[john_moscow]

Keeping connection with the older generations and learning from them is important. But I don't think, nuclear families are about denying that. It's more about having enough space and freedom to see each other when you want it, but keeping off each other's backs and not letting the differences between the generations ruin your relations.

I've grown up in a typical 3-generational Russian family sharing a rather small apartment, and I can tell you, it gets on your nerves when the grandparents want to watch TV at maximum volume, while the parent is trying to catch some sleep debt and the kid (me) is doing homework in the same room. That was one of the main reasons why I decided to move to the West where having enough private space was considered to be a basic and unquestionable necessity.

Please, don't romanticize it. If our economy is changing in a way where the corporations are getting richer and richer, while the rank-and-file employees are forced to live with their parents forever and will never afford to move out, it's not cool at all. It's a sign of very serious economic troubles and we need to focus on solving them instead of trying to think of the changes in a positive way, and then wondering why is everyone depressed.

[golergka]

> I've grown up in a typical 3-generational Russian family sharing a rather small apartment, and I can tell you, it gets on your nerves when the grandparents want to watch TV at maximum volume, while the parent is trying to catch some sleep debt and the kid (me) is doing homework in the same room. That was one of the main reasons why I decided to move to the West where having enough private space was considered to be a basic and unquestionable necessity.

I've had exactly the same experience, and I only now slowly come to realise the amount of emotional abuse that is normalised in such families. Shouting and fighting (physically, with bruises and injuries) on a daily basis, belittling one another, constantly being passive aggressive in any communication, never-ending hostility towards your closest family members — it's just something that is completely normal and expected in many, many families that live like this. Even without alcohol involved.

[nojokes]

In some places where spacious apartments that were the norm 10 years have now new trend where the same bed room size apartment has gotten about 1.5 times smaller. Just the cost of the square meter is so high that even fairly high earning people could not comfortably afford them anymore.

[golergka]

I have sympathy for people who are gradually priced out of basic necessities in life, but living in a center of one of the world's busiest and most expensive cities isn't a necessity. If a person is insisting on making that choice instead of moving out, especially in a world that is moving more and more into remote work, well, it's their responsibility.

Comparing this situation with a system without private property or even ability to rent, where apartments are leased by the state through your employer and you have no choice in the matter and have to wait years in order to move is a really, really long stretch.

[thereisnospork]

>Comparing this situation with a system without private property or even ability to rent, where apartments are leased by the state through your employer and you have no choice in the matter and have to wait years in order to move is a really, really long stretch.

Why is the soft touch approach of government making housing unaffordable any different, morally?

[golergka]

Three points: about government, about unaffordability and about morality.

First, although government has some influence over a market, it's overall influence is much less than in a country without any free market whatsoever - so even if housing would be really unaffordable and it would really be morally bad, the government's responsibility for this still would be less.

Second, as I wrote in my comment above, the fact that housing is unaffordable in the centres of the most desirable cities is not the same as housing being unaffordable at all. Complaining about skyrocketing San Francisco rent prices is like complaining about expensiveness of designer clothes. If you need to shelter your body from the elements, you can always go to the noname retailer store at the mall and buy jeans for $10.

And third point is the most important point in my personal worldview, but the one that people usually don't agree with me on — that's why I base my argument on three points and not just this one. Freedom of choice and control over your fate is more important than just expected value of the outcome. A system that offers more degree of freedom and where your choice has more influence on the outcome is always more moral than a system that gives a better average outcome. So the ability to make that choice, between spacious apartment or location, or whatever, makes all the difference in the world in my eyes — and even if this system would have worse average standard of living the the communist one (which, by the way, is obviously completely the opposite), it would still be better, just for that.

[csomar]

> That was one of the main reasons why I decided to move to the West where having enough private space was considered to be a basic and unquestionable necessity.

I thought the reason these societies lived together was lack of financial means. It's not very different from where I currently live, but anybody that has enough funds to go on his own does indeed do it. It's not, in my opinion, about culture but rather it's almost impossible for a 30-year old in these countries to strike it on their own. Pay too low, and living is too expensive. They have to make it work together.

[john_moscow]

Well, the Soviet Union really tried implementing all those fair progressive ideas the West is so excited about. So the periphery, where the land was abundant, had constant shortage of food and household items. And in Moscow, that had much larger supply quotas (why wouldn't the bureaucrats think about themselves, huh?) there was a massive shortage of living space. So, to make it fair and square, apartments were allocated based on a bunch of metrics that included "square meters per registered person".

The West is doing it in a more subtle way though. There is no National Bureau of Square Foot Planning, but the educated, financially independent suburban family with savings, that is trying to pass their ways to the kids, is no longer the role model. Instead, if your parents nagged your head inside out to do homework + extracurriculars + do STEM or GTFO, instead of watching TV and eating chips, you are privileged and must be ashamed of yourself. And if you represent a culture where packed multi-generational living is OK, you get visibility and a pat on the back to keep your ways, rather than strong pressure to raise your bar and shoot for the stars.

[ponker]

We live in a 3 generational family sharing anything but a small apartment and it's absolutely wonderful. Us, the nuclear family, occupies the 3000 sqft house. My in-laws live in the guest house which is about 800 sqft. My parents live about a mile away. We see a lot of each other but everyone has their space.

[pjc50]

If you're the 1%, anything is great.

(That area of living space is almost unimaginable in the UK, I'd have to buy a disused hotel or small castle to get that)

[kimjongtrill]

That is 100% different from parent comment’s situation though...

[ponker]

Right, but my point is that “Living with parents” is a wildly different experience if you have enough space. Not a rebuttal, a different anecdote.

[buran77]

> “Living with parents” is a wildly different experience if you have enough space.

> My parents live about a mile away.

Living with parents is indeed great especially when you're not actually living with them. You live alone. In-laws in another house, parents a mile away.

Living with family means sharing the actual facilities of the house not just technically being on the same property, or in a house where you never have to cross paths. Having parents in another house on the same property doesn't mean "living together" more than a neighbor on the other side of a 30cm wall is living with you.

[GuB-42]

Totally, I spent some time with my parents, grandparents and uncle in a very large house (800 m2). We didn't even feel like we were living together, it was more comparable to living in the same apartment complex. We even had internal phone lines.

It was actually shocking to me because I usually lived with my parents in a small apartment and we were always aware of each other presence. It that big house, we actually had to do something to see each other, we could stay all day in our rooms as if we were alone if we wanted to.

[macspoofing]

... but you're not living with parents.

[0ld]

the parent comment was about a 3gen family sharing a (most likely) 17m^2 room in a 30-sh m^2 apartment, which was very common in the ussr. 6-7m^2 per person was even officially considered norm until middle 80s

[eptcyka]

What's the annual household income in that situation?

[ponker]

$400k, parents generation is retired with plenty of money. My point is more broadly that in a family where everyone can comfortably afford to live alone, living together can be massively more fun.

[xenocratus]

I think the percentage of families that earn enough for that kind of mansion is below 1%

[ponker]

More like 5%. But the fact remains that "living alone" is considered aspirational in society, and that's not axiomatic. Plenty of American adults can afford to live alone, and do, but by pooling their resources with their parents, both can live on one property and have a much richer life together than living apart. My in-laws who live on the property sold their house to help us buy the property -- we couldn't have done it by ourselves, so we really had to break down some assumptions/default behaviors about financial independence which are fairly standard in the US.