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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think most mothers would not want to live with their mothers?

195 replies

partinor · 14/01/2019 15:29

I really want to know if I am out of step with opinion here?
A feminist friend is very against nuclear families, and I understand her point. But when I ask her what the alternatives could be, she argues that most mothers want to and would be better off living with their own mother.
I get on fine with my mother, but the thought of living with her with kids sends me into a cold sweat.
So AIBU to think most mothers would not want to live with their own mother?

OP posts:
ThumbWitchesAbroad · 14/01/2019 16:05

Partinor - I'm assuming your friend has an amazing mother who is completely supportive and emotionally available then. An awful lot of mothers aren't like that!

GoldenMalicious - I've long thought that the secret to house-sharing with another adult woman is having, at the very least, separate kitchens - separate living quarters and your own front door would make it an awful lot easier to cope with.

Dimsumlosesum · 14/01/2019 16:05

Hard pass.

LuggsaysNotaWomen · 14/01/2019 16:06

Hell to the no!

Nearby? Maybe. With? Only if it were a huge Palace with separate wings (and even then). She wouldn’t want to live with me either.

Sunflowermuma · 14/01/2019 16:06

My mum has crazy dream where we'll all live together. My family of four, her, my dad and my brother. It's my idea of hell!
She's always house hunting, she genuinely needs a new house but while hunting she sees huge houses and tells me about them "it's 4 bed and and then the adjoining house is three, it'd be perfect for us all". No thanks

labazsisgoingmad · 14/01/2019 16:08

you grow up you leave home thats the natural way so no way would you reverse and go back home. i should think most mothers would not want young children around them again full time

mamageebo · 14/01/2019 16:08

After my darling dad passed away at quite a young age, my mum lived on her own for many years. She confided in me that she felt afraid and lonely on her own, even though I only lived a few doors up the road from her. So me, my dh and ds and her all decided to live together. We bought a house that was new to all of us, which I think helped and my dm was happy to take a back seat re the cooking, shopping etc (which I enjoy) she had her own room and own space but helped me with the cleaning and gardening (which she enjoyed). They were the happiest seven years of my life and it broke my heart when she passed away, at home, with me looking after her, after a very short illness (a few weeks) I miss her every day and would give anything to have her back here living with me.

Fairylea · 14/01/2019 16:09

She is bonkers.

Most people do not want to live with their mothers and because of the age difference eventually it would become a carer / elderly person scenario - hardly the equal sharing system she imagines!

Nuclear families are great. I really hate this idea that all men are dicks.

lubeybooby · 14/01/2019 16:10

my mum moved in with me for 3 months once and that was absolutely all I could take. I had to ask her to leave

WhentheRabbitsWentWild · 14/01/2019 16:13

Hell No .

Me and my Mum don't get on terribly well (we do in small doses) but to live together ? No chance . None of us would like or want that .

carly2803 · 14/01/2019 16:13

absolutely not.

we are far too alike...

havign said that i am going to stay with her once i am very heavily pregnant and baby is here - just for a bit!!

i say this now but i recon i wont last long hahah :)

BertrandRussell · 14/01/2019 16:13

What’s her feminist take on this?

WhentheRabbitsWentWild · 14/01/2019 16:14

Mamagebo Flowers

WhatToDoAboutWailmerGoneRogue · 14/01/2019 16:16

I’d love to live with my mum, and my DH would love it too. We’ve all looked into buying a larger house together to make it feasible but haven’t found anything as of yet.

SunnySomer · 14/01/2019 16:16

I’ve known lots (ok 4) of German and Swiss families divide the family home into flats and then live separately together. I would love this. I think my mother would too. You don’t necessarily see each other all the time, but you’re both on hand for each other.
My sister would hate it - I think they’d come to blows within a week.

tillytrotter1 · 14/01/2019 16:16

And as the older mother I'd chew my own foot off rather than have my daughters live with me, I'd move with no forwarding address!!!

Shodan · 14/01/2019 16:17

To echo Aquamrine1029- Fuck no. Not in a million years.

I left home at 17, was forced to return briefly twice thereafter for 3 months each time, and vowed never again.

And never again it has been and always will be. I wouldn't have her living with me either.

ohdearmymistake · 14/01/2019 16:19

mamageebo

That sounds lovely glad you got to enjoy the time together.

Houses with annexes are becoming more popular so that you can have several generations living under the same roof.

What would some of the mothers think about this idea, perhaps plenty wouldn't want it either, they have their own lives.

BertrandRussell · 14/01/2019 16:19

I can see very strong arguments for adult house shares-I really don’t understand why tht doesn’t happen more. Multi generational ones could work well too but would surely need very careful planning. But I really wonder why it’s not more usual for a couple of lone parents to house share.

ravenmum · 14/01/2019 16:20

So how does this work? You get together with someone of the opposite sex, have a shag, then go back off, the man living with his dad and the woman living with her mum? And what, the boy children living with their dad and grandad and the girls with their mum and grandmother? Or do the men in her story not like children at all?

Fwiw I would not live with my mother if you paid me.

tillytrotter1 · 14/01/2019 16:23

I’ve known lots (ok 4) of German and Swiss families divide the family home into flats

In Germany parents used to have a large house with an attic, one of the their married children would live in the attic and contribute to the very long term mortgage. In time as the dynamics shift the child and their family would take over the main house and the major part of the mortgage and parents would live in the attic paying a smaller amount of the mortgage. We knew a few families like this and it worked very well, each family lived independently but with support available as needed.

treaclesoda · 14/01/2019 16:24

I love my mother dearly. I could not live with her. Not at all. And the beauty of it is that I'm pretty certain she feels the same about me Grin

waywardfruit · 14/01/2019 16:25

Works for elephants...

SilverySurfer · 14/01/2019 16:26

How many could live with their Dad? I could have, quite happily. Our family was split in two, Mum and sister needed constant activity and never stopped. It was exhausting just watching them. Whereas my Dad and I could happily sit reading or listening to the wireless or not doing much for hours.

leaveby10 · 14/01/2019 16:26

What if your mother works? An why should your mother look after your kids. Some mothers are abusive...this theory seems to have quite a few holes.

FuzzyShadowChatter · 14/01/2019 16:28

Nononononononono. No. I stopped living with my mother when I was 15, and during a two week visit when I was 17, that situation wasn't any better. The idea of raising kids with one's mother seems a really idealized, oversimplified non-solution to complicated human relationships and, as others said, ignores the abuse dynamics that can be perpetrated there among many other things.

There are a lot of solid criticism of the nuclear family from many lenses, and I agree that efforts to make people less isolated possible through multi-family or more adults within a household may have benefits that could help people, but many of the criticisms of nuclear families can also be aimed at multigenerational families where mothers of young children are often traditionally subservient and answer to the older generations. There are better ways of handling it - some mentioned in this thread - but just 'live with your mother' isn't a solution to male violence and social isolation.

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