennifer Conlin and her husband lost their jobs overseas and had to move — with their teenage kids — in with her parents and brother in Michigan, it knocked them all for a loop. Three generations living in one big house? Yet, they learned to love it, and are now committed to the traditional arrangement. Excerpt:

Seeing that the future for all of us looked far bleaker financially and emotionally apart than together, we managed to come up with a way to buy my parents’ home last December, and now plan to add on, with any luck, a master suite on the ground floor with a study and separate entrance, all with wheelchair access, anticipating that they will not always be as spry as they are now, nor will we.

My children did not want to leave their grandparents, who give them firsthand accounts on history homework and a nonjudgmental shoulder to lean on. Nor did my parents want to lose the tech support (the children have taught them to use e-mail and Skype) or their link to the latest lingo (I almost died when my mother said “junk” instead of “privates” when discussing the Anthony Weiner scandal with me).

I don’t know if my confirmed-bachelor brother will stay indefinitely, but I also don’t see why he would leave. Like a Victorian-age family, we cook and clean for the oldest male sibling, while he contributes to the household bills, calmly teaches my children how to drive and plays basketball with them in the driveway on weekends. I now see how smart multigenerational immigrant families have been throughout history.

So when we watch family shows like “Modern Family” and “Parenthood,” we wonder why they don’t just all move in together and get on with it. They are with one another all the time anyway, and it makes a lot of sense in these trying times.

Any of you doing this? What’s it like?

Posted in Family. Tagged housing, multigenerational.

14 Responses to The Traditional Family (House)

Sam M says:

September 3, 2012 at 8:53 am

Maybe a modified version. For all of us to live in the same house wuold be impossible. My three sisters and I have 25 kids between us, and all are still high school age or younger. We do, however, live in close proximity. One sister lives directly across the street, the other two within two or three blocks. My parents are just down the street, one turn to the left.

It’s interesting. My parents are getting up there. My dad is struggling. But we can help them. Kids can walk there and mow the grass. We meet there every Sunday for breakfast and plan the week. We team up for holidays.

My wife still struggle with it. It’s a lot of together time. She thought at first that we were freakishly close, and that’s how we always got along. She is learning, though, that you just have different standards for “getting along.” There are differences. People rub each other the wrong way, and there’s no way to get away. It’s a different way of arranging your life, and it’s not always easy. In fact, it rarely is. I can see why people turned away from the arrangement, to be honest. But for us, it works. Generally speaking, it’s the only way to manage raising so many kids. Having our five would be virtually impossible if we were living in exurbia with no help around.
AnotherBeliever says:

September 3, 2012 at 10:35 am

Sure. I got out of the Army without having a job lined up first in 2009 (not advisable – but I got out only a month after returning from a 15 month Iraq deployment!) I stayed with my mother temporarily, and at my grandmother’s one or two nights a week to help my uncle with her full time care. Once I was accepted into a graduate program, and started receiving a monthly GI Bill stipend, I got an apartment, and promptly invited my brother and sister-in-law to move in, to split expenses and share domestic chores. I continued to stay at my grandmother’s one night a week. This situation continued for 18 months, before the dozens of job applications finally led to a job offer in Texas. I was quite sad to be leaving everybody, honestly. It was a good experience, and it really did cut down on expenses. Plus it’s much easier to have someone around to help with cooking and cleaning, to care for your pets when you travel, sign for certified mail, and so on, when there’s several adults living on the premises, or closeby with easy access to the premises.

I’m hoping that an uncle or cousin (hopefully both) will move down here. There’s a lot of great multi-generation homes here. Either two story, with an apartment on each floor, or ranch style homes with slightly smaller “mother-in-law” apartments on the back end of the lot. It’s not all uncommon for mothers-in-law or other relatives to be in residence, though the places are also often simply rented out for income.
Sam M says:

September 3, 2012 at 10:37 am

The American corollary to enjoyment appears to be a fascination with “happiness” research. This always struck me as an odd and incredibly vague thing to study and/or attempt to maximize, either at an individual or societal level.
JonF says:

September 3, 2012 at 11:15 am

One big problem: most modern houses are not big enough for multi-generation living. Even McMansions don’t (instead devoting space to Great Rooms and the like) have enough bedrooms. At best you can put up a widowed parent maybe.
Matt of NE says:

September 3, 2012 at 11:22 am

This is a wonderful and encouraging story. My wife’s family was a multigenerational home for many years–her grandmother lived with her parents from the time her grandkids were in high school through college (in the same town, so they continued to be at home a lot) until she passed away last year in their home. Everyone in the family is grateful for their time together in the same house, especially as we’re now more spread out.
Elli says:

September 3, 2012 at 12:12 pm

My husband and I moved in with my mother just before our second child was born; my brother was home also. We stayed for three years. My brother also lived with my grandmother for several years until she had to go into a nursing home.

It was a good experience on the whole but I was glad to get out and manage my own household, furnish it as appealed to me, not deal with so much of my mother’s criticisms and advice.

Unfortunately for my brother, living rent-free or low-rent permitted him to settle in low-wage jobs way below his abilities, which in turn derailed him in courtship, marriage and family, all of which he wanted.

