To think that we should share houses like lots of British Asian families do

[ReallyTired]

I know several British Asian families where granparents and families live all under the same roof. Provided that there is enough living space it can work well. The extended family can keep an eye on elderly relatives. Having more than one generation living together helps prevent social isolation.

I know lot of elderly British couples or even single people who live in large 4 bed houses. Their adult children (and their children) live in tiny expensive rented accomodiation because they can't afford a mortgage.

I realise that not everyone would want to live with their parents/ inlaws however it does seem such waste of high quality housing. I doult that my parents or inlaws would let us live with them.

I feel the govement should discourage single occupancy of large houses.

I could live with my DM. But, though I love her dearly, I would kill DSis if I had to live with her. Or I would never go out of my room.

And when we are all together, it is agony. We cannot all three be in the kitchen at the same time.

The current situation is appalling. But I agree withs Birds, we need to move forward and prepare for the ageing population, instead of going back.

Its not the governments place to tell us who we should live with, but it is their place to sort out the cost of living, the stagnating wages and the state of care for the elderly. Carers are already picking up the pieces in this country, the last thing we need is more of that.

rather die personally.

YABU because it would be my worst nightmare.

But YANBU because I live on a street of 4 bedroom houses with huge gardens lived in by one or two older people. I know some of their children are squashed into rented flats & tiny houses with the grandchildren. The gardens in particular always seem such a waste.

Then again, YABU because I used to live in an area where Asian families shared houses and the bitchery about MILs at playgroup was quite evil.

We' re not Asian or east european - my mum and dad live in my and dp's house (along with dd) and for a year my db. Mum and Dad were looking at a difficult retirement (up north) and all of their children live down south. We couldn't afford to help them buy but can give them house room. Works well so far (help with dd is fantastic) / house is big enough to have separate lounges and bathrooms. We offered PIL the same - thankfully they declined!

I will be happy for my dc to come and go from my house as it suits them. This will be their home for as long as dh and I live.

But hell will freeze over before I live with anyone else. And I would not take kindly to the government telling me what I should be doing with my own house!

I would not be willing to end up a carer for ils - I think you have to be a very special kind of person to do this for people that you dont necessarily love and it is just not in me to do it.

I realise that not everyone would want to live with their parents/ inlaws

Exactly. so those that one to, presumably already are seeing as currently there is nothing to stop you doing so.

those that don't want to don't have to.

personally i'd shoot myself if i lived with my inlaws and so would my husband. Although we could maybe both cope with my parents if they had a separate annex.

I think it depends on the space available. Would I live with my parents/in-laws in a smallish 3-bed house? Not on your life. But I have lived with my in-laws shortly after we got married, in a 4/5 bed large detached. That was OK, but I wouldn't want to do it long-term or with kids. I would happily live with either parents or in-laws in a big 6-bed with, say, an almost separate 2/3-bed wing for them and a 3/4-bed wing for us (for example).

My parents and in-laws are a lot wealthier than us and used to much bigger houses, my parents are actually selling their 5-bed and moving to a 6-bed with three reception rooms soon. There is only the two of them. I suspect that were we to move in, they would suffer more, as they're used to the extra space and we would feel like we had more space (currently in a 3-bed flat).

I am mixed Asian and would care for my parents or in-laws (or, as well, my grandparents) in a heartbeat. But I suspect they won't need me to and will have made provision for if they need care.

I would kill my Dad and MIL if I had to share a house with either of them

My parents, DH and I would love to be able to do it. Unfortunately, it's very rare to hit on the perfect combination of suitable home, suitable family dynamic, and suitable commuting distance. I very much doubt we'll ever manage it because my retired parents insist on rattling about in a huge and very valuable house in a southern commuter town for the rest of their lives, and somehow it's still cheaper and easier for DH and me to work 150 miles away than share with them... I wouldn't sound so negative about this if A) they could afford to stay there without seriously compromising their quality of life, and B) DM didn't unintentionally make me feel guilty about moving so far away.

I agree with you in principle, by the way. Aside from anything else, at least one of the following four things desperately needs to happen in order to keep our labour market and housing stock working:

• incentivise employers to increase their geographical dispersion and distance working arrangements (unlikely to work);
• redevelop large expanses of land in high-employment areas in order to cram as many technically-just-about-acceptable and just-about-affordable homes as possible into the places where they are needed (THAT sounds promising );
• incentivise retired people to release housing stock in high-employment areas for the people who actually need it (which would almost definitely result in penalising elderly people who rely on familiar surroundings and support networks for their mental and physical health);
• implement support cooperative and multigenerational living arrangements (which would probably equate to a few failed communes, loads of toxic family setups, and chains of commercially run hostels, alongside a minority of cases where the situation really works for everybody involved).

