Create a Better Family Unit
by Cathy Wagner - posted June 21, 2019

One thing that became very clear to me when I was raising my kids is: our traditional family unit of one mom and one dad trying to manage and provide everything their kids need is not actually sustainable for many people in our modern world. In reality, it creates a very stressful lifestyle for parents that is passed onto kids as a lack of time, money or presence.

Think about it. Maybe one parent stays at home while the other works, which is a practical choice for some homes when the cost of child care is factored in. The parent that is home spends all day doing the work of child care and can be very eager for the other to come home, just so they can have someone to talk to who's not wearing a diaper. The parent that works, worked hard all day and is in need of down time, not necessarily kids and an understandably needy partner. With both parents spent at the end of the day (and this is amplified with families where both parents work), the focus becomes feeding everyone, getting the kids bathed and homework, if applicable, before it is that magical time of day, bed time. Not a very relaxing evening. Add into this any number of additional stresses, like a car repair, illness or job loss, and it's hard to believe anyone could maintain this kind of pace for 18 years.

And how do our children perceive this madness? Certainly by the time they are teenagers, it's clear that a lot kids think their parents are nuts. Could that be because they've watched us run around like maniacs trying to pay the bills, keep the car running, and feed the kids, often to the detriment of our health and relationships? Could it be because, even with all this effort, we still sometimes fail to show up for the sporting event or recital that means so much to our child because we had to work? Or worse, we are so caught up in our responsibilities that we lose touch with what's going on with our kids all together?

Is there a better way? I think there is.

Imagine this: Two families living together in a 4-bedroom home that includes one bedroom for each set of parents, plus one room for boys and the other for girls. In many cases, the expense of a 4-bedroom living space is not double what a single family would pay; it might be 150% of what one family might normally pay, but with two sets of parents, the household income would be 200%. Even better than both families saving on the cost of living, no one parent would be bearing a full half of the household responsibilities; you could have two stay home parents and two bread winners, which means the stay home parents would feel more supported by sharing the daily load and if one of the bread winners were to get sick or lose their job, there would still be income flowing into the home. And best of all, each set of parents would be much more free to do things together without having to hire a babysitter, which would further reduce their stress and make each relationship stronger.

A lot of people will resist a concept like this and come up with all kinds of reasons why it can't work, but I am guessing those same people might wonder why their kids think money is the most important thing in the world. The truth is, this is what we teach our children when we "can't do that because we don't have the money", or we "can't be there for you because we have to work", or we are cranky and lose our temper over something silly just because we have so much pressure and weight on our shoulders. They learn that they are not as important as money.

In today's world, it's hard to avoid this kind of harsh reality, but we have the power to change it. We just need to start thinking outside of the box.