A la famiglia! To the family! (With caveats)

Barack Obama and his family on November 4, 2008. Mrs. Obama's mother is seated to her right.

Right now there is a lot of speculation about how the Obama family unit will shape up when they finally occupy the White House on January 20, 2009. There is, of course, the momentous decision of what puppy to buy for the Obamas' two daughters, Sasha and Malia. Occupying nearly as much attention, however, is the question of whether Mrs. Obama's mother, Marian Robinson, will move into the White House, as well. At this point, it looks as if she will, although she isn't sure how long she will stay before returning to her own home in Chicago. But as of January 20, 2009, the First Family in the White House will be a multigenerational family, which reflects a growing trend in the United States.

When I was a kid, my Aunt Mary and her family lived in the same house as my maternal grandmother at 102 East Tenth Street, in Oswego, New York. My great grandmother, my great-aunt, and one of my great uncles lived next door on one side on the corner of East Tenth and Schuyler Streets, my grandmother's sister and two of her children lived next door on the other side on East Tenth Street, and one of my grandmother's brothers and his family lived directly behind her on Schuyler Street. My paternal grandmother lived on her own on Willow Street in Syracuse, but her home was the upstairs apartment in a house owned and occupied by one of her daughters and her family.

In those days, multigenerational families were common. It seemed as if most of the people I knew had a least one relative beyond the nuclear family living with them, although few of them lived in anything like the compound occupied by the Familos (of which my grandmother was a daughter) in the area of East Tenth and Schuyler Streets in Oswego. Between my grandmother's family and my Uncle Ed's (Aunt Mary's husband) family, nearly everyone in the neighborhood was a relative, and everyone was in and out of 102 East Tenth Street all day every day. This was pretty hard on my aunt, who heard an almost constant litany of "Mary, put on a pot of coffee!" or "Mary, Uncle Allie's staying for lunch!" or "Mary, your brother Pete and his family are on their way from Ohio!" She must have thought she was running a hotel in those days. And later, when my grandmother was ill with Parkinson's disease and housebound, Aunt Mary must have wondered why the relatives always showed up at mealtimes and almost never when they could have kept my grandmother company while my aunt went shopping or had a few hours out with her husband.

Over time, the phenomenon of the multigenerational family living under one roof faded away for the middle class. Children grew up and moved away from the old neighborhood, maybe even out of state, and their children did the same. And so-called "empty-nesters" often moved away, too, to retirement homes in Florida or Arizona. Family ties were stretched thin, and often people didn't see each other except at holdays or, unfortunately, funerals. Now the situation is changing again.

According to the 2000 Census, nearly four million (3.9 million) American households consist of three or more generations living together. In some cases, these are ethnic families, many of them Hispanic or Asian, in which multigenerational living arrangements are traditional. In some cases, they are families in which grown children have landed back in the parental household because of economic or marital problems (so-called "boomerang" children), or families in which the children grow up but don't leave the home. And some sad cases involve grandparents caring for their grandchildren because their own children are incapable or incarcerated. Now, however, we are seeing a new trend, families with children in which both parents have careers and at least one in-law lives with them.

Today, the New York Times ran an article suggesting (more subtly than I am stating it) that the new "in" accessory for two-career families is the live-in grandparent, who can share in the childcare, cooking and cleaning duties. According to the Times, this has required an adjustment in power relationships in order for the generations to live comfortably together in the modern world. Today, says the Times, mom is a working woman's best friend, and people aren't afraid to say so.

I think that's great. However, my concern is that the folks who are finding mom to be their best friend now must realize that someday their parents are going to cease being caregivers and need care themselves. You can't just say, "Gee, thanks for all you did. It's time to go to assisted living now." If Grandma is really a part of the family, then everyone needs to save up financially and emotionally for the next stage and accept it graciously. I am unmarried and childless. My life companion (his life, obviously) is a 6-pound Yorkshire terrier. My mother lived with me for the last five years of her life, and my only regret is that maybe I didn't do everything I could have to provide her with the best possible life, although I always found great satisfaction in Mom's reports that the other ladies in her bridge club envied her. Those years were not always easy for me, but I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.

So, here's to the family, but don't forget about future responsibilities, folks, because they will be there before you know it, and you'd better be ready to step up.