Ever since I became an adult, not like a young adult and my 20s but a more adultier adult. One who has been raising three children and had the blessing of having my parents nearby. I have often thought about sharing property with my parents. In Loxahatchee, The Acreage, Jupiter Farms, or Palm Beach Country Estates, there’s plenty of land to build a home and guest cottage for my parents. I’ve always wondered where this idea came from and then I remember growing up and hearing the story about the gate that was in my backyard.
The house that my parents bought used to belong to the daughter of the neighbor behind my parents’ home. An adorable gate connected the backyard fence. When my parents moved into their house, Mrs. Brown never put a lock on the gate. My brother and I were free to come and steal oranges from her tree, and my dad was often helping her take care of her house. I never knew what happened to her daughter or why she moved away. I just remembered that when Ms. Brown finally passed away and the new family moved in. After my brother and I went to college and moved away to start life as an adult, my parents changed the entire look of their backyard. Instead of fences where all the neighbors can see and talk to each other. Privacy fences went up. However, before the privacy fence ever went up, a lock went on the gate. It felt strange to know that we no longer had a connection to our backyard neighbors.
Now that I’m reaching my 40s and both my parents are retired. I’m wanting the connection that the former owner of my parents’ house had with her parents. My parents want to travel. That is when my dad isn’t being the most awesome PopPop daycare ever to the wild Mr. B. Part of me feels like it would be easier to share a property with them, so when they went away I could watch their dogs and their house but not miss time with my family.
Having a separate space would still give us our own freedoms and not being on top of each other. But it would still allow my children to be close to their grandparents. It will allow them to absorb all the knowledge that my dad has on fixing everything and gardening. I have no luck with fixing anything nor with gardening. Anytime I try to help my husband, I seem to harm him and whenever I plant something, it dies within days. I must either suck at picking plants or I am the exact opposite of Poison Ivy.
In the Latin cultures that a lot of the parents move in with their children as they get older. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that idea. My tiny townhouse is not ready for anything along those lines. I still like having our anonymity to have two separate households. But that’s not to say if my parents needed to move in with me, I wouldn’t be able to make it happen. I would just probably go crazy. As would they.
I have shared this idea before with friends or acquaintances from work and a few have said “Oh you would get to live in babysitters.” No, that is not what I’m looking for at all. I enjoy doing things with my children and taking them places. Family time is something I cherish. A big reason that I enjoy spending time with my kids falls back on my parents. They took my brother and I everywhere with them and I absolutely want my children to have their grandparents a part of their life just not as a caretaker. That is my job.
