Martha Plimpton Quotes

There can be problems with extended families, and it can get a little close for comfort. But for the younger generations, it's clear that this option is becoming almost as appealing as living alone.

A tiny apartment might hold three generations of an immigrant family.

I shared a room with my parents until I was 7, and I lived with my uncles and aunts and my cousins and my grandfather... so the house was always full of people.

I grew up with all my cousins. The men worked, and the older women raised us - my mother, my aunt, my grandmother. My great-grandmother was the matriarch, and sometimes there were 30 of us.

The concept of the strong linkage to the family is breaking down in Western nations.

Most people no longer live in nuclear families at all.

The mother-in-law is the centre of a family.

In Asia, it's customary to get together with your entire extended family on a regular basis, and it's all rife with politics.

I was brought up to look after my parents. My family were Polish Jews, and we lived with my grandmother, with uncles and aunts and cousins all around, and I thought everybody lived like that.

My son has one parent who's 50. I want him to have a family of young people, too!

In most places and times in human history, babies have had not just one person but lots of people around who were really paying attention to them around, dedicated to them, cared to them, were related to them. I think the big shift in our culture is the isolation in which many children are growing up.

I was one of six kids; my grandmother lived with us. We had an aunt who used to have nerves, and all her kids would turn up and live with us.

As the Japanese family gets more and more atomized, grandparents don't live with the nuclear family, so parents of children can't consult with their own parents about how to raise their children and rely on that to help raise them.

Almost 40% of all young adults are living with their parents. This is a 75-year high in America. Forty percent of young adults are living with their parents. I see stuff like this, and I think it's a good thing I didn't become a parent, because if that were happening to me, you wouldn't want to be my kid.

Two women can't share a house comfortably, no matter how fond they might be of each other. It's got to be one woman's kitchen.

My mum came from an incredibly big family.

I come from a big extended family, so it's very normal to be around babies for us, but when it's your own, it's a very different experience for us.

There are five members in my family.

I bet I would make a really good daughter-in-law.

My mother and father have been fantastic help and a huge support for me. Like any other family, though, we have our moments, living and working together.

Roommate struggles are real.

I was born and raised in Southall; we had two houses which we made into one big one because there were 12 of us living there: me and my bro, my parents, my grandparents, and my dad's brother's family.

In our culture, when the parents are having a tough time, the grandparents take care of the kids.

I wanted to write about extended family systems. You have people you can fall back on, and it's good. But what if you don't fit into what is expected of you?

My dad was the 10th of 11 children. My mother has three brothers. My dad was a salesman, my mum was a school nurse.