We’re living around 30 years longer than our ancestors did, in the West, just 120 years ago. We haven’t been here before as a species – meaning, living this long, and able-bodied, on average.
As I write, in 2025, Australia and other Western countries have fallen into a housing and aged-care crisis. This multifaceted reality is likely here to stay.
Decades ago, my friends and I joked that we could never live in multigenerational homes like our collective-culture Asian neighbours do. Now, I am asking myself, what the likelihood is of my kids (21, 17, 15) moving out after high school or university just like their euro-centric individualistic-culture parents and grandparents did. The answer to that question right now, and the foreseeable future, according to researchers, the news, and for many of my peers, is that we better be prepared to share a home with one another for longer. The world has changed. The individualistic lifestyle many of our Boomer and Silent Generation parents enjoyed doesn’t exist anymore. Consider alone the global population growth from an estimated 2.5 billion people in 1950 to an estimated 9.7 billion in 2050. That is nearly 400% increase within a century. The old social contract is defunct. Many of us will need to get back to multigenerational, extended-family, and shared living.
Considering the complex economic and lifestyle impact in this emerging scenario is helpful, but I am asking myself some deeper, more heart-felt questions which I am hardly seeing voiced.
For example, “Am I the sort of soul that can live in a multigenerational home?” “Will my kids want me around and will I be able to love, treat, and meet them adult-to-adult as they move into adulthood and possible parenthood?” “What will my place in society be , as an older person?” “Would I be willing to adjust or drop career choices a decade from now and actively help raise grandchildren?” Economically, I am asking, “How will my kids be able to afford a home of their own because house prices now are close to eight times the annual salary when their parents and grandparents bought homes at three to four times their annual salary.” And “Will I and other renters be able to afford to live independently ?”
I am speaking to peers in a similar life-stage, and many of them are adjusting their homes and expectations to accommodate kids living at home a lot longer. Race, class, gender, location, education, ability, and economic factors all impact what this looks like. However, when I ask them if they think they are the sort of people their kids will want to live with (and vice-versa) very few of them confess to have considered the adjustments that need to be made to their inner castle – meaning, their heart, character, and maturity.
Mark my words, this economic and housing situation will be forcing many people, young and old, to deal with their unhealed and unhelpful ways of being. The family trances and dysfunction that many have been conveniently distanced from in decades past are going to break. And it won’t be pretty at first. Just ask those from other cultures who have been forced into multigenerational homes for centuries if it is a bed of roses, and many will tell you it can be a confronting bed of nails too.
In part, this emerging lifestyle reality is one of several reasons for my recent ponderings, and the book I’m currently writing on eldering. The consumerist, ego-centric, endless-summer, extended-immaturity that masses before us got away with is coming to a timely end. And it’s important to note that these easy-independent-living choices ended for many marginalised persons some time ago.
As we adjust our housing and lifestyle expectations for the coming season, may we also remember that we all live from the inner landscape of our illuminous souls. May we have the courage to ask ourselves, “Does my soul have room for others – or is it cluttered with petty pursuits, closet filled skeletons, and rugs burgeoning with too-hard-to-face things we swept aside?”
– David Tensen
—–
📚If you’d like stay informed about the books release and opportunity to be part of its formation, please visit this google form