Joint families – is the trend back?

My dad and mom were raised in a joint family. I grew up in nuclear. My kid is being raised in a join family. Are we coming full circle? Well, looks like to me…

Women have started taking up various roles in the corporate world to share the financial burden with their husbands. With the growing crime rate it is generally not considered safe to leave your house and kids to the mercy and care of maids or house-helps. Even if house-helps do ease a lot of burden on the lady of the house, it is always safe to have your family members, elders be in-charge while you are away. Therefore more and more people, specially young couples starting a new family are seeking help from elders. Co-families are also a common sight where two families co-exist in a symbiotic fashion – sharing chores, responsibilities and at times even financial stuff.

Some of the advantages for living a joint family that I see are:

a. Balance between house hold chores and office work for ladies. Symbiosis, what else?

b. Help with nurturing kids!

c. Help with finances. In most co-families, monthly expenditure is also shared. I have a friend in Bangalore who lives in a joint family of herself, her husband and kids along with her sister, sister’s husband and kids. They have devised a method for sharing monthly expenditure – supplies, rent and essentials for the whole family are budgeted from joint finance. Personal expenditure and the money spent on kids education etc is handled by individual families. Works well for both.

So what do you think? Are joint families the new “in” thing? How about the challenges of living in joint families?