Saturday, December 3, 2016

Anthropology

Both of my children plan on getting their own places in the new year. There is talk of moving in with their significant others, although that may be down the road. Next year too, my niece who is like my third child finishes dental school and will move to the city to do her residency. She also plans to share an apartment with her significant other, who is a New Yorker born and raised. I suppose, with rents in the city so high, sharing a one bedroom is more cost effective that renting a two or three bedroom apartment with roommates. I think this explains the growing trend of twenty somethings moving in with the people they are seriously dating. They may not be quite ready for the whole nine yards, but they are comfortable with the residential commitment.

I do wonder, in a strictly anthropological way, how these joint living arrangements among young adults who are romantically involved will affect the decision of whether and when to marry. When I was in my twenties, most dating couples in the city had our own apartments, and we moved back and forth between them, but rents were more affordable then. As I recall, I paid $325 a month for my one bedroom in a very desirable part of town, right next to the university. Today, young people are gentrifying neighborhoods at monthly rents of two thousand dollars or more. So I get it. I also get that living with your significant other must feel fairly liberating after being roomies with your parents and having to let them know when you aren't coming home till the next day so your mother doesn't freak out because she at least knows you're alive.

But, you know, in my mind, my kids still look like this:






12 comments:

  1. Oh my, could they be more darling?

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  2. Yes, m'am. I get it. I look at Lily and Jessie and think, "Wait a minute. How is it that my babies have babies?"
    Ah Lord. They do grow up and the way of it is for them to leave the nest.

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  3. Those adorable children look so like the beautiful adults they have become. I completely sympathize. They are always our babies.
    Xoxo
    Barbara

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  4. One of my girlfriends from high school became a grandmother two days ago. I still picture my kids as children but they are not far from having a family of their own.

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  5. They really are the most adorable children!

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  6. More wonderful milestones though I do wonder sometimes at the cost of life in big cities ...our rents continue to rise here and we are nothing close to New York.

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  7. I love this post and that picture. I guess as mothers we will always have that mental picture of our kids being just babes.

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  8. Beautiful post. Like you, my kids look the same as yours despite the fact they are teenagers.

    Greetings from London.

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  9. I imagine cohabitation must be a challenge for any parent! It's definitely the way of the world these days, though. I think it may be a good thing, honestly, to let people get a little more mature before taking marriage vows.

    It's insane how high rents have gone, not just in New York but many major cities.

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  10. I am still asking my 30 somethings, where is your coat. Most times they ignore me, the same way I did when my mama mothered my adult self.

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  11. I'm a week behind reading but wanted to chime in on this one. First, your children are radiant, then and now. And I understand, I cannot stop mothering, and I know I am smothering my now at home again oldest as he tries to find his way, but I can't help it, nor can I help him. It's his road to travel, once he figures out which direction. But we have the same problem in the midwest, the rents are too damn high! The only way our young people can live independently is in groups, even couples struggle to meet all the expenses these days.
    My husband and I lived together for a few years, bought a house and then got married, so the casual cohabitation worked out for us :) I hope everything works out well for our grown babies too. xo

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