We live thirty miles from my mother and she visits weekly but she’s getting older and we’d like to move out of state. If she needs to come live with us, I’d want her in a granny flat, not the main house, and I think she’d need her own space as well. She’s been almost fifty years in her house; it would be hard on her to move.
Tyro says:

September 3, 2012 at 2:07 pm

As I’m getting older and had my run at living all over the country, I’m slowly making plans to move closer to my extended family. If I get married and have children, my plan is for my parents to be at most within an hour of me, and it’s pretty reasonable to expect me to create space in my home, in the form of a granny-flat or the like, for my parents or in-laws to stay with me in the future. I would love to have my kids grow up with my parents and my cousins and my siblings at least in reasonably close proximity.

It can be hard, though, if you have a parent that lives in a room down the hall from you and your kids, though. I think it works best when all generations have their own space, friends, lives, even if they’re all under the same roof.
David J. White says:

September 3, 2012 at 3:34 pm

When Social Security and Medicare go down the chute, we’ll all be doing this, whether we want to or not. A friend of mine once commented that one of the greatest practical effects of Social Security has been to allow retired people to afford to stay in their homes. Which, of course, has benefitted the construction industry and the development of single-family homes.

Someone I read recently — I don’t remember who, alas — was responding to the argument that if young people start to vote in anything like the numbers of older people, they will vote against the continuing transfer of wealth to entitlements that mainly benefit the elderly. This person’s response was that younger people will be willing to support continuing funding for Social Security and Medicare if it is made clear to them that the alternative will be having their retired parents and grandparents move in with them and become dependent on them, financially and otherwise.
Matthew from Alaska says:

September 3, 2012 at 7:04 pm

I want this to appeal to me, but ti doesn’t. I love my mom, but her partner and I would constantly but heads if we lived together. My in-laws are atheist and I don’t think I could stand that influence on my kids.

However, my brother’s family lived with my dad for years before he passed and that arrangement seemed to work for them.

I hope that if the need arises all of my children feel free to come home and all of us provide mutual support to one another.
PM says:

September 3, 2012 at 8:18 pm

I think it’s an awesome story. However, it’s rare. People just don’t get along as extended family these days – not even plain-old family as divorce is far more common than living with in-laws! I also think a homemaker is needed for a working home with multiple generations, and with so few women staying home, doubt if it will make a comeback.

Personally, I can’t imagine living my parents or in-laws living with us…the value gap is too great. But I expect many of my children will live with us at some time or another merely because we a) share the same values and probably will over our lives (said values that stand outside of personal opinions), and b) as elders we will likely be an unifying force and a working asset to the family (say babysitting or helping out, not a disruption or a liability as the prior generation would be for us). It’s about teamwork and unity, something few people seem to seek these days.
JonF says:

September 3, 2012 at 9:02 pm

David,

Social Security is not going anywhere. Or if it does it will be a relatively unimportant side effect of a catastrophe so immense that we won’t be worrying about where people will live, but rather where those left among the living will bury all the bodies.
J says:

September 3, 2012 at 9:43 pm

Which, of course, has benefited the construction industry and the development of single-family homes.

It has also prevented a good number of homicides across the bitter 1943 and 1968 generation divides. If you have a mentally off parent or old relative, Social Security has been a sanity saver.

Btw, ‘traditional’ is three different generations in a house with culturally assigned social roles, rights, and privileges.

Social anthropology (which is ‘liberal’) says the preferred social form that human beings create under all sorts of circumstances- post catastrophe, migrations, etc- is three different generations, not necessarily related by blood, with often quite flexible social roles. Though elder/adult/child distinctions are maintained.
scotch meg says:

September 4, 2012 at 9:21 am

You don’t actually need that many rooms. You do need people who can be flexible and adapt to each other. We have raised five children in a three-bedroom house. We started by giving the boys the biggest bedroom, because there are three of them and two parents and two girls. Now the boys (down to the last two at home) still have the biggest bedroom because one of them still needs toy-space. We have created a room in the basement for our oldest son, who lived here for six months between the Marines and college. My dad is visiting for about two months – he shared with the younger boys until our daughter went back to college; now he has her room. If need be, we can create another bedroom from a study on the first floor. We often have exchange students; they share where there’s room. I can’t say I’d be thrilled to have my parents on a permanent basis, but we could do it and will if (when?) they need us. If you need to have ego-space, none of it works. If you can be flexible with the space you have, you can manage with a small house and many people, just as they do in other parts of the world.
Solara says:

September 4, 2012 at 10:28 am

Three years ago during a snowy day mom called my sister and asked her if she could stay over the weekend. My sister picked her up. My sister could not dislodge mom out of her house and mom paid rent on an apartment she didn’t use for 6 months. So mom has lived with my sister these years and it has been ugly – with disagreements and hateful words spilled. Last month mom fell at my sister’s house. After being checked out at the hospital, mom spent the rest of the week being spiteful (according to my sister). Then that Thursday I receive a call from mom asking if she could spend the weekend at our house (which we had been doing over the summer starting with Fridays). I said yes. We have not been able to dislodge her. She has spent time calling her sister long-distance badmouthing us (as we have found out recently) to the point that the aunt has threatened to have us investigated. Mom has denied badmouthing us, but we have talked to our cousin and he said that his mom told him how bad we are treating our mom and he wouldn’t repeat the things that have been said. The social worker who came to our house told mom that if she and her sisters kept up the badmouthing and if they called adult services, then mom would lose control over her affairs. We told mom she could not live with us and mom finally agreed to a senior retirement community. This has been extremely stressful to us and my husband is royally ticked off over the whole affair.

So it’s great if families have a wonderful multigenerational household. But not every family is that fortunate.