First hand experience from the other side....might help you see things from the other perspective and aid in your planning process.
My DH, 12 yr. old son and I moved from the Boston area back to upstate NY in 2001. We moved in with my parents.
DH had been seriously injured on the job and we were in the process of doing battle with TPTB over what benefits he was entitled to. He was unable to work at all, and was in the middle of several surgeries to try and improve his condition. My business, while a nice supplement to our income, was still in its infancy and was not yet bringing in the type of money that would support our family fully.
We sold everything and left for an area with a much lower cost of living. We arrived with a bank account in the 6 figures, proceeds from the sale of our home and my business. Why move in with them if we had that much money? Well, that money would not have lasted very long if we were totally living on it. It was all the money we had, and given that we did not know what the outcome of our legal battle would be, it might have been all the money we were going to have for a long while. We needed some time to work through DH's problems and figure out where we would go from there. Would DH ever be able to work again? Should we invest in starting a new business? Invest in a home and rely on my income from a new job or business to support us? Rent and live off whatever income I could come up with, leaving bank account alone for emergencies? We were exhausted, confused, very uncertain of the future and what our next move should be, and very worried about making the wrong choices and ending up in dire straits.
My parents were in their early-mid 70's. Dad retired from self employment with small SS check each month. Mom retired with a small SS and pension. They had just enough money to get by. Property paid for, but becoming difficult for them to upkeep. Mom ill with a degenerative condition that was certain to result in nursing home care in the not too distant future. Both still driving but neither should have been. Local sister running ragged trying to help care for them and property, in addition to raising her own children, working full time and caring for her own farm. My parents were very agreeable to us staying with them for a bit while we sorted things out.
We put most of our things in storage and moved into two bedrooms in the house. We had the cable run to our bedroom so we could have our own tv, and added internet service so we could put our computer in our sons room. We took over the cable bill.
I spent the first 3 months getting the property cleaned up...Dad had just not been able to keep up with it. We took over all property care...mowing, snow removal, etc. Dad had been paying to have it done, so this was good with him.
We also did all the cleaning and all the laundry, ours and theirs. We took over the entire electric bill because it was higher after we moved in.
We shared the bathrooms and kitchen. We bought our groceries, and whatever they wanted as well. If they wanted to shop and bring home their own stuff that was great, but we tried hard to accomodate what we knew they generally ate. We prepared our own meals which they were welcome to, and generally did, eat with us. If they wanted something else, we made it for them. If they wanted to make their own, they did. There was no real issue there. Sometimes I ate something that was theirs, somtimes they ate something that was mine. We bought and prepared 90% of the food. This was not an issue at all.
As Mom's condition deteriorated (which happened real quick, as things had been much worse than even my sister realized, not living with them) we did all of her care. She could not bathe or dress herself very easily, was DANGEROUS in the kitchen....leaving things cooking on the stove and forgetting about it, was falling often when she tried to do things she shouldn't, was constantly messing up her meds and taking too much, too little, etc. We were able to keep her safe and at home for the 2 years we were there. We would have left after about a year, but knew at that point that she would have to go into a nursing home if we left, so we stayed until we just could not do it anymore. Mom had to go into a nursing home at that time and I have always felt bad about that because we could have kept her home for quite a bit longer, but the problems we had just became too much.
Here are the problems we encountered...all of them involving our 12 year old son, whose older brother had just gone into the military, so was not a factor.....
I get the whole "my house, my rules" thing, but it goes too far when Grandparents want to apply it to things that have nothing to do with the house. If Grandma does not want son to go to see a particular movie, doesn't like the fact that we allow him to ride his bike to a friends house, feel that we should force him to eat certain food that he dislikes, or feel he needs to ask permission to eat an food that we bought, problems arise.
Our son was allowed to drink when he was thirsty, and and have a snack when he was hungry. He never touched ANY of their food without permission, but they felt he should ask permission to eat OUR food. We disagreed.
We allowed our son to have a social life. He had friends, went to their house to play, went on various outings with friends, etc. My parents frequently disagreed with the things that we allowed him to do. We often joked how when I grew up in the same house, I rode a green broke 3 year old stud colt miles down the side of the road, bareback, with no helmet on and no one worried at all, but our son riding his bike 1/4 mile (with helmet) to a friends house was suddenly a big deal.
There was a drawer in the kitchen...you know that drawer....the one with batteries, scissors, rubber bands, old keys, etc. I sent my son down to the drawer one day to get a paperclip that he needed for a school project. It wasn't even a new paperclip...it was a used one and there were at least 100 still left in the drawer. Heck, they are still all there 10 years later! Well, you would have thought he had just stolen money from their safe. The drama was unreal. They were just crazed over the fact that he had taken a paperclip from them. This issue was dragged on for so long and became such a big deal that it is now a family joke..."did you steal a paperclip?" is the question asked whenever one family member is upset with another!
He was not allowed to have friends over to the house at all, even outside. This was fine....their house, but it did create bad feelings and we felt it was a bit extreme. He was not allowed to have a friend come over to cook hotdogs and smores over a campfire, or to eat birthday cake. They were very worried that his friends would mess things up...not factoring in that if they had, we would have cleaned up the mess, as we did every other mess that was made, even those made by them!
My son got to the point that he rarely left his room. Every move he made, every bite of food he ate, was scrutinized. If he was going to a friends house against their wishes, they treated him like he was tricking us into allowing this. He was constantly torn between our rules and theirs, and wanting to please them but not knowing how without ceasing to exist.
They would often say he was spoiled because we bought strawberries (which he loved) and he was allowed to eat them as he wished.
During the big east coast blackout in 2003, he was terrorized by them for an hour because they were convinced that he had caused it by using his Nintendo in his room.
