Considering Moving Your Loved Ones (Parents or Kids with Grandkids) into Your Home?
There are a number of factors that explain the increase in multigenerational households: immigration, delayed marriage pattern, longer life expectancy, housing costs, boomerang youth, women entering workforce and the effects of challenging economies with long term employability potential/risk. Young adult children boomerang back to the safety of a parent’s home when money is tight, the going is tough or difficult times loom. Decades later, middle-aged children often become the safety net for their parents. For some aging parents, the right move is into their adult child’s home.
Multiple kitchens, separate entrances, and more than one master suite are the norm in multigenerational dwellings.
Multigenerational living can be a marvelous bonding experience, a chance for you to know your parent in a new way. It helps your aging parent avoid the sense of isolation and depression that may come with living alone. By this time in life, however, you both have established ways of doing things. Your likes, dislikes, values and personalities have evolved. No matter how close and loving your relationship may be, adding another person(s) to the household changes the dynamics for the entire family.
Only few have the means to construct an adjacent or adjoining residence for the loved ones; for many, space or finances constrain them from developing customized residence, within few steps of their own home, to provide their fulsome support.
