Multigenerational Living as a Context for Grandchild Practices

This chapter explores the largely overlooked perspective of grandchildren within the context of multigenerational living, where three generations share time and space daily. At the same time, it provides the crucial context for the enactment of grandchild practices. This chapter aims to uncover how grandchildren perceive multigenerational living arrangements, the reasons behind these setups, and the impact of their grandparents’ daily presence. It delves into how grandchildren navigate their roles within these living arrangements, both as the youngest generation and specifically as grandchildren. The chapter examines how co-residence with grandparents shapes the grandchildren’s daily lives and their relationships with their grandparents. By focusing on the time-space intensification of grandchild-grandparent contact, the chapter argues that living under the same roof creates significant opportunities for intensive cross-generational interactions. However, this co-presence is ambivalent: while it can foster a sense of ontological security and satisfaction for grandchildren, it also challenges their privacy and creates expectations they may not wish to meet. This chapter is crucial as it addresses the gap in research on multigenerational living by highlighting the experiences and viewpoints of the youngest generation. It also lays the foundation for the analysis in Chaps. 4 , 5 , 6 , and 7 , showing how the conditions for face-to-face, one-on-one, regular, and routinized interactions and shared activities are established.