“I restore myself when I’m alone.” – Marilyn Monroe
As most people know, cohabitating with anyone takes a lot of compromise. Making the decision to merge households with another segment of your family has its own set of challenges. As adults, we have developed our own day-to-day rituals, things we are used to living with and things we really don’t like in our daily lives – and blending into a multigenerational living will be a significant adjustment.
As you read through my posts on this topic, I’ll talk about some uncomfortable things I’ve experienced in my multigenerational living arrangement. Hopefully being brutally honest will help others navigate better than I have in this situation.
Also, I can’t speak for my parents. I’m sure there are things I do daily that they don’t understand or even like. There are rare instances that we hash things like that out in the open. I think we all just respectively stay clear of one another until frustrations subside.
The most important thing to keep in mind when you’re looking for a home that will work for your multigenerational living arrangement is PRIVACY. Everyone needs to ensure their need for privacy is met in the living arrangement.
In 2015 when we started looking at houses for all of us, one requirement for me was to have a two-story home with common living spaces, bedrooms, and bathrooms on both floors. At first my dad complained a bit about that. He said he couldn’t navigate the stairs. My response was, “That’s exactly the point.” I knew before we even embarked on our journey my daughter and I needed our own space to retreat to.
While there are some obvious reasons to ensure your multigenerational living space has sufficient spaces for everyone, let me highlight some that are not quite so obvious.
Different Lifestyles
In most cases, the older generation will be retired, and the younger generation will be employed full time. This means the generations will wake up and go to bed at different times. It means that the daily routines of each generation are different. These daily routines and lifestyle choices shouldn’t need to change for anyone, and the private personal spaces foster the ability for everyone to stick to the daily routine that works for them.
Space
These different lifestyles will create obstacles. Here are a couple of examples.
My parents watch a great deal of tv. Their tv is typically on by no later than 9:00 AM each morning and does not get turned off until 10:00 PM each night. I have neurodivergent traits and consistent noise like that not only gives me headaches but also is a stressor for me. That kind of noise literally makes my ears hurt. It is very important that we have sufficient distance from the volume of their television and my spaces. Its critical to my mental health.
I don’t like clutter. It’s really more than “I don’t like” it. It stresses me out. There is a plethora of research available that shows the cognitive connection that visual clutter has to our ability to focus and how it leads us to activate our coping and avoidance strategies. In the simplest of terms, clutter makes me crazy. My parents live in a cluttered environment, and it seems to have no bearing on them. Arguably, it has triggered their avoidance strategies and they simply ignore it. In a multigenerational home, you will not be able to change these behaviors across generations and therefore, your private spaces will be mandatory to respect the other generations behaviors and habits.
As you consider moving into a multigenerational living situation, ensure you understand the boundaries everyone needs for privacy and has sufficient personal space.