— My daughter and her husband have always lived separately! Wait, how many years have we been living just the two of us with my husband? Since the spring of 2011, seven and a half years! Our apartment is small, just a two-bedroom. We renovated it to suit our needs—not anything fancy, of course, but we freshened up the interior. We put up new wallpaper, whitewashed the ceilings, and laid down laminate flooring. We even got a proper bed for the bedroom; we’d been sleeping on a sofa our whole lives… And then my daughter calls and announces—guess what, she and Michael have been thinking and decided they want to move in with you! You don’t mind, do you?
In the half-empty, dazzlingly white lobby of the local clinic, two women around sixty were sitting on a small sofa near one of the consultation rooms, quietly catching up on the latest news.
— No way! — the other woman exclaimed. — Talk about trouble out of nowhere! Why on earth did they decide to crash at their parents’ place like that? They were so independent before, practically ran off from home at twenty, and now, look at them—“can we move in with you?” What’s going on?
— Nothing dramatic, really, — the storyteller sighed. — It’s just that they need to sort out their housing situation once and for all! How long can they keep renting from strangers? The landlord just raised their rent again, and there’s nothing they can do about it—don’t like it, get out. Finding a new place to rent isn’t so easy either. You have to pay the agent, leave a deposit, and move all your stuff from one place to another…
— They don’t have kids yet, do they?
— Kids? In a rented apartment, Sarah? That’s why my daughter’s so stressed; she’s already thirty. They’ve been talking about getting a mortgage from the start. Even before the wedding, they planned to save for a down payment, but life got in the way. One thing after another—dental bills, or my daughter was out of work for six months, through no fault of her own, just how things turned out. So time keeps passing, and they’re still in that same rented apartment, paying, mind you, an outrageous amount…
— Outrageous, as in how much?
— Well, now it’s up to thirty thousand, and it was a bit less before. Over seven years, just think how much money they’ve poured into that black hole! It’d be enough for half an apartment… I get it, Sarah, I really do, but I so don’t want to live with the kids right now, you have no idea! My husband and I have our own routine now. I go to bed early, I can’t sleep with the light on, but he’s either reading half the night or watching some show. How are we supposed to share one room? I can’t even watch TV in peace…
— Yeah, that’s a problem! And this isn’t just for a short while, is it? It’s for years?
— Of course, not just a year. My daughter says they’ll try to save as fast as they can. Live on her salary and put his aside. But even so, it’ll take three or four years, at least. And how many years do we even have left…
— Then just tell your daughter straight up that you and your husband don’t want them moving in on top of you! What’s wrong with that? You need to think about yourselves. Doesn’t she realize that living with grown kids in your old age is a recipe for disaster? You’ll all end up fighting…
— My daughter says she and her husband are barely home anyway. They come back in the evening, grab a quick bite, and go to bed. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad in that routine… But then again, I go to bed at ten these days, and that’s exactly when they’ll get home from work, turn on the water, start clanging pots and pans. You can’t relax in your own home!
— Can’t the in-laws help out?
— The in-laws have a three-bedroom place, but Michael’s brother lives there with his wife and kid. There’s definitely no room for our kids. My husband says we’ll probably have to make space… But I just don’t want to, plain and simple! Still, it’s probably wrong to refuse your own daughter, right? Especially since she’s technically registered at our apartment…
What do you think—is the daughter really in the wrong here? Not just dropping in on her parents like that, but dragging her husband along too! They’re adults; they should solve their own problems instead of clinging to their elderly parents…
Or are the parents the ones in the wrong? They sent their daughter off at twenty with a suitcase to get married, and they didn’t lose any sleep over it! They did their little renovation for themselves, how nice… Frankly, they didn’t set their kid up for success, so they should step up now. Help however they can. Plus, the daughter is still registered at their apartment…
Whose side are you on? What’s your take?
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