I just watched a series in which a 27-year-old man lives with his widowed father, a rare occurrence in Sweden, while he persuades him to become independent. This fiction made me think about the many people I know who live alone. In our customs, children left their homes only when they got married, and we even got to the point where they returned to their father’s nest after separation; in the case of men, even to be looked after, again, by a mother who has become an old woman. There would be a lot to analyze in situations like this.

Today, the umbilical cut with the house is imposed to such an extent that young people enjoy foreign models of life and are self-sustaining. That’s where the biggest challenge is: managing to survive in a time when you study and work and yearn for all the freedoms. I’ve seen parents who send those spoiled kids they took away from everything to study abroad, see that they come back ready to face the effort of self-care. Finding a job that makes this possible can involve blood, sweat and tears.

Thinking about it coldly, independent living requires a lot of effort. Part of the luck in finding a good place –apartment room, an apartment – that the first thing he has to offer is security, because he will be uninhabited for countless hours. If the resident has good habits, he or she will want to keep the space clean and tidy, and to do so, will resort to occasional housekeeping services or will need to acquire housekeeping skills. Stocking up on food and other necessities will make you frequent markets and shops. Taking care of your clothes will take you to laundromats, seamstresses, and department stores for new clothes.

I know that this call is more common in women than in men, although being alone is not the same as choosing to be alone. Widows, divorcees, older daughters are in the first group; women separated from giving explanations to their parents (“it’s not because we look at you”, they say, “but because you worry about us”, is the clatter of the home), in the second. All this without thinking about the fact that sooner or later the parents will get sick and require care and take control of the obligations of those children who are no longer there.

It is sad to accept that all these possibilities depend on the budget. Couples from other cultures unite without much thought “to save money”, and relationships without a project end as soon as they started. No child who comes into the world “accidentally” can establish a solid family. Isn’t the coexistence that does not share expenses and jobs, in today’s life, threatened by the inequality that will someday grip us? I am leaving out those who have largely assumed the roles of breadwinner husband and home loving wife.

Of course, I see women who fight alone as quite happy, at least in one phase of life, whether at the beginning or at the end. Youthful efforts are seasoned with free love and various entertainments; those of retired women with the creativity of continuing a series of generous activities and enriching human relationships. We cannot complain that the world is changing and shows that there are no fixed ways of living. You can do without company, and even with certain risks in this fierce city, but with a precious taste of cheerfulness. (OR)