Mom? Dad?...I'm Home!

I found out that in the United States 6.2 million adults are living with their parent or parents. This is a huge number and is expected to continue to rise over the next couple of years. With job loss and the housing crunch there is little else that families can do than huddle together and try to hand on...

It sounds like a simple solution to a temporary money crisis. The real problem is that the average American family does not have the social background for multi generational co-habitation. When people I know send their children off to college they expect that someday in the not to distant future those children will have morphed into adults and then Sunday dinner will be at their house. What happens over the course of this transition is the realization that when children come home they revert to their former "at home behavior." They usually are not adults coming home for a visit, who pick up their laundry, do their dishes and share the remote...they are adults who when they pass the door way of their parents home revert to their former child state. This has been a complaint I have heard over and over again.

Now, from my elderly surgery patients I am hearing that living with their children has added worry to the equation. So on top of worrying about your aches and pains, how you can stretch your social security you are also worrying about your adult children day in and day out.

There has too be a solution that is workable. This economy will take several years to turn around and after all most of the world doesn't have an issue with multi generational households...this is an American dilemma. We have to take care of each other with respect and love...it can be done.