Family Life Multi Gen Style

 A Penny For Your Thoughts

Old saying, let's up the ante in the first part of the 21st century.

Come on, you can add your two cents worth.

Oops, another faux pas. What's your time worth these days.

Use that as a ruler and measure your current age by your anticipated "end date". 

It's for perspective. It's reality.

Lifestyles vary and continue to change shape through decades.

Living Together: accepted; a common practice. Think "Friends".

Cohabiting without marriage:  a commonality with "the event" being seen as a social rather than "sacred" joining together.

'Weddings" beyond personalized into the "zone" once reserved for specific socio-economic classes or celebrities.

Ceremonies everywhere your heart desires and usually aiming to "outdo" or "one up" to show "waiting was worth it".

Multi-gen families are seen by many as being a practice of low-income families or immigrants who can't afford to live otherwise.

"Roomies" can be male/female/similar ages but NEVER should they be an actual family unit of kids, parents, grandparents.

 

Not for everyone; multi-generational cohabitation requires giving, taking, sharing and caring.

Short-sighted, self-serving, lost opportunities and possibilities say some, more responsibilities shouldered, more "mouths" to feed and unnecessary challenges in "today's world".

 

Listening, learning, sharing, caring, giving, receiving,

understanding growth, development and most of all, aging.

We built an inclusive family with three generations under one roof for four decades.

No lifestyle has guarantees. Life is what you make it.

 

Moving from Chicago to Philadelphia to St Louis (two different locations).

We recognized value, understood inclusion, worked through differences and learned valuable lessons.

From one infant, adding two more along the way, several jobs, a few businesses.

 

What about privacy, intimacy, who makes decisions and who is “in charge”?

Few differences from "regular life"; you reap what you sow.

You learn consideration of others, recognizing and accepting differences.

 

Growth and development, learning to accept and understand change and decline.

Not a “built in babysitter” or someone to “break the tie” in a disagreement.

All ages and stages, all capabilities and capacities from birth until end of time.

It takes a village used to be a common saying. 

 

Understanding one another starts in the home where memories are made.

When we have direct ongoing contact, we learn first-hand.

More multi-gen families might be the answer to halting generational distancing.

We build bridges to connect, not ditches to separate.