In thinking about family structure, I often wonder why more of us do not join together in extended families and pool our resources. Wouldn’t both our “nuclear families” be better off if my brother and I shared a household? If we threw the old man and his wife into the mix, we’d be living high off the hog. We’d need one somewhat bigger house instead of the three houses we now occupy, and we would probably enjoy substantial savings on food and services.
My stay at home sister in law could let the dogs out every day and save me about $6,000 a year. She could also do some of the household chores during the day so that we who work need not kill ourselves when we get home. There would be many more adults to watch and love the children. Of course, we live 18 hours away from each other, but my brother lives within 5 minutes of our father.
Any combination of adult siblings, parents, children, etc. would result in a huge savings in costs if we lived together and pooled our resources. I suspect that we bear the monstrous costs of going on our own at least in part because we think that it is worth it. We don’t live with our parents and siblings because we don’t have to.
But this is only part of the equation. There seems to be an unspoken cultural assumption that we ought to live in nuclear and not extended families. Multigenerational families are viewed as unusual, even a little weird. Perhaps this is part of status seeking in that we do not wish to be seen to be struggling and unable to afford independence from our kin. This ethos renders us more dependent on our employers and less secure financially even as it provides us with freedom from social disapproval.
We also recognize that there may be some issues within families, especially when it comes to relations with in-laws. In Yonkers, where multigenerational households were more common, it was said that “you can’t have two women in one kitchen”. This applied to daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law but not to mothers and daughters for some reason I never figured out. These dynamics are not inherently insurmountable, however.
And if your relatives are jackasses, they will be harder to live with than if they are an amiable and considerate lot. I don’t think I could ever live under the same roof with my abusive stepfather or my mother-in-law’s toxic current husband. Otherwise, I think I could handle the rest of the family tolerably well. I actually like my siblings. I even like my Idiot Brother-in-Law although he is a slob and would probably drive his sister crazy.
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2 comments:
Sir, you've been hitting a lot of home runs lately.
I suspect that if the economy keeps going the way it is, that will be one of the ways people handle it.
Or do the sort of "selected extended family" thing where lots of unrelated, but very close people get a large space together. I already know some people who do this.
I am pregnant and due to financial circumstances we have moved in with my husbands sister. We are all happy with this arrangement and we are planning to live this way for a long time. They all work and I stay home and clean and take care of her 3yo son and 2 month old daughter. They no longer have childcare expenses and don't have to worry about taking them to a babysitter in the morning and picking them up after work. We all buy groceries and we all eat dinners prepared by my husband. They spend more money on household expenses then we do because they are more financially stable and I make up for that by doing the majority of the housework. And you are right there are more people around to love the children and society does seem to make you feel like you are living in some kind of alternative way. My sister in law asked me just the other day why don't more families live together and my only response was that I think most people hate their family.
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