• e-mail

The average household used to be a married couple with two children but today it’s no longer the norm: some people are single, some have children by several partners, while others find themselves living back with their parents. So how do we create happiness and harmony in the new domestic setup? Barbara Toner outlines the options

Living with parents

Baby-boomer parents make accommodating housemates (and moving out is ridiculously expensive). The drawback is that your parents will want to know far more about your personal life than you may like, and you will remain a child in their eyes, even though you are 42 and responsible for the company payroll. Parents who lay down the law bring out the worst in everyone, so here is how you can help ensure fair play:

Pay board. The amount should cover at least a little more than your expenses. You may be out for most meals and only use electricity for charging your phone and computer, but think of what you’re saving. Board won’t buy you an equal say, but it will confirm your adult status. It will also indicate respect for your parents.
Notify parents if you plan to come home early, late or not at all, or you will be accused of treating the place like a hotel.

If you can’t keep your room tidy, at least close the door. And make an effort to confine your mess to your room, as your parents will have reached that point in their lives where another adult’s mess is unacceptable, especially if it includes shoes.

Return items to their original spot or your parents will phone you at work or ask you to come home to find them.

Try not to talk to your parents as though they are morons. You may know a great deal more than they do about some things, but they will know a great deal more than you about everything else.
l Keep the noise down. You will probably be observing different hours, so respect theirs before expecting them to respect yours.

Talk to them. Not about stuff you consider to be none of their business, but about the bits of your life that are interesting, so they have something to discuss when you’re not home.

Reach an agreement about having sex in your bedroom – which will never be far enough away from your parents for comfort. Under no circumstances should they be made aware that you are having it.

Living with housemates

Housemates may be friends or they may not know each other before they begin living together.  They have sole responsibility for themselves but equal responsibility for the running of the house. You need to take a good, hard look at what that will entail before committing yourself to a particular place. Note especially the cleanliness of communal areas, the size of your bedroom, traffic through the bathroom/s and condition of the fridge. Sniff as you walk around and be alert to the odour of old clothes, mouldy food, cigarettes and takeaways. All are indicators of the household’s living standards and the degree to which they might coincide with your own. If you decide to move in:

Get everything in writing; most significantly, what the rent is, when it’s due, who pays the utility bills and how they are paid. Pay rent by direct debit to avoid any timing disputes.

Agree on chores: who cleans communal areas and when.

Be nice. Overly assertive isn’t attractive in a newcomer.

If something bugs you, such as people taking your food without asking or boyfriends or girlfriends overstaying their welcome, say so.

If saying so gets you nowhere, take stock. How bad is the situation really? Weigh giving in against checking out.

Have sex with a housemate only if you appreciate that it can lead to regret so enormous that one of you has to move out.

Living with a boyfriend

Moving in with your beau is much more complicated than anyone ever wants it to be, because there’s always the unresolved issue of the ‘time frame’.

Not all marriages last a lifetime – the average first marriage in the UK is reckoned to last 11 years – but a wedding does entail a commitment to stay together until it becomes intolerable.

Moving in with someone you’re sleeping with entails a commitment to stay together as long as it’s convenient. Ending it can feel just as awful as a divorce, so before you transfer so much as a decent coffee maker out of your own place and into another’s, ask yourself the following questions:

Whose home are you living in? Whose pictures go on the walls? Whose books go on the shelves?

If one of you has a mortgage on the house or flat, should the other pay rent? And does that then make you mainly a lodger or mainly a partner?

If one earns much more than the other, should household expenses be shared equally?

How much independence is acceptable in this arrangement? Are your expectations of what it’s offering the same?

Living with a husband

A marriage has in its favour an intention of long-term stability, but even the most successful marriages are a fine balance between misery and satisfaction. This important ratio, as estimated by me, ought never to be less than 55 per cent satisfaction to 45 per cent misery, though there will be rare days with 100 per cent misery or contentment.
If you are miserable and your partner is equally miserable, maybe what you need is more realistic expectations. Here’s my check list: 

Respect each other’s differences, especially if you see them as weaknesses. If, under pressure, one of you is short-tempered and the other sulks, or one of you always shouts and the other always stalks out, there’s not much point in hoping it will be otherwise.

Respect each other’s strengths. If one is better at money/cooking/car maintenance/speaking sensitively to the children, then give the job to them.

Don’t compete over who’s more exhausted. Neither of you deserves more rest than the other, the exception being pregnant women and new mothers.

Don’t compete, full stop.

Don’t argue over money; preferably not over sex, religion or politics either – but especially not money. Reach an agreement from the outset in the full understanding that what comes into the household should serve the household’s needs first and individuals’ needs second. There’s nothing worse than the sense of injustice caused by a tightwad about the place.