He loved his Grandparents before we moved in. By the time we moved out, he was afraid of them and believed that they hated him and thought he was an awful child. They complained about him constantly, and really hurt his feelings when they treated all his cousins as much loved Grandchildren, they way they treated him before he moved in, but no longer did.
They did not mean to treat him so badly, they just were at an age where they did not know what they were supposed to do with him. I think that they thought that they were supposed to take over parenting him, and tried to do so in a ridiculous fashion. The rules they expected him to live by were not even close to the rules my siblings and I had growing up, or the rules that we had for him. I think age had warped their view of things.
We had repeated meetings with them to explain that unless he was bothering them, or disrupting their peace or property, they should not concern themselves with him at all. He was certainly, by very shortly after we moved in, avoiding them at all costs. They reached a point where they were seeking him out to harass him.
A letter came from his school, and they berated him for several minutes about "what he had done to cause the school to send a letter home" and he was in tears before I got there to stop it. The letter was about an upcoming field trip.
We bought him a new snow board for christmas the first year we were there, and they made him cry after he opened it by saying he was spoiled and did not deserve it.
Our son never disrespected them. The only disrespect he ever showed their home was the "stolen" paperclip, and he got that only after I told him to. He did one time use their phone to call a friend, because I was gone at the time and my cell phone was the only phone we had, and he certainly NEVER did that again. They acted like he was calling in bomb threats to the local FBI.
As I said, he reached the point where they would go days without even seeing him. He stayed in his room when he was not with us, at school or with friends. If he had to go somewhere he would wait until they were occupied and rush out of the house so as not to encounter them. When we finally moved out, we did so strictly because it was not fair to him to live that way. It changed him, and how he felt about his Grandparents.
We had some problems with them as well, though I am not sure how it could have gone any differently.
Things like their driving (we were able to get her to stop shortly after we moved in, to the appreciation of the rest of the community, but they were not happy about it), Mom's medicine, which she was unable to take correctly, etc. Dad was fixing plumbing problems by wrapping towels and duct tape around pipes. The roof was leaking and he was patching it with garbage bags and caulk. Dad was testing for leaks in the propane tank by running a lighter around the outside and waiting to see a flash. He drove his skid steer through the barn because he was confused about what gear he was in.
Frankly, no one realized just how bad things were until we got there. They were often angry and resentful when we tried to help them deal with these issues. It did cause conflict.
Anyway, we stayed for longer than we had planned because we did not feel we could leave. After 2 years, we just could not subject our son to the treatment he was receiving. Mom was placed in a nursing home shortly after we moved out. I had continued to go over every day to care for her, but I could not keep it up because of my business hours, hours I did not have to work when we lived there, but needed to when we were paying for our own home.
During the entire time we were there, they were telling all their friends and family what a hardship it was having us there....our son was just out of control and spoiled, he stole things (paperclips and strawberries!) and we were trying to take over control of their lives. Those who knew the situation ignored it, but many did not and felt that we were horrible people who moved back to leach off of them and take over their vast fortune. It was very hurtful, and changed a lot of relationships.
We moved a few miles away, but knew that we did not want to keep the house we had purchased once my son was out of school. No land, and we were full on prepping by this time. Mom died in 2007, and without her pension, Dad could not afford the expenses of living at the farm.
Funny enough....guess where we are now??? Right back at my parents place. Dad was gonna have to sell it and he needed more supervision than he is willing to admit. This time though, we did it right. We bought the farm, and he has lifetime residency. We pay all the bills and do all the work. He has the downstairs. We have the upstairs. We built a family room additon on the back for ourselves.
There are still problems.
We are putting on a roof, and he is upset with how it is being done...namely that we have decided to cut down a tree that is damaging the roof and he wants the tree left there.
He is now not driving, but it was a nasty battle.
He has a tendancy to tell anyone who will listen our business. He complains about us all the time and tells people that we are running his life. He talks about our prepping and tells people we are crazy survivalists. Not good OPSEC and a constant worry to us. He is like a spider....any movement to the web and he is there to investigate! He misses nothing! Comments all the time on the mail we receive, what we spend money on, etc. Tells everyone that my DH, who is 100% disabled, is just lazy, even though he drives Dad everywhere he wants to go, whenever he wants to go and helps him with anything he is able to.
Long story short, this has been a long, hard road.
Yes, it was a blessing to have somewhere to go when we needed it, but we feel like it ended up working out better for them than it did for us in many ways! We took, and still continue to take, quite a bit of abuse.
I think society has a tendancy to think that whenever a grown child moves back home that the child is a failure and the parents generous and taken advantage of. The reality is often very different.
First of all, family is family and what is the point if they are not there to help each other through hard times? 100 years ago no one thought twice about multi generations living together.
Second, and I know this first hand....things are not always what they appear! The story about us was that my lazy husband and I moved in to take over the house and mooch off my parents while we worked to scam the system to get money so DH wouldn't have to work, making their lives hell and scamming to get the farm. They were horribly abused by us and we made out like bandits.
Now, anyone who knows the true situation does not think that, but there are many family members and family friends who heard only from my parents and believe every word. They still feel bad for my Dad that we "weaseled" or way into getting the farm, fact being we bought it fair and square and he would never have been able to continue living here without us doing that.
Bottom line, they were angry because we did take over some situations when it became obvious that they were not able to take care of things themselves. Every thing we did was in consult with my sisters, who supported us completely.
I love my Dad, and I loved my Mom, but the whole situation has been a real challenge. We made a lot of sacrafices to try and help them, just as they made sacrafices to help us when we first came out. Sadly, when you say that you live with your parents, or that you have moved back home, the norm is for everyone to pity the parents and look with contempt upon the children. Every story is different, and often the parents end up getting the better end of the deal!
Just my 2 cents!
