The extinction of multi-generational living is costing us a fortune

As someone who doesn’t have immediate family in this country, I often think of the costs associated with that reality. It’s become something I’ve had to discuss with every serious boyfriend. Would I work after having kids? If so, is it worth the cost of child care? If one of us is sick, how would we take care of the kids? The list goes on. I’ve realized that this problem is not confined to those of us who move to a foreign country alone. The vast majority of Americans are bearing the burden of the extinction of multi-generational living even if they remain in their home country. 

The family as village

Until very recently, life without a multi-generational lifestyle was inconceivable. We can all agree that it takes a supportive village to raise a family, but nowadays we are hiring the village that used to be a normal part of life. Even when the monetary costs are manageable, hiring services is not the same as living life with a family that leans on each other. I was reminded of the richness of multi-generational living on a recent trip to visit my family. 

My grandparents still live in the somewhat large five-bedroom house they raised their family in; they never wanted to downsize. Instead, my parents and younger sister (college age) live with them, and my brothers live in an apartment two blocks away. The best part of this: frequent family movie nights and celebrations. Did someone get a raise or win a sporting event? Is it someone’s birthday? There are small and large celebrations almost every weekend. And even more than that, since most of them work from home, turning on the grill on a random Tuesday and enjoying a family lunch is a normal occurrence. And so are the board game nights, usually led and organized by my grandmother. 

Some of my fondest childhood memories were sitting in my grandfather’s lap as he taught me how to read. I still remember the pink notebook he bought me to encourage me to start journaling. Those small moments certainly shaped me. 

Progress at the expense of the family

I could list all the financial, emotional, and health benefits each family member reaps from this lifestyle, but that list would take up this whole article, and I’m sure you can already identify most of them. What I want us to consider here is the reality that the modern West decided, at some point in the 20th century, to jettison this arrangement. We decided that progress and independence meant separation. That a good life looked like a nuclear unit, self-contained and self-sufficient. Parents and children in their own space, grandparents tastefully housed on their own or in a nursing home, everyone with appropriate boundaries and manageable holidays. It was sold as success and progress, but it was really a kind of impoverishment dressed in better lighting.

The research confirms what many cultures have always known: Children who grow up in close proximity to grandparents show higher emotional intelligence, greater resilience, and a more grounded sense of identity. They learn about life, without being directly taught. They pick up on a variety of truths through the kinds of conversations and reflections only grandparents can offer, be it words of wisdom, oft-repeated stories, or even the blessings and curses that come with dementia. There are even studies proving that grandparents who are involved in child care show slower cognitive decline. 

For the past few decades Americans have faced a painful epidemic of loneliness. It seems as if almost everyone, in their own way, has been impacted. Could a return to more multigenerational living be the remedy? Real Estate data shows that more Americans are buying multi-family homes and embracing some level of multigenerational living for a variety of reasons. I recently heard of a couple living in a large house along with two of their married daughters, their husbands, and newborns. The goal is for the younger couples to pay off student loans and save to buy homes. Helping to balance out the hardships and sacrifices in this arrangement, are the multitude of tangible and intangible benefits of aunts, uncles, siblings, parents, and grandparents intimately sharing in the life of babies and grandbabies.

Today, the driver toward multigenerational living in America appears to be tied more closely to financial needs, as families juggle debt (school, car, credit card, or other), the cost of childcare, inflation, healthcare costs, not to mention nursing homes and home-care for the elderly. Shared households are a simple and efficient way to distribute these costs in ways that make ordinary life liveable rather than perpetually deferred. 

Beyond the numbers: Being known

But the part that no financial spreadsheet captures is the gift of being known across time. I cannot express the joy of hearing my grandparents tell stories about their own grandparents, or hearing about the foolish things my parents did as kids. This creates a dynamic in which you can’t pretend you were always such a put-together adult with life figured out. There is an incredible humility in that. But aside from the healthy humiliation, there’s also the gift of having a grandmother who notices when someone has gone quiet. A grandfather who, without fanfare, fixes what is broken. And children who have never known a world without you in it, and who therefore trust you in the bone-deep way that children trust what they have always known.

Maybe this slow re-introduction to multigenerational living is just another passing trend, but I hope it stays because ultimately it is a correction from the overtly individualized style of living we’ve been experiencing these past few decades. I think Americans are slowly realizing that a household that holds everyone is not a step backward. Instead, it is a return to something we understood and relied on before we decided that separateness and individuality was the measure of a life well-lived.