Full houses: A steady number of Texas and U.S. households are home to several branches of the family tree
PrintOct. 25--Three years ago Rahyab and Katherine Arif did what some people might consider unthinkable.
They sold their northwest Houston home, persuaded Katherine's mother, Joanne Cheng, to sell her home, and all three purchased a house together. They share their four-bedroom Sugar Land home with the Arifs' 13-year-old son and Joanne's 17-year-old daughter. And there's also Ernie, the family's basset hound.
Traditional family? Maybe not. But the Arifs and Chengs have a household that's more common than you think. About 4 million American households are multigenerational, meaning they have three or more generations living under the same roof, according to the 2008 American Community Survey released last month by the U.S. Census Bureau. About 4.5 percent of Texas households are multigenerational, the third-highest percentage in the nation, the survey said.
While the number of multigenerational households has remained steady since the 2000 Census, sociologists and demographers say they expect to see an increase. Immigration and out-of-wedlock childbearing generally spur high rates of multigenerational households in certain geographical areas, and they will continue to be factors, experts said.
What's pushing the trend now is the recession and baby boomers. With layoffs and furloughs, people are moving back in with their parents or other family members to save money. Also, many baby boomers are taking care of their elderly parents as the cost of long-term care soars. Baby boomers themselves are growing old, too. Their children will be preparing to take care of them, experts said.
"People are going back to living the way they did in the beginning of the 20th century," said Ray Eve, head of the sociology department at the University of Texas at Arlington.
Eve said economics was a driving factor then, just like it is now. It's a trend not lost on developers. Some home builders are starting to design with multigenerational families in mind, real estate agents said. Builders are designing floor plans with two master suites.
Not always easy
Rahyab, 32, pitched the idea of having his mother-in-law share a home with his family to save time and money. The Arifs and Joanne spent many nights at each other's houses for family dinners that often turned into late-night planning meetings for a new family venture, an event-planning business.
"It was easier and better to put all the powers to be under one house," Rahyab said. "We could pool our resources and put them in one direction."
Katherine, 32, said the decision wasn't easy. She said her mother didn't think she could live with the couple. One reason: She eats mostly Chinese food, and her son-in-law, who is half Pakistani and half black, eats mostly meat and potatoes.
But Rahyab made some concessions for the "Queen Bee," as he sometimes likes to call his mother-in-law. In the beginning, he ate a lot of Chinese food and even ate his morning cereal out of a small Chinese bowl, he said.
"In this house, there were three spoons and three bowls this big," he said, cupping his hands. "I said, 'What I'm I supposed to do? Eat my cereal with chopsticks? Where are all the spoons, forks and knives?' They never had them."
The family just recently bought new dishes and flatware, he said.
The arrangement, however, has worked out well for everyone because they all support each other, the family members said. When the Arifs are unable to pick up their son, Quinten, from school, Joanne is always there to help out. When Joanne can't relate to the teenage angst of her daughter Bonnie, Katherine steps in to bridge the gap.
Household finances are shared. Joanne, 56, pays the mortgage, and the Arifs take care of everything else. Chores are loosely divided. Bonnie and Katherine do most of the cooking. Rahyab makes sure the children do their homework and helps with the laundry. The family rule is if you make a mess, you clean it up.
The family said they have some minor challenges. Katherine said there's less privacy and lots of compromising. Bonnie said living with her older sister is like having two mothers, and that her sister is sometimes more strict than her mother.
"Although we have our ups and downs, I still think it was a good idea," said Rahyab, who is expected to graduate from the Harris County Sheriff's Academy in February. "It's brought us closer together."
The family's living situation has been met with approval from most relatives and friends, they said. Rahyab said some of his single friends said they can't fathom living with in-laws, yet they still live at home with their parents.
"All of my friends think I'm so lucky," said Joanne, a leader in Houston's Chinese community.
Arrangement's benefits
Studies show some physical and psychological benefits for multiple generations living together, sociologists said.
People who live with relatives tend to have better health and are less suicidal. Children are also less likely to be delinquent because they have additional family members to nurture and take care of them, they said.
Society has had a long fascination with the idea of the traditional family -- father, mother and children -- but the reality is it has never really existed, said Holly Heard, a sociology professor at Rice University.
People often have lived with extended family members, and they do more so now than 20 years ago, Heard said.
For the early part of the 20th century to the 1950s, multigenerational households were fairly common. After World War II, people became more affluent, and family members moved out because they could afford to live on their own. A shift began to occur in the 1980s, when the recession hit, sociologists said.
More recently with the current recession and an increasingly aging population, the trend has become noticeable in the real estate market. Local agents said that over the past two years, more clients want to buy houses that will accommodate their parents. They're looking for houses with master suites downstairs or houses that can be remodeled to create a second suite, they said.
Jacci Kilgore, an agent with Re/Max in The Woodlands, said she recently sold a house to a couple who plans to relocate their elderly parents from Oklahoma to live with them. The seller of the house was downsizing because their parents who lived with them had died, Kilgore said.
renee.lee@chron.com
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