May 25, 2006
RE-EXTENDING:
Families Add 3rd Generation to Households (MIREYA NAVARRO, 5/25/06, NY Times)
Tess Crescini keeps trying to limit her roommates to her fiancé and her dog, but so far she has failed miserably.At the moment, Ms. Crescini, 51, and her fiancé are sharing her four-bedroom house in San Jose, Calif., with two of her three adult sons, a daughter-in-law, a 3-year-old granddaughter and a brother who comes and goes. Exorbitant housing costs, layoffs and children who yearn for family togetherness have coalesced to make her the head of a multigenerational household.
In a society where the most common type of household is led by those who live alone and where the scattered family is almost a cultural institution, many grandparents, adult children and grandchildren are gathering to live under the same roof.
The last census showed these "multigenerational households" — defined as those of three or more generations — growing faster than any other type of housing arrangement. [...]
Multigenerational living, especially those in which grandparents care for their grandchildren, have long been common in Asian and Hispanic countries, and the arrangement is popular among immigrants from those nations.
It's great to import folks who will end social pathologies, but we should accelerate the trend by ending all government monies for nursing homes. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 25, 2006 9:13 AM
Agreed, but as a practical matter, this depends on the elderly deferring to their kids on many matters, including financial, no matter how much they whine about it. I'm not at all convinced that is natural or instinctive and it may have to be re-learned painfully. Would you want a typical aging boomer living downstairs?
Posted by: Peter B at May 25, 2006 10:14 AMWell Peter, just because they can't keep up like they used to doesn't mean they aren't still smarter then you.....
Posted by: Robert Mitchell Jr. at May 25, 2006 10:45 AMWell, it might make it easier to find a nursing home for those who need 24 hour supervision if the boomers who simply want to be catered to hand and foot were no longer competing for space at the facilities that actually seem to care.
Posted by: Arnold Williams at May 25, 2006 11:23 AM"Tess Crescini keeps trying to limit her roommates to her fiancé and her dog"
Don't live in a four-bedroom house.
Since when did a bunch of losers, save for the female who seems to be enabling and supporting
them, become a multi-generational family.
Generational thingy I guess, multi-generational is, to me, the younger taking care of the older.
Not some bimbo living in a house, which she probably got free from a divorce, with her "fiance" and all her loser progeny.
Mike