Nearly every evening after dinner, Mary and Melissa Anderson walked together along the rural road stretching out from their home.
The one-mile journey amid groves of walnut trees became a safe space for mother and daughter. The walk was always the same, to the nearest stop sign and back, but the conversations ranged wide and deep. But now I get to know her like this.
But for some lucky families, the unexpected time together often felt like a gift, a bonus year to bond with parents and siblings. And for the luckiest, like the Andersons, that time was a revelation. Melissa, 29, is the third of four daughters. But over several months, the three Andersons formed a bond that more resembles a friendship among peers than a parent-child relationship. During a stressful year, they took care of one another.
Melissa became so comfortable living with her parents that a few months ago, as her friends began to get vaccinated and resume a somewhat normal life in L. Unlike so many stories about the pandemic, the recent movement of adult children home is often a joyful one. Americans traded their independent lifestyles for shared movie nights, exercise buddies and dinners around the table.
Many, for the first time, tried a kind of intergenerational living far more common in other countries β and liked it. For decades, the percentage of young adults in the U. The practice became especially widespread during the Great Recession, but continued to climb even after the economy bounced back. Jeffrey Arnett, a Clark University psychology professor who studies young adults, said the shift is due to young adults more frequently delaying marriage till their 30s and spending more years in school.
