Several years ago, my friend purchased a house in a suburb of Sacramento shortly after getting a new job up there at the local Veteran’s hospital. I was really happy for her and thought it was incredible — not only that she got a new job and bought a house, but that it all happened so quickly. She had only been searching for a couple months before this house worked out and it closed.

We ended up coming to visit her several months after she moved in during July 2021, when I was visibly pregnant. While she had told me that her brother would be “temporarily” living with her (he already lived in the area before she got her job offer), what I didn’t realize until later was that both her parents would also be living with her, as well. From her mom’s perspective, once two out of her three children were living in the Sacramento area, she wanted to move to be closer to them, especially since she said she never liked living in Arkansas. So she moved, then her dad sold their house and shortly followed after. When my friend told me, I always thought that they’d come live with her temporarily before getting their own house; at least, that’s how she framed it to me when we spoke. When I stepped into the house for the first time, I realized… no, that was not the case, or the intention, at all. The intention was that her parents would effectively move all their valued family belongings and essentially set up my friend’s house as their own. All their family portraits, including their graduation photos and special family event photos, were already up in frames. Her mom’s Buddhist praying area was set up in front of the house. Her parents even had the main bedroom and ensuite. My friend had relinquished her rights to her own main bedroom and was sleeping in a small bedroom next door that was like a teenager’s room.

Ohmigod, I thought to myself then. This is her family’s house now. She paid for it, but this is her parents’ house, and she’s living in it. I wasn’t sure how to react to any of this. And like she and her brother were as children growing up, her mom did all the cooking five to six days a week, and they’d eat out as a family once or twice a week. Her mom did all the decorating of the house, all the cleaning, all the housework. Her dad, the stereotypical Vietnamese male, did no housework and almost expected to be spoon fed. He didn’t even clear his plate from the table after eating.

While it’s now over three years later, the setup is still the same. Her parents and brother are still living there. None of them have any intention of ever leaving. They’re all just aging together. My friend and I are the same age, so we’re almost 39. Her mom is 71, and her dad is 81. I asked her if she was happy with this setup.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” my friend insisted. “They’re getting old and will need help. It doesn’t make sense for them at their age to live on their own or take out a mortgage.”

The strange thing about that statement is that her mom is currently in excellent health, which is why she keeps churning out Vietnamese specialties every day in the kitchen and does all the cleaning. Her dad has a rare slow-growing cancer, but the doctor has already said he’d likely just age with it given how slow this growth is.

I asked her how she would make new friends or find a potential partner with this current setup. She mostly spends all her time with her parents and brother, and while she does have some friends at work, that seems to be her only way of making friends since she doesn’t go out much. She said she didn’t mind it, but maybe she’d try online dating again. I have a feeling that both my friend and her brother have mental health issues that she’s never openly discussed with me, but she has hinted at it a few times without any elaboration. While it makes me sad that she refrains from being open with me about her feelings, stresses, and borderline unhealthy attachment to her parents as a nearly 40-year-old woman, I don’t push it with her. I just let it be, even though it seems like she’s just living the same life she did as a child, just 20-30+ years older. She seems to accept it as her fate. But part of it, I can tell, is her general distrust of society as she’s said repeatedly to me. She will casually mention she can’t trust humanity, which is why she would never be happy living in a condo or apartment long term (“What if they are stupid and set a fire that burns their apartment down, and then my apartment gets destroyed?”). But then the opposite of that is becoming a recluse in your own fortress of a home, isolated from other people who could truly add value to your life in the form of company, support, and love. Frankly, I am more concerned about how it feels like she is letting the prime years of her life pass her by. One day, her parents aren’t going to be around anymore, and then what will she do? Who is she going to lean on, especially with no friends nearby?