GEORGETTE DUCHAÎNE: France, how did your family come to intergenerational housing?
FRANCE BENOÎT: This story begins with my sister Caroline. She and her husband Stéphane had decided to build a house here in Marieville where our parents would live with them. Our parents, who were 73 and 70 years old and in good health, we’re beginning to find their house too big to maintain. This is where my cousin Mario comes in. He proposes to enlarge the house he already occupies with his family and add two apartments. It was this project that won. This is where we are now and where I live when I come to see my family. It’s amazing. I don’t have to go far: everyone lives under the same roof!
GD: And for you Antoinette, how did it go?
ANTOINETTE RIZZOTTI: For me, it happened much like for France. Initially, I had decided to find a house where my parents and I were going to live together. I thought about old age, about the illness that was sure to come, and I told myself that life would be much simpler if we lived together.
GD: But this formula of cohabitation, had you already seen it somewhere?
AR: Yes, in my family in Italy, where I saw my grandmother living with my aunt. For me, it was natural. What’s new about our situation is that we all have our own apartment but under the same roof.
FB: My sister Caroline discovered intergenerational cohabitation in Vietnam, where she was able to observe the advantages for parents, children, and grandchildren. She was amazed and told herself that one day she would do the same.
TIMINGS
AR: In my story, it was my brother who came into the picture. He wanted to be part of the project and proposed that we build a house. At first, he wanted common spaces, like the kitchen, but I objected and we finally built a triplex. What an adventure to find land on the island of Montreal and to face all the vagaries of construction! But anyway, we’ve been there for seven years already.
FB: Us, it’s only been seven months. So you have a lot more experience than me.
AR: Today everything is fine. Our way of life is settled, but I must say that at the beginning my parents did not accept the idea with enthusiasm. We had to convince them.
GD: What caught the most?
AR: Living in a new neighborhood. My mother had her habits and especially her friends where she lived. She was afraid of losing them because of the distance.
GD: Did that happen?
AR: No, the fears were unfounded and now that they are 83 and 78 years old, they are very happy with their decision.
PROXIMITY
GD: The experience seems positive for both of you, but can you tell me more specifically what the advantages of intergenerational cohabitation are?
FB: Although I live here sporadically, do not suffer all the disadvantages and do not benefit from all the opportunities for family reunions, I have found that the fact of being able to have the children even twenty minutes, just to do the shopping, considerably improves the quality of life. My sister Caroline can ask mom to babysit Justin, the little Korean they adopted, and go away with peace of mind. There are also Mario’s two little girls who come to play with him. He always greets them with cries of joy. It’s as if he had sisters. My dad also often plays with Justin, but the beauty of it is that he only has to walk a few steps to get home when he’s tired.
There are other advantages. Caroline, who took time off from work to be with Justin, admits she sometimes misses adult company. When that happens, she can call her parents because they are only a few meters away. Visiting has never been so easy.
AR: We only have one child in our three families together, my brother’s son who just turned eighteen. In the beginning, the closeness of the grandparents was great and I must add that we saw him grow every day, which is rather rare.
In terms of food, I like cohabitation. We share the shopping, we eat and we cook together. Recently, my nephew asked my mother to show him how to make gnocchi. I’m not sure that would have happened if we were living apart. So I can add that it ensures the transmission of culture. And that family gnocchi deserve to survive from one generation to the next!
VIGILANCE
FB: I wouldn’t want to sound like a spy, but seeing the parents on a daily basis helps to monitor their health closely. At this level, we are privileged because Caroline is a nurse.
AR: You are right. Medication is a big concern for me. I follow the prescriptions and check to see if they are taking the pills at the prescribed frequency. The truth is, they don’t always think about it.
GD: You are telling me that there is a certain vigilance to be observed.
FB: We seem to watch them and not be ‘restful’, but in fact, we just say that living under the same roof is good for everyone’s health. We see it when someone is not in good shape and we can intervene if necessary. Vigilance is somehow reassuring.
AR: I also noticed that I go out with my parents more than before. For example, I invite them when I go to the cinema simply because they are there, very close.
FB: It’s true that physical closeness leads to social and emotional closeness.
AR: Yes! I have deepened my relationship with my parents and we even hug each other every day. At first, they thought it was very weird when I asked them, but now they can’t live without it, and neither can I.
A TRADITION IN EUROPE AND ASIA
Several studies have highlighted the role of culture on the possibilities and dispositions of parents and children to live under the same roof.
Intergenerational cohabitation is the norm and common practice in southern Europe, as in Italy to take Antoinette’s example, or in Southeast Asia, in reference to the influences of the family in France, where more than three-quarters of the elderly live with one or more of their children. Where intergenerational cohabitation constitutes a tradition, it is generally considered by the “big” children as an opportunity to share and reverberate the love received during their lives.
In Quebec, intergenerational dedication is no exception. We see it emerge spontaneously in the presence of handicaps or illnesses. But it is clear that beyond medical or compassionate situations, intergenerational cohabitation is increasingly established. It is in a way upstream of the notion of a natural caregiver. Before being a caregiver, you are a roommate.