Living in a Multi-Generational Home
Two hearths, one home. The story of why my husband decided for us to move in with my parents.
Not everyone dreams of leaving home to get married only to find themselves back at home (but now married) less than a year later. I certainly didn’t. However, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past three years of moving back home, it’s the importance of being able to surrender our plans to The Lord. In this post, I’ll be discussing our multi-generational home. How we got here, what it’s like being home again and living with my parents as a married woman and a mother.
A life-changing decision
My husband and I got married back in 2022. He had been living in an apartment for a few months before we got married and I moved in after the honeymoon. We had an enjoyable honeymoon in Tennessee and were gone for around a week. When we got back, we received a letter from the apartment manager stating that we had one week to decide if we were going to extend our lease for 6 months, or a year.
If we signed on to stay for 6 months our monthly rent would increase by $400/month. If we decided to stay for a year, rent would stay the same. We had already discussed with my parents the possibility of moving in with them when our lease was up. Money was very tight, even with both of us working. We could’ve purchased a home, but in our local economy, that would’ve meant both of us working full time for the next decade or so. Knowing that we wanted to have children in our younger years, and that we both believed that I should be home with the kids full time when we did have children, committing to a mortgage that required 2 incomes wasn’t an option for us.
I told my husband I would follow whichever decision he made. After much prayer and discussion, he decided that it would be best if we moved in with my parents in order to save money, pay off debt, and prepare for having kids. We extended our lease for another 6 months and informed my parents we would move in when our new lease was up. It wasn’t our ideal life plan, but it made us be more intentional about how we spent our time in the apartment, knowing it was going to be the last time we had a space to ourselves for a while. When we had the same evenings off, I would cook and he would read the Bible. We even got to enjoy our first Christmas together without having to go anywhere, which was a blessing considering we had to work every other day before because we worked retail.
Despite knowing we wanted to have kids young, we had no idea how quickly The Lord would give us that blessing. A month after we got married, I had a weird feeling that I should take a pregnancy test. You can imagine my surprise when the test was positive! And on Father’s Day of all days! We quickly realized why God led my husband to make the decision he made. Had we chosen to stay in the apartment for a year, I would’ve had to work during the first 6 months of our baby’s life; an outcome that would’ve been devastating.
New home, new life
When we moved into my parents home, I was 8 months pregnant and preparing for a home birth. The room we stayed in used to be my grandma’s. It was almost two times bigger than that of our room in the apartment. The giant walk in closet was the perfect space for a makeshift nursery.
The baby ended up coming 2 days past due. My husband worked an hour away so when I noticed the first signs of labor, I called him immediately. One of the great benefits of living with my parents was my mother being with me every moment of labor. The baby was coming so fast, my mother was almost the one to catch him! Thankfully, the midwife arrived in time to deliver him and take care of me after a minor complication. I spent the next 2 weeks on bedrest and my mother took care of me after my husband’s time off ran out.
It took a while for us to get used to being in a new home and having a baby. My husband’s work schedule was always inconsistent so having my mom in the home to help with the baby was a huge blessing. When the baby had rough nights and I was unable to keep my eyes open, my mother would take the baby and listen to theology podcasts with him until he fell asleep. She’s also a huge help now that I have 2 under 2. Even my little sister will take the toddler some afternoons and teach him how to bake bread or cookies.
Here’s to the future
We’ve been living with my parents for almost 3 years now. We don’t know what the Lord has in store for us. But we do know He has plans for our good, and His glory. We may be living in a way that’s different from our peers, but it’s where The Lord has led us and for the time being, where He wants us to stay. It was a hard transition at first, not having our own spaces. But my parents have welcomed us and helped us to make their house feel like our home. My mother even let me pick out new dishes that were similar to my dishes from the apartment.
Our house may be filled with lots of people, but that just means that there are several people who are helping us care for and show love to our children. It always puts smiles on everyone’s faces when we come down to breakfast and my parents can say “good morning” to their grandchildren. It will be interesting to see when The Lord makes a way for us to get a house of our own. Until then, we’ll focus on enjoying the unique arrangement God has blessed us with.
Having lived in our multi-generational home for almost 3 years now, we have learned a lot. Given the current economic woes, it’s likely that a lot more people will be sharing a home with other generations of their family in the coming years. House builders where we live have even started marketing floor plans that are designed for multi-family living under one roof. The Lord has taught us a lot so my mom and I have been thinking about sharing a few things we’ve learned regarding multi-gen living, so stay tuned for that!
A note about the term “multi-generational home”
I realize that the usual arrangement of a mother, father and children is 2 generations, which is technically multi-generational already. I am using the phrase ‘multi-generational’ because that seems to be the phrase that is being used in our society to describe living arrangements like ours. Multi-family would be more accurate, but still confusing since we are all related and thus family. The way my mom puts it is that it’s “a tight house with 2 women so we need to be Titus 2 women”. Maybe a better way to put it is “two hearths, one home”. So until someone comes up with a better term than ‘multi-generational living’, we’ll default to that term when discussing this way of life.