Last night, Stephanie over at TheWannabeHomesteader.com wrote about her plan for when she reaches the age of needing assistance. Like me, she figures that in her marriage, the woman will outlive the man, so she expects to be around to help him in his late years. This is how I expect my life to be, assuming they don’t fix the aging problems like I wrote about recently.
When I was a kid in the 70’s, I spent my summers with my grandparents living on their farm. I recall that there was always work to be done, but everyone pitched in and by the evening time, we all had time to relax. And on Thursday nights, we’d gather around the TV and watch The Waltons.
The Waltons was the story of a 3 (and sometimes 4) generation rural family living in one house in the Depression and how they coped with the hard times. In that era, multigeneration households were common, unlike today.The situation you see in The Waltons has always stuck with me.
There are a few issues with living like this, though. The biggest issue I see is space. These days, a 1600-2000 square foot house is what I consider typical for a family of four. That is two adults and two kids. When it changes to four adults, the situation drastically changes. Adults have more privacy requirements, and are more territorial. In a typical sized house, the walls are much too close.
However, this is obviously a learned trait. If we were to live, grow, and die all in one house with multiple generations, that becomes our normal, and we don’t think anything of it. We adapt. In our prosperous times, we’ve learned to want more personal space, so tend to move out on our own when reaching adulthood.
As annoying as my kids can be at times, having them live with us for years to come does have add a certain sense of stability and comfort. It removes the financial pressure off of them for establishing a new home. It allows you to be surrounded by people you can trust (well, hopefully).
So, like Stephanie, my idea was to nurture the relationship that I have with my kids so that I am sure that the wife and I will have a place with one of the kids in our declining years. Well, at least watch the wife nurture her relationship with our kids, and hope I get to stay with her when she moves in with them…I’m hoping that being handy prevents me from getting voted off the island. It worked for Richard Hatch!
That’s really all I can say about what I’ve thought about my future, at least my final years. I don’t consider old age something to prep for, as it is not a disaster. It’s just part of life. I will work until they plant me in the ground, as far as I can tell. At least I hope so….
Life isn’t a race, its a journey. Take your time to enjoy the passage, we all end up at the same destination.
(And be nice to your kids!)
Peace,
db
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I’m a huge fan of multi-generational housing. I’d suggest a compound, with each generation of family having their own structure, with common areas.
Pricey in Florida 🙁
That’s your plan? Counting on your kids to take care of you? I see some flaws.
Then you missed the important part about me relying on my wife being welcome and me tagging along with her.
I’ll be a +1 to my wife in my kids house.
This is one of the innumerable reasons for our plan to find a decent sized semi-rural property. By ourselves the wife and I don’t need much space but having room for our future child(ren)’s small house is totally doable as the Golden Gate Estates area over here has many 2.5 acre plots for relatively cheap as Naples property goes. Maybe my folks will need a place in the sun in a few years too. Their cottage can be close enough yet far enough away…
One person commented that they find fault in this particular train of thought, personally I feel it is the optimal situation. First off, history rarely lies and this has been going on for as long as the species has been in existence. As adults we care for our children, we raise them to be responsible mature members of not only the family but the community as well, as you said hopefully. It is only smart to continue living as a single unit where the maturer members have knowledge to assist the younger members, whether it be in working the land and animals, or in the best way to mend a garment of clothing. Does this mean that I want my mother moving in with us, not unless it is the only way I know she will survive whatever is coming…she lives up the road from my brother though…smarter for her to live with his family. It does however mean that in a bug out/ retreat situation I would want not only my children and mother but my brother and his family as well…even if things got a bit crowded. They are family and all bring different skill sets to the table, so to speak.
It did work for Richard Hatch – at least for a few years. After his survivor win he was charged with tax evasion, convicted and served a 51-month sentence in federal prison. That’s one way to get Three hots and a cot in your old age. 😛
Of course I was referring to the time on the island.
However, prison does bring up an interesting option as a retirement plan….
Two things on my major wishlist cover exactly this topic:
1) My boyfriend and I have been renting a 100% full accessible handicapped house for over 3 years. While there are definite eccentricities to a handicapped accessible home, we love the extra accessibility it offers. All our doors are double wide, which makes moving furniture, equipment or large boxes a snap. We have a roll in shower stall that makes cleaning the entire bathroom a breeze (cleaning is as simple as scrubing down the walls and hosing it all down the drain), and with my clutz genetics, I rarely bang into furniture, walls, cabinets, doorways, corners… Well… I still bang into them, but I’m convinced it happens with less frequency.
Basically, we love it, and since we’re saving to build our “final” home to our own specifications, we’ve already starte brainstorming ways we can incorporate handicapped accessible features that will be convenient now, and absolutely priceless when we’re old.
2) When I was little, my parents moved from the suburbs to the country. In the 3 years that it took for them to find the perfect home (log cabin, wood fired heat, turn off the dirt road, neighbors so far away you can’t see their lights) we rented a farmhouse that had also been the location of a popular campground during the turn of the century. While most of the campground was in ruins, the property offered a wealth of ideas for what it takes to house people who want/need their own space while also supporting their common needs.
There was a communal “clubhouse” building that housed entertainment (a piano), a large fireplace and side kitchen. There were individual 1 room cabins with their own wash stands, woodstove/fireplace, and porch, there was a communal bunk house for the employees, and there were dozens and dozens of outbuildings for everything from outhouses to blacksmithing to ice shack to creamery. By the time we lived there, most of the buildings had rotted away, but the family had maintained 2 of the cabins as guest houses for visiting relatives, and the “clubhouse” for storage of family heirlooms.
The time we lived there was a blast, but I distinctly remember how nice it was to have company visit, because we would air out one of the guest cabins and put them up there. I think our relatives appreciated it too, because we had more family visit when we lived at that place than I remember at any other house we lived in. In-law suites may be popular in our modern age, but I think modern ranches and older farms had a real good thing going when they had the hired help and other family units live in smaller buildings, with a communal kitchen and shared facilities. Having your tools and livelihood spread out in several locations (main house, bunk houses, creamery, ice house, smoke house, root cellar, barn, hay barn, equipment barn, carriage house, etc, was also a form of insurance and preparedness…
If you lost one building, you didn’t lose it everything!
In this modern age, where we’ve all grown so used to having our own space and privacy, I’m hoping we can build a guest cabin or two to house family members or friends in need, just in case. Best case scenario we have a comfortable guest house for visitors to stay, worst case scenario we have a safe haven for friends and family, and we’ll stay friends and family during and after their time in need, too.
(sorry this comment was longer than your post! Love reading your stuff db – it *always* make me think!!!)
Thanks for the input Molly. I agree that multiple buildings on one property would be a great asset. Close enough for comfort, far enough away for privacy – the best of both worlds.
(BTW, yours was 598 words, mine was 522 without the intro and sign off, 634 with them included. Either way, you wrote PLENTY for a full article.Ever think about writing?)
Retirement via prison brings a whole new meaning to “Social Security”. ;j
I was raised on a large farm with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Everyone had their own house with pasture or fields in between. The farm had one area with all the barns, smoke house and such. Everyone worked toward the same goal each day. This isn’t going to happen with family now, sorta sad.
I don’t trust that we can find people with the same goals now. So for the time being, I plan for my husband and myself. We can depend on one child and their family if needed. I just don’t want to think about becoming needy.