Once upon a time, Grandmother’s house was through the woods. Then it was across town. After World War II, in increasingly affluent, mobile America, it was often across the country. But for more and more kids, visiting Granny now involves simply walking upstairs or strolling into the kitchen. In 1980 there were 1.3 million American children living in multigenerational households-that is households that included a child, a parent and a grandparent, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census definition. By 1991, the Census says, that number had almost doubled to 2.4 million. Some of the increase can be traced to the sagging economy and the growing number of single mothers. But in the last decade, shared living arrangements have also become a two-way street. Medical advances that increase life spans have sent more elderly parents into their children’s homes, and new immigrants with a tradition of multigenerational living have made such arrangements more commonplace.
The recession has hit the under-30 population particularly hard. But, says Frances Goldscheider, director of the Population Studies and Training Center at Brown University, “the flip side of the poverty of the young is the affluence of the elderly.” Older people are more likely to have low mortgages and space for birds who return to the nest. Bob and Judith Peralta spent $75,000 to convert their San Francisco, Calif., basement into a spacious two-bedroom apartment for their son Tim, a 23-year-old waiter, his wife and their two little boys. The senior Peraltas do charge rent, but only $400 a month, less than half what the apartment might fetch on the o Everyone has benefited: the young couple is saving money, and the grandparents enjoy being part of their grandchildren’s daily lives. Such shared accommodations may offer psychological benefits as well as financial ones. Kathie Marin saves as much as $600 a month in day-care costs because her mother looks after 4-year-old Michael at home in Riverside, Calif. And Marin’s two older children like having their grandmother around. “It’s pretty cool to come home from school and have a person in there,” says Christina, 11.
These setups work best when it’s clear who is responsible for what, from paying a utility bill to cleaning the gutters or disciplining children. Eva Starks does the family cooking. Before leaving for work at 5 a.m., she usually makes a hot breakfast for her mother and 13-year-old grandson, Keimon Starks, which they later reheat in the microwave oven. In the afternoon she takes a nap before starting dinner. " Since I know so much about food, it really doesn’t take me that long to put a meal together," she says. " If I’m in the kitchen finishing up today’s, I’m already starting what we’ll have tomorrow." But for any family, maintaining privacy and space is perhaps most important. Though everyone in the Starks family has a room to retreat to, the noise and confusion can be overwhelming. When that happens, says Dionne Starks,22, a mother and college student, " I just sit on the porch or take Ashley and drive to a park for a few hours. " Being the only guy at home doesn’t always sit well with her cousin Keimon. “It’s hard living with all females,” he says. “I like staying here, but I’d like them to bring in some more males.”
Even in the most harmonious extended families, problems may become more acute as children age. Janet and Jesse Gomez, daughters Janel and Justina and Janet’s mother, Linnea Wastweet, share a house near Palo says “things would be disastrous without Grandma,” she’s getting touchy about the interest she shows in her life. Janel and Justina, 11, especially dislike it when their grandmother, who is hard of hearing, walks into a room and demands to be brought up to speed on the conversation. Says Janet: “I think they’re beginning to feel that Grandma’s too nosy.”
Some households expand when elderly people can no longer live on their own. When 80-year-old Cornelius Owens got sick two years ago, his daughter Connie and her daughter, Lu, 15, moved into his house in West Roxbury, Mass. Last year, Connie’s brother and his 8-year-old son joined them. When Lu lived alone with her mother, she says, she was often bored. Now she enjoys the company, but some rules rankle. She must get permission from her grandfather if she wants to invite someone over. Worse yet, she says, " he definitely doesn’t want boys inside the house." Tough as that may be for a teenager, change was hardest on Cornelius, a widower who was used to having the place to himself. He doesn’t like raised voices, but Connie sometimes thinks she has to turn up the volume to get through to Lu. That paternal assertiveness has been difficult for Connie. “Your father is always your father,” she says. “It’s like going back to childhood.” Still, the family is settling in, and the cousins are like siblings. " I can’t say it’s been easy, but we’ve adjusted," says Connie. “We’re very close-knit.”
Many grandparents might have hoped to spend their later years free of changing diapers, wiping runny noses and running interference. But others actually enjoy it. “It makes you feel a little bit young, also,” says Augusto Hidalgo, 73, patriarch of a three-generation San Francisco household. “You invigorate yourself” And those who instruct also learn. Vivian Pan, 15, lives with her parents, sister and three Chinese-born grandparents in San Francisco. Her maternal grandmother, she says, “taught me how to cook the way you can’t learn from a cookbook.” Vicki, 12, claims she taught her grandmother to read and write in English: “Sometimes I translate TV programs for her, too.”
It’s the people in the middle generation who often feel squeezed by both sides. If grown-up children haven’t established their independence, says Arthur Kornhaber, president of the Foundation for Grandparenting, “then you can get blurring of roles, a division of authority, a holy mess.” Rose Rojas, a sales director, and her firefighter husband, Bob, live in Chicago with their two little girls While the Rojases are at work, Gallo looks after the kids. Family differences often arise over little things–cleaning your plate, for instance. But, says Gallo, one simple rule applies: “When they’re not home, I’m the boss. But when they’re home, they’re the boss.” Rose knows that having her mother there can be hard for Bob: “She’s my mom, and sometimes he feels a little left out.” But, says Bob, having his mother-in-law taking loving care of his daughters gives him “peace of mind.” In a three-generation household, that may be the only peace anyone gets-but it’s also the most important.
