Text: Pau­li Määt­tä

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

A ye­ar ago our son sug­ges­ted that he could bring his fa­mi­ly to live in our home of­fi­ce for as long as they were buil­ding their new hou­se. That me­ant we had to start cle­a­ring the room.

Over the ye­ars we had sto­red a lar­ge and ver­sa­ti­le se­lec­ti­on of things in that room. The fur­ni­tu­re had come from my workp­la­ce. For about 20 ye­ars I had been plan­ning to fix some of it, but now I had to haul most of it to the was­te tre­at­ment cen­ter.

And what about the do­zens of file fol­ders? They were most­ly in a usab­le con­di­ti­on, but no­bo­dy wan­ted them. And their con­tents? My lec­tu­re no­tes from 45 ye­ars ago. I gu­ess they were a bit out­da­ted. How about my work pa­pers span­ning 5 de­ca­des? Sou­ve­nirs from va­ri­ous trips? And wrap­ping pa­per from Christ­mas pre­sents? The sli­des from a clo­set were pac­ked in suit­ca­ses and mo­ved to a dif­fe­rent room.

Then there were the re­ceipts of our life from the time when eve­ryt­hing was prin­ted on pa­per. I even found a re­ceipt for an ex­ca­va­ti­on pro­ject done by our son-in-law’s grand­fat­her. The son-in-law had not even been born then.

So­me­how we ma­na­ged to emp­ty the room, and our son’s fa­mi­ly mo­ved in. We had three ge­ne­ra­ti­ons li­ving in the hou­se.

That ac­tu­al­ly used to be qui­te com­mon in the old days, es­pe­ci­al­ly in the count­ry. The grand­pa­rents hel­ped around in the hou­se and on the farm and then en­jo­yed full-time care when they grew ol­der and we­a­ker. It was a use­ful way to live, but al­so de­man­ding.

It was good to have so much space in the hou­se that we could all spend time to­get­her, but each per­son could al­so en­joy some pri­va­cy. My wife and I slept well be­cau­se we had good wal­ls and did not hear the baby crying. Na­tu­ral­ly we had to make comp­ro­mi­ses. For ins­tan­ce, we had been used to switc­hing off the lights that we did not need. Now we had a three-ye­ar-old who switc­hed on all pos­sib­le lights first thing in the mor­ning and re­fu­sed to switch them off. We spent a lot of wa­ter and elect­ri­ci­ty, with the dish­was­her and the was­hing-mac­hi­ne doing many lo­ads a day. On the ot­her hand, when we came home from our ca­bin one day so­me­o­ne had fi­xed the plum­bing that had nee­ded fi­xing for ye­ars.

The cat that we had had for a long time was not used to small child­ren. For the whole ye­ar we had to pro­tect the child­ren from the cat and the ot­her way round. Luc­ki­ly, not­hing se­ri­ous hap­pe­ned.

This kind of joint li­ving had be­ne­fits for both par­ties. When the buil­ders had things to do at the site or nee­ded to go shop­ping, they could le­a­ve the child­ren with their grand­pa­rents. We coo­ked to­get­her, and hou­se cle­a­ning did not take long. And we could al­wa­ys le­a­ve the cat at home when we went to the ca­bin.

It was mar­ve­lous to fol­low the child­ren’s de­ve­lop­ment. I gu­ess the big­ger one had mo­men­ta­ry over­lo­ads of so­ci­al con­tacts, when all his aunts and unc­les and grand­pa­rents wan­ted to hear his fun­ny sto­ries. The yo­un­ger one was one month old when they mo­ved in. By the time they were pac­king to le­a­ve, she was run­ning around on tip­to­es round the hou­se pul­ling eve­ryt­hing out of the clo­sets and ca­bi­nets.

Be­cau­se we were pre­sent all the time, the child­ren be­ca­me qui­te at­tac­hed to us. The big­ger one said many ti­mes a day, “Grand­pa, come and play with me!” And we pla­yed. I even fi­xed some of the pre­vi­ous ge­ne­ra­ti­on’s toys for his use. One of our ga­mes was to run round the brick oven. We read the same books over and over again. And I don’t know if it was use­ful, but Grand­pa’s phone con­tai­ned sub­ma­ri­nes, flying cars and space roc­kets.

The yo­un­ger one ran to me many ti­mes a day to be pic­ked up. “Pap­pa, pap­pa”, she said. That was her first and on­ly word while they were li­ving here. Three weeks af­ter they had mo­ved to their new home, she had al­re­a­dy for­got­ten all about “pap­pa” and kept wan­ting “mum­my” ins­te­ad.