Welcome to Where the Family Nest Never Empties

By Ogova Ondego
Published March 10, 2021

Although grown up children the world over usually leave the home in which they were born to pursue education, career or marriage, the situation may be different in Kenya’s Nairobi Metropolitan Area where the nest, instead of emptying, is filling up.

How so?

James is 44, married with three children and owner of a firm of auditors and accountants. But he still lives in the same home with his parents. Forty-three-year-old Maria, too, has three children and still lives in her parents’ home.

Welcome to the new trend of families crafted in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, where, in some homes, are four generations living in the same house. Such an arrangement was usually associated with Kenyans of Asian origin. But now Nairobi families, even those whose cultures do not allow children to live under the same roof with their parents, are getting carried away in the emerging trend as they bring their wives to their parents’ house and start having children there.

Joseph Ojwang, a journalist, says this is a dangerous trend as it goes against cultures like his own Luo one which forbids a grown up man to sleep in the house in which his own mother sleeps.

Married to a Kamba woman from Machakos in eastern Kenya, Ojwang says his in-laws have a different culture from his own.

“When I visit them, my mother-in-law has no objection about my sleeping in her house but I just can’t do so as my culture doesn’t allow it,” he says.

Even when she visits with him in Nairobi, he says he has to arrange for her to be accommodated elsewhere although his is a four-bedroom house in Lang’ata in southeern Nairobi.

Mukonyo does not think it is good for grown up children to continue living with their parents.

“The nature of my job calls for lots of travelling. It would be possible for me to me to live with my parents without having to account for my movement,” she says.

Citing the example of a friend of hers who lives with an aunt and uncle she says meddle in his life, Mukonyo says “Any one above 18 who can support himself should live alone to avoid problems.”

Saying she started living alone immediately after completing school, Mukonyo says “Parents who cling on their children are doing them more harm than good as they are denying them the opportunity to learn responsibility and decision-making.”

Faith Wambui, who holds the opinion that living alone teaches the young adult how to take responsibility, says, “If I lead a sheltered life in which I am provided with everything, chances are I may never learn how to handle a family when I get married. Making decisions, parenting and budgeting may be a big problem as I will have been used to my parents catering to my every need.”

Katherine Wavinya shares Wambui’s sentiments though she admits that she would live with her parents and even go for support from them were they living in Nairobi. She however points out that one’s freedom is curtailed if one lives with one’s parents.

“But this shouldn’t be taken to mean that I want to live away from my parents to do bad things” 22-year-old Wavinya, who says many of her friends who are gainfully employed and earning relatively well still live with their parents, says. “Having been used to higher lifestyles, they don’t want to move out and live on their own in less affluent neighbourhoods; the dilemma is they can’t afford to live in their parents’ neighbourhoods without their having to depend on them.”

Maina, who lives in Muthaiga in northern Nairobi, concurs. He says his parents would not want to see him living in the densely-populated Eastlands while they have a large home all to themselves. Maina is their only son while his sister is married and lives in Toronto, Canada.

“While some rich parents may be unhappy with their children living in humble estates,” says a counselling psychologist, “others are not comfortable about the jobs their offspring are doing as they would like them to.”

But Jane Atieno, a Public Relations executive, contends that some overprotective parents always view their children as dependent infants even in their adulthood.

“Such parents are those who had sheltered their offspring from problems and want them to have a happy and prosperous life,” she says. “When this doesn’t happen, they live with them even when they can fend for themselves.”

Though parents tend to be more protective of their daughters than they are of their sons, the former appear to be more independent than the latter and would like to be left alone.

Men who live in their parents’ home tend to be cagey about it. Unlike their female counterparts, they are unlikely to speak about the subject freely.

A sociologist at University of Nairobi says most children from upper and middle class live with their parents because they do not want to live in less comfortable neighbourhoods even if they can afford it.

“Having grown up in homes where everything was given to them,” the family expert says, “they lack experience with financial struggle and often feel entitled to some comfort; this is why they stay with their parents.”

While some parents feel modern children suffer from what they describe as dependency syndrome, others feel they should let their children go only after they are able to support themselves.

“I can’t abandon my children to suffer while I still can support them. You never know, something good for them could crop up tomorrow,” says Mama Mwai whose three grown up children still live with her although they all hold Master’s degrees but are engaged in what could be described as under-employment.