Our local paper ran what appears to be a half-page article on multigenerational living.

They correctly listed some of the reasons why more families are “choosing” to live under one roof. I put the word choosing in quotes because it was the word the newspaper writer used.

But I think the more accurate headline would be more families are being forced to live under one roof. Americans don’t seem to relish a smaller space. They want more space.

The main reasons generations move to share the same space seems to be financial or helping family members who can no longer function on their own.

It used to be kids graduated from high school or college then established their own place. If they didn’t have enough money to live alone they found a roommate or two. But they didn’t opt to again live with parents and extended family until it was necessary.

Anyone who reads advice columns will often find people writing in about problems when families are forced to again live under one roof.

With the high price of rent and food, a lot of those who want to live on their own can’t manage it. Many who are forced into multigenerational living end up complaining about it.

When kids get used to living on their own in school they develop an independence that’s hard to give up. And they complain parents still want to treat them like children when they move back in.

Many parents subscribe to the “my house, my rules” theory.

It’s not just kids who might find the need to “go back home where it’s affordable.” The loss of a job is often a trigger point for older workers.

For many, having to move back home is downright misery.

One of my neighbors has an impossible situation of having not one but two adult children move back home. In addition to a son who can’t get anything other than an entry-level job with no benefits, the neighbor’s daughter and her three children had to move back with the mother after the daughter’s husband walked out on her.

Did I mention they are all living in a two-bedroom home?

Her daughter and grandchildren are using sleeping bags and sleeping on the floor.

When I asked my neighbor how they were managing, she said “We all do what we have to do.”

I have personal experience — a great experience — in multigenerational living.

When I was 10 and my brother was 3 my parents got a divorce. My father moved away, leaving my mother with nowhere to live and no means of support.

That’s when I learned a lesson in the joys and responsibility of families living together.

My aunt Rose could have told my mother, “I don’t have room in my house for you and your kids.” That was true. But she made it work in her small three-bedroom home.

Her teenage son liked his bedroom in what was once an attic. But he gave up that space so my mother and her two children would have a place to live.

My cousin Buddy had to sleep on the living room sofa. Believe it or not, he didn’t complain.

My mother would have been lost without her sister’s generosity. But my Aunt Rose willingly gave us more than a home. She provided warmth and love as she made us part of her immediate family. She also gave my mother a job in her dress factory, helping her sister know she could make it without my father.

I loved every minute in that house, especially our family dinners. We had such lively conversation, and from listening I learned about the challenges of running a dress factory at a time when many factories were folding.

My Aunt Rose became my hero. I wanted to grow up to be just like her. I tried hard but I never came close to emulating that warm-hearted, forceful woman. I did learn to care about others, but I didn’t have Aunt Rose’s skill in making the impossible happen.

In our Italian neighborhood there were plenty of homes that housed multigenerational families. Elderly parents were cared for and there was no such thing as a loneliness epidemic like we have today. Also, back then, I didn’t know a single family that put their elderly parents in a nursing home.

When my grandmother could no longer live alone my mother moved her in with us. She knew from experience the importance of being there for family.

I’m sure life isn’t always easy when generations combine. And I’m just as sure that years ago there was more family love than we see today when other values overtake families.

Attorney Frank DeVito wrote the best essay on multigenerational families. He calls that kind of unselfish living “a step back to healthy communal life.” But he is clear-eyed in saying: “It’s not an easy decision or an easy life. But it’s a good one.”

There are benefits, of course. Child care can be shared, and sometimes, if circumstances allow it, the combined family can share bills.

But make no mistake about it. Sacrifices have to be made.

Today, most want more privacy, not more sacrifices.

But we all know we can do it when we have to.

Email Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net