Why demand for new homes will never look the same as it ever was

Source: New York Times

The New York Times N.R. Kleinfield ties one of the most important macrotrends of the era to the tale of one increasingly common, once unusual family: "Two addresses, three adults, a winsome toddler and a mixed-breed dog officially named Buck the Dog. None of this was the familial configuration any of them had imagined, but it was, for the moment, their family. It was something they had stumbled into, yet had a certain revisionist logic. Such is the hiccupping fluidity of the family in the modern world. Six years running now, according to census data, more households consist of the unmarried than the married. More people seem to be deciding that the contours of the traditional nuclear family do not work for them, spawning a profusion of cobbled-together networks in need of nomenclature. Unrelated parents living together, sharing chores and child-rearing. Friends who occupy separate homes but rely on each other for holidays, health care proxies, financial support." The upshot for home builders is that, cyclical and structural economic issues aside, one of the most important phenomena to get one's head around is a profoundly different household make-up that's evolving. Single woman headed households--17 million of them--are more than twice as common now in the United States as married-couple with one child under the age of 18.

AT the apartment in Brooklyn where George Russell spends four nights each week, he checked the clock: 7:09 p.m. Wasn’t it 7:05 about 20 minutes ago?

Never had time moved so slowly. Was the clock even working?

They had tossed the ball around, chased each other, done the book about a bear. Now the dreaded bedtime video. Every night, Griffin, who was 18 months old, insisted on this DVD about race cars, space ships and motorcycles, narrated by a saccharine pair named Dave and Becky. Mr. Russell found them galling. Once, while watching, he said, it made him “feel a profound despair like when I read ‘The Bell Jar.’ ”

He slid in the disc. Soon, his thumb was punching fast-forward. “It’s so much better at double speed, isn’t it, Griffin?”

Darkness had dropped softly. Rain drummed on Plaza Street East.

Mr. Russell regarded Griffin and his curly blond hair. “He looks just like me when I was little,” he said. “I don’t feel paternal toward him. Yet it’s odd when I look at him and I see me.”

The setup is complicated. Griffin’s mother, Carol Einhorn, a fund-raiser for a nonprofit group, is 48 and single. She conceived through in vitro fertilization with sperm from Mr. Russell, 49, a chiropractor and close friend. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday nights, Mr. Russell stays in the spare room of Ms. Einhorn’s apartment. The other three days he lives on President Street with his domestic partner, David Nimmons, 54, an administrator at a nonprofit. Most Sundays, they all have dinner together.

“It’s not like Heather has two mommies,” Mr. Russell said. “It’s George has two families.”

Two addresses, three adults, a winsome toddler and a mixed-breed dog officially named Buck the Dog. None of this was the familial configuration any of them had imagined, but it was, for the moment, their family. It was something they had stumbled into, yet had a certain revisionist logic.

Such is the hiccupping fluidity of the family in the modern world. Six years running now, according to census data, more households consist of the unmarried than the married. More people seem to be deciding that the contours of the traditional nuclear family do not work for them, spawning a profusion of cobbled-together networks in need of nomenclature. Unrelated parents living together, sharing chores and child-rearing. Friends who occupy separate homes but rely on each other for holidays, health care proxies, financial support.

“Some of the strictures that were used to organize society don’t fit human change and growth,” said Ann Schranz, chairwoman of the Alternatives to Marriage Project, a 10-year-old organization. “What matters to us is the health of relationships, not the form of relationships.”

And so here on Plaza Street, four people are testing the fuzzy boundaries of an age-old institution, knowing there is no single answer to what defines family or what defines love.

Griffin, now almost 3, calls Mr. Russell “Uncle George” and Mr. Nimmons “Dave.” At some point, Ms. Einhorn intends to tell her son the truth. Mr. Russell worries about that moment. He never wanted to be a parent; he saw the sperm donation as a favor to a friend. He did not attend the birth or Griffin’s first birthday party. His four sisters were trying to figure out whether they were aunts.

Once a week, Ms. Einhorn went out, and Mr. Russell baby-sat. But only after Griffin was asleep — Uncle George was like the night watchman. Until March 2010, when Mr. Russell agreed to put Griffin to bed and see how it went.

There was a routine that had to be followed or it was tantrum world. A bath, dinner, a story, the hated video, then a circuit of the apartment to say good night to everything.

Mr. Russell loathes television, an aversion he connects to his father’s seeming to have kept it on permanently. “Carol can watch, like, 52 ‘Law & Order’s back to back to relax,” he said. “She likes shows like ‘Army Wives.’ I can’t even say the words ‘Army Wives’ without irony or cringing.” He snapped off the television and announced, “It’s time to take a walk.”

Barefoot, he hoisted Griffin into his arms and felt the pleasant response. They said good night to the kitchen.

Good night, dining room.

Good night, plant.

Good night, George’s room.

Good night, outside world.

Mr. Russell gave Griffin a bottle, and lowered him into his crib.

Not bad at all. “I certainly don’t want to be the child’s parent,” he said. Then: “What can I say, it’s lovely to hold a child in your arms.”

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