My Parents Are Coming to Live with Me and I’m Thrilled
Could parental cohabitation be the new tiny house movement?
For two years, I’ve swiped through endless streams of condo images on realty apps. I’ve imagined what it would be like to have a kitchen large enough to have two people stand in at one time. I’ve prospected the best neighborhood hangouts for each location on my preferred list.
Then the pandemic happened.
I have been one of the lucky ones. The pandemic did not affect my work other than shifting me and my colleagues to a work-from-home scenario.
(You may be jumping to the conclusion that I want my parents to live with me because I’ve been starved for human contact. Actually, no. The pandemic has played a different, yet interesting, role in this decision. Read on.)
Since I am an introvert, the work-from-home change in my daily routine was welcome. What’s not to like about sparing myself an hour-long commute into downtown Chicago each way.
Sure I wondered, as a single person, if I’d start to feel lonely as more time passed. After more than a year, I’ve discovered how introverted I truly am. I have actually gained energy working from home with no loneliness dampening it.
So why add parents in to the mix?
We’ve experienced so many Covid-19 lifestyle changes, including months of:
- Empty shelves in our grocery stores
- Cooking, cooking, cooking, and, oh yeah, more cooking
- Private transportation rather than public
- Living in comfy clothes 24/7
- Rerun fests on TV that open the door wider for books (shocking)
I know this list is a blend of substantial and superficial changes. For me, I think I needed to experience this diversity to realize I can roll with a whole gamut of changes.
Before the pandemic, I had entertained the thought of having my parents live with me. It seemed like a better option than them moving into assisted-living arrangements and paying a lot of money for services they would not use.
What stopped me was the worry that it would be too much of an adjustment.
After the pandemic, them moving in seems like no big deal. You could say the pandemic was my trial run on how much change I could manage at once.
The pandemic also gave me perspective
The pandemic stripped our lives down to their essence. For example, I used to spend so much time monitoring the latest fashions. This year, I can definitely appreciate the Steve Jobs method of dressing. (He famously wore the same outfit every day, so he didn’t have to think about it.) It’s so much faster to narrow down your selections and refocus your attention to what really matters.
That’s where the pivot to family comes in.
My family has always meant a lot to me, but the pandemic put an exclamation point on it. I’ve reordered my priorities to align with their needs.
Let’s be honest, we don’t know what the future holds. There could be more Covid variants coming our way. Large senior communities may not be the best option for our parents for multiple reasons.
This led me to start swiping through condo images with my parents in mind. Being able to fit more than one person in the kitchen is still top on my list, but for different reasons.
Could parental cohabitation be the new tiny house movement?
You can’t overlook the fact that us sharing space is logical. If we become our own pod, we can back-up each other if there are more lockdowns ahead of us.
From an environmental standpoint, it also makes sense for us to share:
- A single vehicle — since they are retired and I now have more options to work from home, we can definitely decrease our fuel needs.
- Meals — no one says yay leftovers; by cooking for three we will have fewer leftovers and we can take turns cooking to give each other a break.
- Laundry — with fewer outfits to worry about, it takes longer to get a full load; by grouping our laundry for the week, we could save water.
Of course, if your habitation habits don’t gel with your parents, this may not work for you. But, similar to the tiny house movement, it could be worth a mull over. There could be some upsides you have not thought of that could make the switch exciting.