Living with children

People with children may be couples who have had children together, couples who have had children with other people, or couples who have had children with each other as well as with other people. Each of these households will have specific requirements but the relationship and ratio of parents to children ought not to affect the basic rules. These are:

Always enforce the rules you have made, even if it’s in the middle of the night and you’ve barely slept for three months.

Those worth enforcing include no lying, no stealing, no being where you’re not supposed to be, no physical violence, and a little bit of respect if you don’t mind, please.

Remember that acceptable behaviour changes according to the age and needs of the child, so adapt rules sensibly. Not eating between meals may be a good rule one year for one child but may not necessarily be a good rule all the time or for all children.

Living with adult children

There is huge pleasure to be had by parents from the company of their adult children, but accommodating them also requires difficult compromises. Success in this household will depend on the goodwill of everyone involved – on children appreciating the benevolence of their parents and on parents not rubbing their children’s noses in it. Rules for parents as opposed to rules for their adult children are as follows:

Trust your children. Unless you have good reason not to, assume they can make their own decisions and that they won’t be placing themselves in risky or ill-advised situations just for the hell of it. Even if they do, trust them to get themselves out of them. You raised them so they should be properly equipped.

Don’t overstep the mark when it comes to taking an interest in their work (calling their boss), friends (inviting yourself on their outings) or love life (flirting or arguing with their dates).

You aren’t their best friend, you are their parent. There is a difference and, although it’s a narrow one, it’s there for life.

Try not to nag. Agree on the rules, and if they aren’t respected negotiate a settlement that involves them leaving home so that they can please themselves.

Having agreed that they may live at home, either set a time limit or decide this is a great arrangement all round
and enjoy it. 

Living with elderly parents

However cosy the idea may seem of a grandparent living in the bosom of the family and imparting infinite wisdom to small children, the reality is, well, less cosy.

Elderly parents mostly move in with their adult children in a crisis – when they have become ill or had a fall and
are unable to stay in their own home. It isn’t usually planned, and it becomes long term or permanent only when it’s acknowledged that the parent is too frail to live alone again and the idea of a nursing home is untenable.

There’s no denying the disruption to the household. The adult child and their partner may be thrust into the role of carers, which can entail 24-hour alertness and anxiety. Meanwhile, most elderly parents will feel torn between relief that they are now in safe and loving hands and guilt for the trouble they believe they are causing. Should you be in a position to care for an elderly parent, remember the following:

Once the immediate crisis has passed, discuss the options openly. Your elderly parent may not want to live with you for the rest of his or her life. They might want all avenues for everyone’s future contentment
to be explored.

Don’t presume.

Don’t patronise.

Don’t ignore.

Get help in the event of an elderly parent’s extreme dependence.

Take time out.

Living with in-laws

In-laws are sometimes loving, sometimes strange, sometimes the enemy. Usually they are capable of being all three. 

The catch with in-laws is the exquisite tension created by the belief that you each have first claim on the person common to you. You have to be grown-up about this. Should you be a parent-in-law, you must step back and acknowledge that your child has created a domestic unit of their own and that you have no automatic rights once invited inside it. If you’re a child-in-law, you need to know that your partner’s parents don’t actually wish you ill; they just want the best for their offspring and it’s hard for them to accept that you are it.

All parties should remember the following:

Asking the person common to you to choose between you is criminal, no matter how disguised the request.

Under no circumstances should you gang up against an in-law.

The person common to both should allow the parties on either side to form their own relationship without intercession, as any interception will almost certainly end in tears.

Living alone

Contrary to general expectations, most people living on their own are happy and not prone to feelings of isolation. Elderly women are the largest group of single-person householders, most closely followed by middle-aged men whose marriages have failed. Also prominent are singletons who haven’t found love, prefer their own company, or are delaying committing to a relationship. Despite the differences in personal situations, the rules for all occupants of single-person households are the same:

Live within your means. Without someone else to watch your spending, you must watch it yourself.

Avoid slovenliness. You need visitors, so wash up more than once a week, dust, clean the bathroom and recycle newspapers.

Get out of the house or people will assume you’re a freak. If you hate going out, make a point of phoning at least one person a day to ask them about themselves. Self-centredness is unavoidable when you live by yourself.

Look in the mirror. Check yourself for a dirty face, clothes on inside out, matted hair at the back of your head and anything else a housemate may notice before allowing you to appear in public

This is an extract from What To Do About Everything: a Manual for Domestic Life by Barbara Toner, published by Hardie Grant Books, £18.99. To order a copy for £15.49 with free p&p, contact the YOU Bookshop on 0845 155 0711, you-bookshop.co.uk

For more advice and to leave your tips, visit whattodoabouteverything.com