Under My Parents' Roof

Most Manhattanites I know have been forced to moved from apartment to apartment annually. I like to think I'm a lucky New Yorker when it comes to apartments. Or maybe I'm not. I've been in the same building for six years. But I live under my parents' roof.

After graduating college in 1995 and living with my parents in my childhood home in the

upper-middle-class town of Garden City, Long Island, for a year, I eagerly began an apartment search with two girlfriends. We decided to live anywhere we could afford on our entry-level salaries. We would put up walls, share bedrooms, whatever it took to live in Manhattan. We had to be part of it.The first place I saw was a great apartment on Cooper Square in the East Village. It was a large two-bedroom that could be "easily" converted to a three, on the 20th floor, with a wall of windows. And for $2100 per month it was affordable for the three of us. I didn't necessarily want to live in the East Village, but was ready to write the check to get into Manhattan.

I rushed to meet my parents at their Upper West Side weekend studio apartment, in the rent-stabilized brownstone they inherited. Excitedly, I told them about the apartment.

"Well, where is it?" asked my father.

"It's in the East Village," I replied.

My father grew up in Manhattan in the 1950s, so he does not view the East Village as a place where 21-year-old girls should live. Apparently no one ever told him it had become a really cool and safe place. The tone of the conversation changed. I pushed the East Village apartment, and my father obviously disliked the idea of my living there. Nothing I said changed his view. Being the youngest of three girls, the baby of the family, I've always found it difficult to disregard my parents' views.

Later that evening, in my teen-decorated childhood bedroom, my father told me he would opt not to renew one of the leases in the brownstone so I wouldn't have to live in the East Village. Of course I was thrilled. My two friends and I would live in a rent-stabilized two-bedroom garden apartment in a brownstone a half a block from the park. We were going to be the envy of all our friends. My parents were delighted also. They were getting rid of a long-term, bothersome tenant?legally and for free.

As with any apartment, there was a drawback: our next-door neighbors. They weren't there often, only on some weekends, but when they were we were all quiet and considerate.

These part-time neighbors were my parents.

The first weekend we had a house-warming party. Most of the loud affair was outside and went late into the night. The next morning I got a note under the door from an upstairs long-term tenant who threatened to call my father if I had another party like that. Terrified, I called home. My parents said, "We don't care what you do, you're an adult."

I was shocked. They also told me that if the tenant called them he would be given my number to call me.

During the next five years there were more rowdy soirees, a few new roommates and many changes in the building. Tenants of other apartments moved out for various reasons and my friends moved in. At one point five of the 10 apartments in the building were occupied by people I knew. My best friend from high school was my roommate, my parents lived (part-time) next door, my best friend from childhood lived on the first floor, family friends lived on the second floor and my boyfriend moved in on the fourth floor.

That was a disaster. I was spending all of my time at my boyfriend's apartment?unless my parents were at their apartment, and then I was in my apartment. If my parents were there my mother was knocking on my door every 15 minutes for something?a shirt, orange juice, the vacuum cleaner. If the family friends saw me coming from my boyfriend's apartment too often, they would think I was living with him. This would be unacceptable in my Catholic family.

After a year of this chaos everything calmed down. My best friend went back to school and moved to her parents' house; my friend on the first floor got married and moved out; our friends on the second floor opted for Florida over Manhattan; and my boyfriend and I broke up. He moved out of his one-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor and I moved in, sacrificing the garden and space for privacy and quiet. Initially it was strange, but I made sure to make the apartment my own. Four flights of stairs separated me from my parents, so they no longer knocked on my door. I was 27 years old and finally had something that I truly felt was mine.

Eventually I started to value the infrequent parental visits, since I no longer had the convenience of friends in the building. And my boyfriend and I got back together, so he came to my apartment that used to be his apartment. Everything was good.

But it didn't end there. A few weeks ago my parents sold their house in Garden City and moved permanently into the ground floor of the building that is now my home. We're still in the adjustment phase. I feel the pressure to visit often and call all the time. I'm compelled to stop by every night, and if my mother's out at dinnertime, I want to have my father over for dinner. I don't want my boyfriend to feel obligated to visit with them as much as I do, and I don't want to neglect him in any way. I'm convinced my parents think my boyfriend lives with me because he's there so often. They would probably be more comfortable if I were engaged, and my boyfriend would probably be more relaxed with additional floors separating us. My parents also probably want their own space.

But I'm 28 and live under my parents' roof. I have a home I call my own, and am literally surrounded by people I love. I consider myself a lucky New Yorker when all is said and done.