AIBU to say that the future should include multi generational living?

Everyone would need larger houses and land for this to remotely work and even then. It's not for the faint hearted. Even the best relationships and healthy communicators can be tested!

It's certainly soured relationships for us. We built a annex that is barely lived in (partly a good thing gives us all some space ) because my parent is doing all my siblings childcare for a second time around. whilst we pay and always have done for all of ours(despite being seen as the poor relation). Yet any help needed with Internet banking plumbing/electrics hospital/health related all falls to us. The extra cost for heating/water/electrics.

I don't believe we are entitled to any childcare at all but the pendulum has swung so far away from any reciprocal benefits/support at all. My children don't even see their grandparent as they are either not here or resting/sleeping.

I would consider it for my own children but with eyes wide open to the pitfalls. Perhaps so it allowed them to save a good deposit would be a better way rather than permanent living together. I can imagine future partners to my children feeling very suffocated by the idea and I'm not one for being over involved at all. I'm very much looking forward to cracking on with my own life and hobbies!

Live with my in-laws? Fuck. That. Shit.

I went on a parenting course that said part of the cycle of life was teens being very difficult to live with as a way of them pushing parents away so they could become independent and parents accepting them leaving home as they appreciate the break.
your comments are too general would suit some and not others

Indeed. I think there's an element of selfishness when a parent wants to keep their kids at home once they're adults, either that, or they fear loneliness.

My DH's parents were like that. They did all they could to discourage DH from leaving home - no encouragement at all for him to go to Uni, nor find a better job in a different town (they wanted him working locally in a crap town with no prospects just so he'd stay living at home). So he basically sleep-walked into carrying on living at home as an adult. Yes, he had an easy life of it, having his meals cooked and laundry done, but he was very immature with it all. Not only that, but there was an element of emotional blackmail about it too - his mother begrudged him having days out with me or even evenings out when we first got together - she had the attitude that I was stealing him from her and made his life hell with constant whingeing about him spending time with me! It very nearly broke us up, but he finally saw sense and started ignoring her and ultimately finally cutting the apron strings and us buying our own house together! Best thing he ever did - he was like a different person, not just in terms of our relationship, but then he developed his profession, got a much better job in a different town, etc - leaving home and us moving in together finally made him feel like an adult and gave him confidence. Ultimately, rather than what his mother wanted, i.e. a continued too close relationship with her son, it turned out the opposite as once he'd "escaped" as he called it, he lost interest in her and she saw little of him (once a week basically) - so it had the opposite effect!

We both vowed not to do that to our son, so from the start of his secondary school years, we were talking about Uni, making it clear he was free to go, and should go if he wanted to, we traversed the country on Uni open days, literally all four corners of the country, to give him the clear hint he could go anywhere he wanted and not to think he had to stay at a uni close to home. Then we encouraged him to get a graduate job in a big city, so as soon as he graduated, he left his Uni city and moved hundreds of miles to a different city, we helped set him up with his own flat, etc. Our relationship with him has never been closer despite him being a couple of hundred miles away and him living his own life. We text/facetime every day or two, he comes to visit a couple of times a month, etc.

Parents should give their kids wings and watch them fly!

Mine have been instructed to dump me at a train station with no identification.
Im not paying for care I dont want.

I’m not sure I’d want to live with lots of men, even (especially) ones I was related to.

love my calm quiet house. I love when the kids descend with their partners (no grandkids yet), and I enjoy the noise and the energy, they come over a lot, we all get on very well, but it's nice when they leave

This

It's all a bit wierd when people don't want their adult children to leave home and have independent lives.

Great if everyone gets along and is considerate and it's practical for all. I came from a dysfunctional family and tbh if I couldn't have moved out, I don't know how I'd have coped. Probably been homeless or got myself into any old relationship to get away, I don't know.

I feel sorry that money is such now that some young people will have nowhere to turn when staying at home isn't an option for whatever reason.

Dad, care home with Parkinson’s and violence (the most mild mannered man). Mum? Care for 10 yrs. Dunno where that puts us on care costs. There’s no money now.

The very suggestion has sent a cold shiver down my spine. I'd rather live in a tent somewhere than lose my privacy, it would make me mentally unwell.

I already feel sandwiched between my parent and my kids.
I would happily adopt 'van life' and leave the kids with the house, I think. I don't need much.
I suspect a woman down the street has done just that. Judging by the coming and goings.

