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

[Cluborange666]

You always see comments on Mumsnet about the failure of older kids still living at home and adult kids being annoying if they are home but I just don’t get it.

Firstly because I actually like my kids and don’t have any issue with them living with us for as long as they want. I don’t want to see them living in some horrible little flat that sucks up all their money. I lived in a freezing flat when I was 18 and it was grim. It didn’t motivate me. It just made me jealous of my friends who were still living with their parents. Poverty isn’t a rite of passage. It’s just depressing.

Secondly, the young ones are going to find things really hard in the future. They aren’t going to be able to follow the same script that our parents did. I see Asian families looking after each other, their married kids with decent lives because they live with their parents (often no need for childcare) and having much more money as a result. The parents benefit too as they have company and support as they age.

This idea that we must all live separately seems counterintuitive to me. Our cave people ancestors would never have lived in separate caves. I think multigenerational living would be better for (most) people - excluding people like me who got away from abusive parents - better for the environment and better for young people as there would be far less pressure on them to pay hundreds of thousands for tiny homes.

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

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

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!

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

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

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!