One Roof, Three Generations

We live under one roof in Anthem, Arizona: my wife Joanna, my brother Eric, our two kids, my dad Mick, my mom Terrilyn, and me. This site starts at home, because that's where the pace of our life is actually set.

This is a household, not a slogan

A lot of writing about "multi-generational living" makes it sound like a lifestyle you announce. Ours is just the house we live in. People of different ages, with different energy and different bedtimes, sharing a kitchen and a calendar.

We live together, and the ordinary work of that is what I want this site to be useful for.

We moved back to Arizona from Texas because I wanted my children to know their family. My mom was taking care of my grandmother, Donna Hancock, when my mom was diagnosed with cancer for the third time. Donna lived with us until she passed a little over a year ago. We came home so the kids would know their family. That is the part that belongs here.

Who lives here

I'm Travis. I write this site, and I also write about accessible family travel at Travel at My Pace and about our Japan trips at Japan at My Pace.

Joanna is my wife. We've traveled together at a slower pace for years, including two trips to Japan. At home she is part of the same household I'm describing, not a side character in it.

Our two kids are part of this house too. If a story is theirs to tell, it stays off the page.

My brother Eric lives with us.

My dad Mick lives with us.

My mom is Terrilyn Miller. She lives with us, and she will author articles on this site, especially about food. I'm glad to name her. I won't publish her email, phone number or anything else that would let a stranger reach her directly.

My grandmother, Donna Hancock, lived with us until she passed a little over a year ago. While she was here, this was a four-generation household. It is three generations now.

Down the road are my brother Tyler, his wife Sanni, and their six kids, and my brother Jared and his wife Allie, who is expecting.

What the stroke has to do with a full house

On March 14, 2016, I had a massive stroke. I spent a month in the hospital and a year in outpatient recovery. I relearned to walk, to see, and to make my voice resonate, with a lot of credit due to my family and to the medical team who stayed with the work. Some of that never fully came back. My balance isn't what it was, and my body doesn't handle heat the way it used to. I also live with trigeminal neuralgia.

That story has its own piece, After the Stroke, Life Had to Slow Down. I mention it here because a slower body changes a household. I don't move through a day the way I did before 2016. Heat in Arizona is not a backdrop. It's a limit. Evenings can be shorter than they look on a calendar. A full house has to make room for that without making me, or anyone else, into a project.

Living with all of us under one roof means there are more hands and more needs in the same rooms. The point is not that a stroke "taught me the value of family." The point is more practical. A house like this works better when the pace is honest: when someone can sit down, when dinner doesn't have to be a production and when help can be offered without taking over.

Ordinary systems, not lifestyle advice

A full house needs ordinary systems. I don't mean an app or a chore chart.

What I do mean is the unglamorous stuff that keeps a shared life from turning into a daily negotiation:

• A kitchen that more than one person can use without a briefing.
• Some agreement about noise, TV and a little quiet.
• Meals that can land when appetites, spice and bedtimes don't match, without cooking two dinners every night if we can help it.
• Privacy that still lets people live close: doors that close, and a way to be in the house without being in the middle of everything.
• Care that doesn't turn a parent, a spouse or a child into a task list.

Rhythms are how we make it work. A daily loaf of bread, coffee on a timer, Pilates that my mom and I both keep, a home-cooked meal almost every night, and dinner by candlelight — those habits do more for a full house than a burst of organization does.

Later guides in this section take the rest one at a time, including A Shared Kitchen, Privacy in a Full House and When Schedules Don't Line Up. This flagship is just the frame. We are a multi-generational household in Anthem, Arizona, and the work of living well here is everyday and specific.

Kids in a house with grandparents

There is something good about kids growing up with grandparents in the house. There is also patience involved, in both directions.

If you live this way too, you already know the texture of it: a younger person moving faster than the house, older people who have their own day, and the rest of us trying not to let the volume of one life drown out the others. What I want to write down, over time, is how a meal can still be one meal, and how grandparents can be part of the day without being asked to run it.

Arizona, heat and the pace of a day

Anthem, Arizona, is home. Summer here is not a metaphor. If your body already has trouble with heat, as mine does since the stroke, the house itself becomes part of how you get through a day: shade, blinds, air-conditioning, early hours and knowing when to stay inside. "Three generations under one roof" is not the same project in a mild climate as it is in the Valley in July. A slower pace is partly personal, and partly just the weather. I wrote more about the house itself in An Arizona House That Stays Livable in the Heat.

We don't keep a garden, except for basil and rosemary.

Why this site starts at home

I already have two sites about leaving the house. I also write about accessible family travel at Travel at My Pace, starting in Arizona. Our Japan trips have their own site, Japan at My Pace. I won't retell those guides here, and destination advice belongs there, not on this page.

Living at My Pace is for the days we are home: how we eat, how we share a house, how I live with a body that had to slow down and how travel fits that life without becoming the whole of it.

The travel writing taught me a habit I want to keep here. Say what was easy, what was hard and what I would do differently. Don't pretend a day was simpler than it was. Don't sell a perfect household.

If you found this site because you are thinking about moving in with family, or already have, I hope the later pieces stay practical and not romantic. Talk about the kitchen, about quiet, about money in general terms and about a way to step outside. What I'd Tell Someone About to Move In With Family goes further on that.

What you'll find in this section

As this library fills in, the Multi-Generational Home guides will cover a shared kitchen, privacy, schedules that don't line up, holidays, noise, care, hosting when the house is already full and the chores nobody wants to systematize. I'll write them the same way I write a travel guide: first person, specific when the fact is real, quiet when it isn't.

My mom will have her own byline on this site. Her author page is Terrilyn Miller, and it will grow once her own write-up is in. Until then, I'm not going to tell her life for her. If you want the stroke story next, start with After the Stroke, Life Had to Slow Down. If you want the kitchen, start with What I Mean by Eating Well at Home.

Nothing on this page is medical advice or a family-counseling plan. It's one household, written plainly.