Depends, with my kids or my parents no issues. DH’s parents - no chance! 😁

Get the mothers on their own and I wonder what they’d say? MIL always in the kitchen, no privacy or autonomy? No thanks.

It was Liverpool, I'm not sure if it was a council flat but it was definitely rented. It was knocked down in the early 70s and my great grandma moved into a modern council flat nearby. We moved out to Skelmersdale into a new council house.

I wouldn’t be up for this - I feel the burden would sit with the mum - no matter what, your expected to help, I don’t want to be that help - I’ve raised my kids, they need to move out and get on with their own lives - I did, dh did. We weren’t afraid of being independent adults. Ds works with a 28 year old man who lives at home - mum does all the family laundry. Sil has her two sons and their gf living with her - I’ve never seen her house look so chaotic and messy, she’s exhausted between that and mil living next door and demanding her attention constantly. Oh no that is not the life for me. I want space, peace and calm and no one making demands of me.

Multi generational living would solve some people’s problems but you’ve made big assumptions like the parents living in a location that is good for job opportunities and educational opportunities for the grandchildren.

I think that if you have more than one child then it’s unlikely to be an option because of a lack of space. I have enough bedrooms for my kids but not an extra bedroom or two for my grandchildren.

I'm curious to know the difference between a 'council' flat and a council flat?

Honest, genuine question though. Was there a difference in her area?

Yes in the 60s we lived with my great grandma in her 2 bedroomed 'council' flat with a toilet on the outside landing and no bathroom. I shared a bed with db top to tail, my parents had the other bedroom and great grandma had the front room.

In theory I would quite like this but only if every family had their own suite of rooms (a family on each floor could work) alongside a common area. I wouldn’t mind too much living with my own family but I’d find it hard to live with DP’s family - not that there’s anything wrong with them - but there’s a lot of them and sometimes they don’t get on that well with each other. I would find it very draining. I don’t want my kids living with me (I love them dearly and they’re welcome for as long as they like) but I want them building their own families and being independent. Part of the fun of being an adult is moving out and living in a shithole for a while - I loved it - it was my first taste of adulthood. I have to say, I would be very reluctant to date a man who lived with 12 of his closest relatives as an adult. It has undertones of ‘failure to launch’.

YABVU. Sounds like absolute hell. I’d never want to live that way.

Even if everyone gets along, there are several problems with multi-generational living, the main one being the flexibility to move for work. It's bad enough if a one parent needs to move for work, when there's a spouse and 2 kids and the dog. Add in grandparents and the ability to be flexible disappears.

Secondly there would be increased pressure on larger homes, and as housing is a very good barometer of the economic law of supply and demand, the price pressure on larger homes would increase. The upside would be for those happy to live single generation households as may the costs of 2-3 bed homes would go down, or at least not go up so much.

Thirdly - well the care burden falling on the woman of the house

Forthly - we have a divorce rate of about 40%. The financials surrounding divorce can be bad enough without factoring in additional ownership splits

The answer - well I'm not sure there is one, certainly I don't know. But one thing I am sure of - no one way of living suits all families

Its already available as an option for those who want to take it.
Certainly shouldnt be foisted on those who don't.

OP, I love my ds more than I can say but I don't want the next 20 years with his gaming until 2am at the weekends, or his inability to clean the loo, or his smelly socks on the sitting room floor.

I left home at 18, lived in halls and then a freezing bedsit for five years, while I saved for a flat deposit. It was cold and grim, but I learned to budget, to clean up after myself, to feed myself on very little, to furnish a room on a pittance

It was also much more fun than living at home. I could play my choice of music, stay out or come home when I wanted, cook my choice of food, choose the company I kept. No nosiness or interference from my DM.

My ds will always be welcome but my expectation is for him to fly the nest at either 18 (university) or in his early 20s. I've raised him with that expectation and a good work ethic. He's already working at 17 while at school. I had my first job at 13, so I'm not being unfair. He has boundless energy, and enjoys his job.

Our children living with us is fine, would you be happy and have the room for partners and grandchildren though?

Sounds like hell. I would hate as an older person for my adult DC in the prime of their lives with jobs and families of their own to be curtailed in any way by caring for me. It’s dreadfully selfish.
I also do not want to be providing regular childcare or around children (GC or not) on a daily basis when I hit retirement.
All the women I know who have tried this way of living have ended up on antidepressants. Not the men, whose lives carry on much as before.