MULTI –GENERATIONS MAKING IT TOGETHER

I think I’ve mentioned in a past column that my parents both had cancer during my primary years. Due to this family crisis, my parents and I lived with my Grandmother off and on over several years. She lived in a fairly large house – in fact, the same home my mother and her three sisters all grew up in together. And during a few of the extended stays with my Grandmother, her mother, my Great-grandmother also lived there at the same time. My grandmother was the eldest of the eleven children my Great-grandmother had and of the four children who still lived in Elberton, my grandmother is where she resided 90 percent of the last twenty years she was alive. My grandmother became a widow in 1943, when my grandfather was the first cancer victim within our family. Therefore, since my grandmother was ‘husband-less’ she was viewed as being less encumbered. The responsibility for taking care of my great-grandmother fell upon my grandmother.

Having both my great-grandmother and grandmother living in the same house –both strong willed yet painfully correctly “polite” women taught me a lot. I quickly learned how to speak to older people and even though my Great-grandma was nearing 80 years old, she could hear a pin needle drop and had absolutely no tolerance for “smart-talking brats.” But could she ever play checkers! Grandma Lonney had no clue what day or even what year it was most of the time, so when she talked to me during our many checker games, it was like having a living history lesson. She didn’t think in terms of “today” as everything in her mind was still as it had been thirty and forty years before. I gained a perspective on everyday life that had gone on long before I was born that I would never have appreciated otherwise.

I was nine when Grandma Lonney passed away. I came home from school one sunny spring day to a house filled with more relatives than I was even aware I had. It was my very first experience in losing someone I knew and cared about. However, because I was only nine, I was spared the drama and ordeal of her funeral. And frankly, I think that was better because in my memories eye, I can still see Grandma Lonney sitting on the front porch, waiting for me to arrive before she spit out her wad of tobacco, with the checker board set up as she pointed to the chair opposite hers and commanded me to “sit and make your move.”

What reminded me of these long ago childhood memories was a recent article I read about a “new” trend of “multi-generational” families who are all living in one house together that is beginning to sweep various parts of the country. For a variety of reasons, primarily due to economics in many places, families have decided to rehab or totally add on new “wings” to their homes so that everyone can live under the same roof. In some instances, it is not just two generations —such as parents with a married child, it is three and four generations living together.

Needless to say, it takes an extraordinary family that can make that all work for everyone in today’s world of computers, cable television, cell phones and four generations learning to “accept” each other’s quirks and personalities and to respect one another’s space. The article said there are many families looking at and turning to this as an alternative, for not only younger families who are trying to make ends meet, but for the older generations who are not invalids, yet due to their ages, the alternatives would be assisted living or nursing home facilities.

In Japan and some European countries this has been a way of life for many, many years. One reason is due to the lack of housing available and what there is, is unaffordable. Ultimately, with the passing of each generation, the house gets left to the next in line to take over and pay off whatever mortgage is left behind to pay. My understanding about Japan is it can take as long as three generations of family to actually own their home outright.

It certainly seems the sane way to handle family arrangements for the benefit of all involved. I just can’t help but wonder how many “typical” American families could actually pull it off today? I know it worked in our family for short stints of six months or less at a time.

But if this does become a fad or we see a trend growing, I’m betting the houses accommodating multi-generational families under one roof today are going to be a whole lot larger than a single story, three bedroom rambler!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE !

Right on the edge