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Extended Family Returns Out Of Pure Necessity

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T.S._delegate
11/15/08

In reply to Extended Family Returns Out Of Pure Necessity
"Still, from a basic biological standpoint, it sounds like your father is batting a thousand."

Spoken like a true Philip Roth character.
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ADismalScience
11/15/08

In reply to Extended Family Returns Out Of Pure Necessity
Storytime!

I'm a financial guy, right? So I try to advise people I know on these matters. This includes my parents.

They bought a fairly large house just before the real estate collapse - against my wishes - and filled it up with furniture on credit - despite my protests. They're doing fine and all, making payments and paying down all the debt they accumulated, but I asked my dad what he plans to do about retirement. He had cashed out his 401(k) a few years back during a rough patch. He says to me: "Don't worry, I've got the ROK plan."

This was not an acronym I'm familiar with, so I went "What the hell is that?"

He looks at me and says "Rely On the Kids." Good thing I've got some siblings. Then he says to me "Besides, I've got a bad heart. You've just got to worry about your mother."

We're a deeply flawed society.
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flossy
11/15/08

@ADismalScience: One might argue that for the first 18-22 years of your life you were living on the ROP plan. And that yes, we are a deeply flawed society, since many of us have come to expect that our parents will raise us for almost a quarter century and then just putter off into decrepitude all self-sufficient-like, leaving us with no financial or emotional debt to repay.
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sarrible
11/15/08

@flossy: Yeah, it sure is a shame that more three-year-olds aren't in the job market.
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flossy
11/15/08

@sarrible: Come again?
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llamalash★
11/15/08

@ADismalScience: I plan to only resort to the ROK plan IF one of my little geniuses is a highly successful gazillionaire. Then, I think I deserve at least an ounce of credit for their success and a car or house would be a nice show of appreciation.

But that's only if they're so loaded they have 7 or so houses of their own. Otherwise it'll be me helping them w/their various life expenses. It was always my dream to set my grandmother up like that one day. So, I don't think it's so far-fetched!
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Clare
11/15/08

In reply to Extended Family Returns Out Of Pure Necessity
Well, I will be the voice of dissent and say that I had to move back home earlier this year and I fucking hate it. The house I was living in got put up for sale and I got evicted, so my parents offered to let me move back in.

We were thinking I would buy a place of my own and then the market and my family's investments went to shit. So I'm stuck here indefinitely.

80 percent of my worldly possessions are in a storage locker. I've been sleeping on an Aerobed since April. We are all tremendously miserable; We've all reverted to how things were when I was in high school. "Where are you going?" "Who are you going out with?" "How do you know him/her?" "When will you be home?"

The one nice thing about living at home is that I am incrementally paying down my one remaining credit card.
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llamalash★
11/15/08

@Clare: Yes, but how old are you?
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minou
11/15/08

In reply to Extended Family Returns Out Of Pure Necessity
It looks like President Obama will be sharing the White House with his mother-in-law. It would be nice if we could look at moves like this as a wise choice (like the Obamas) rather than an unfortunate necessity.
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ObtuseIntolerant
11/16/08

@minou: I totally agree. The departure from it in the first place has led to a lot of bad things in the first place (ill-cared for, miserable seniors; children with no sense of history or respect for elders).

I don't live in my mom's house (yet!) but she lives within a mile and we are with her tons. She can be a real crank, my five year old daughter can get plenty sick of me, and there are times that they are the only thing for each other. Multi-generational life is a good thing.

This is a bad thing for our shopping habits, but I think it could be better for society.

Yeah, very over-sincere, but I do believe it.
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BookishLookish
11/15/08

In reply to Extended Family Returns Out Of Pure Necessity
It's not weird to me for families to live together throughout their lives. I live in a predominantly Italian and Cuban neighborhood with a lot of mother-daughter, two-family houses, where the parents live on the bottom floor and the grown kids live above, with grandma and grandpa usually getting the basement apartment. We are kind of the freaks in the neighborhood because it's just me and my husband and our kid in a big house all by ourselves.

The key is having your own place within the building itself.
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Gosukusan
11/15/08

@BookishLookish:

Bookish, if you're feeling lonely, I can move in with my dog and my parents.
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minou
11/15/08

@BookishLookish: Shit, I LIKE having my folks around. I can't live with 'em, oh god no, but I'd be pleased if they were next door -- especially when I have kids.
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bigleggedwoman
11/15/08

@BookishLookish: And that is why in Southern California we have this phenomenon called the Mother-In-Law house.

That would be the little one b.r. cottage out in the backyard next to the detatched garage.

Quaint!
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BookishLookish
11/15/08

@Gosukusan: OK, Gosu, that sounded a bit American Dreamer to me. Are you sure his vibe is not rubbing off on you?
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Multiphasic
11/15/08

In reply to Extended Family Returns Out Of Pure Necessity
Ahhh, the halcyon days of my mid-20s when I was an abject failure at everything and got to tell women I met that I was "staying with this older couple."
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staryberry
11/15/08

In reply to Extended Family Returns Out Of Pure Necessity
Now, the LA Times certainly has done stories making fun of adult children moving home in the past, but this isn't really one of them. Instead, it takes a frank honest view at the option of extended families moving back in together in order to make ends meet. There is nothing that tabloid about coming to the conclusion that there are worse things in the world than having your mother around while you raise your kids.
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BookishLookish
11/15/08

@staryberry: Right on. This is how most of the world does it, we are the anomalies.
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minou
11/15/08

@staryberry: For several months I lived with my best friend, her two kids, and her mother. It was by far my LEAST dysfunctional living situation ever.
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