All quite worrying, but I really don't see an alternative that doesn't involve mass homelessness, as well as the majority of the working population having to live in penury and endure commutes which most people now would consider to be pretty much unfeasible.

I feel the government already poke their noses in to too many places that should not be any of their business in the first place. This would be another.

^ This.

Also, the success of this kind of arrangement is very much predicated on the expectations of all involved. My parents brought me up (as did DH's parents) to be independent and fly the nest asap. They like their privacy, as do we. There would be blood on the floor if we all shared a house! I imagine if we been raised to expect to have an extended-family-under-one-roof arrangement that it would be different.

Sorry, point four should have been "implement/support" - not sure what happened there...

I do think some cultures are naturally matriarchal and there is a level of elder respect that I haven't noticed so much in my own. So I would imagine in a lot of cases there would issues and fall outs.

I suspect in the future this will happen a lot more tho with the cost and availability of housing changing and the cost of being able to heat the house increasing out of peoples reach. It will be a case if having to rather than wanting to.

On the flip side I know several Asian families who are buying property now for their children (to be rented in the interim) so they can lead more independent lives. Two of these families have had awful inter family arguments regarding health care for sick parents (hospital / nursing home v staying at home & family members giving up work) and one had an awful time with grandparents after their child was born with severe disabilities and couldn't care for both.

It's tricky as my DM and I have discussed it but I think many decisions are made with good intentions and good health and it's all to easy to forget to make plans for both to change.

Myself and my siblings all moved away to go to university and work. Our parents wouldn't want to move in with any of us as they have a great social life where they live and would be lonely during the day if they stayed with us. None of us would be able to live with them in their big empty house as there isn't the work there.

Given this yabu.

incentivise retired people to release housing stock in high-employment areas for the people who actually need it (which would almost definitely result in penalising elderly people who rely on familiar surroundings and support networks for their mental and physical health);

This happens naturally at the moment though, there is a financial benefit from "downsizing" and moving to an area where housing stock is less in demand rather than keeping money tied up in a house. Its just that most people don't like doing it...

Mines - It may happen naturally, but it clearly isn't happening enough. As you said, retired people resist moving away from the "pull factors" of their current location for as long as the "push factors" can be ignored or compensated for. Which is why I think that in reality, any initiative to free up housing would ultimately involve penalising people who wish to stay where they are.

And let's be honest - in areas where the housing has the most economic value (London and nearby commuting towns), a huge proportion of the (over-large and therefore inefficient) housing is owned by people who will never need to choose between living where they want to and living how they want to.

Just because a lot of British Asians do this doesn't mean it always works.

I work in a multi cultural area in the NW and in all the jobs I've had in the last 15 years I have worked alongside a lot of Asian women who live with the extended family. Believe me there are a lot of unhappy women out there especially when it is their in laws they live with!

YABU. I'm mixed Asian Bristish and my Asian father would drive me fecking insane. I'd kill him one week in.

I do love the idea, but don't see how it'd be practical for many British families!

All the Asians I know in this set up say they wish they weren't. Generally speaking the either the dil or mil is deeply unhappy (they tend to live with the husband's parents) and in many set ups both the dil and mil are deeply unhappy. The constant power struggle over the smallest things is unbelievable.
Nowadays, most asian couples I know either live separately from their parents as soon as they get married or after a couple of years into the marriage. As a general rule, it just doesn't work.

I moved out at 18 for a reason. I love my mum, but we really can't live together for more than a couple of days without trauma. When it was looking like I might have to move back home for a while, you could hear the dread in her voice. She'd converted my bedroom to an office before the end of Fresher's week!

Further, how does this work with our new need to be supermoble in order to hunt down jobs? I live in the south east and our parents live about a 3 hour drive to either side of us, both with their own careers.

I remember reading some research a few years ago, on how we're heading to another house price crash toward the end of this decade, when all the baby boomers start dying off and their houses need selling. Lots of buyer choice at that end of the market means that they may not reach the prices needed to cover their care and so forth.

We live with my parents. The house is too small. No one is happy.

In the good old days, not so long ago, probably in living memory for a lot of people you did stay at home until you could afford a place with your new spouse and afford to bring up your own family, you also had granny at home too. Then we got all new fangled and poked our old people in care homes, claimed HB so we could move out and start a new family.

Full circle me thinks

I've known a few Asian friends who have done this - all women who have lived with their in laws after marriage. It is not like the Walton's!

This kind of set-up seems to take a high toll on women, though. There's a lot of very unhappy women in those families.