Should Grandparents Live with their Married Children?

The answer should be a no-brainer. Many married children would rather their elderly parents live apart from them. The primary reason is privacy. They want their privacy and having parents living with them would curtail it severely and even looked upon as cramping their lifestyle.

However, not all elderly parents have the choice of living on their own. One reason is that the married son is still staying with them after he has got himself a wife.

This could be the result of the son’s inability to purchase his own house ( houses being expensive these days ) or else it could be his mercenary streak, having calculated that it is cheaper to live with his parents and apart from that, he and his wife will also enjoy ready cooked meals at the end of the working day as well as having their laundry taken care off. Besides, when the baby comes along, he would have an in-house nanny in the form of his mother, not withstanding the fact that his mother is already old and taking care of a baby is very demanding.

Being Asian, his parents will not ask him to move out and they will stoically resign themselves to their fate. Saddled with a young child, they themselves will have lost the freedom of movement. They would not be able to go out as and when they wish, let alone enjoy travelling to other places.

Even those who are living on their own will also expect their parents to look after their babies and young children. It is common to see them carting their babies to their parents’ home before they leave for work and at the end of the day, return to their parents’ for dinner before taking their babies home, only to repeat the routine day after day. Some even leave their babies with the grandparents for the whole week, taxing them to the extreme.

Is this fair to their elderly parents? Shouldn’t they be enjoying their retirement? After all, they have done their duty bringing up their children and seen them grow into independent adults with their own families. They should be able to enjoy their grandchildren without having the extra burden of caring for them thrust upon their now weary shoulders.

To grandparents who would opt to live with their married children, think carefully before you commit yourselves to another round of drudgery, losing your freedom of movement eventually.

As long as you are healthy and fit, able to do household chores and baby sit, you will be welcomed but once you fall ill and need care, watch out. You could be farmed out to an old folks’ home and left to your own company.

Such is life in an increasingly materialistic world.

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