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How We Live Now: Redefining Home and family in the 21st Century
A close-up examination and exploration, How We Live Now challenges our old concepts of what it means to be a family and have a home, opening the door to the many diverse and thriving experiments of living in twenty-first century America.
Across America and around the world, in cities and suburbs and small towns, people from all walks of life are redefining our “lifespaces”—the way we live and who we live with. The traditional nuclear family in their single-family home on a suburban lot has lost its place of prominence in contemporary life. Today, Americans have more choices than ever before in creating new ways to live and meet their personal needs and desires.
Social scientist, researcher, and writer Bella DePaulo has traveled across America to interview people experimenting with the paradigm of how we live. In How We Live Now , she explores everything from multi-generational homes to cohousing communities where one’s “family” is made up of friends and neighbors to couples “living apart together” to single-living, and ultimately uncovers a pioneering landscape for living that throws the old blueprint out the window.
Through personal interviews and stories, media accounts, and in-depth research, How We Live Now explores thriving lifespaces, and offers the reader choices that are freer, more diverse, and more attuned to our modern needs for the twenty-first century and beyond.
Across America and around the world, in cities and suburbs and small towns, people from all walks of life are redefining our “lifespaces”—the way we live and who we live with. The traditional nuclear family in their single-family home on a suburban lot has lost its place of prominence in contemporary life. Today, Americans have more choices than ever before in creating new ways to live and meet their personal needs and desires.
Social scientist, researcher, and writer Bella DePaulo has traveled across America to interview people experimenting with the paradigm of how we live. In How We Live Now , she explores everything from multi-generational homes to cohousing communities where one’s “family” is made up of friends and neighbors to couples “living apart together” to single-living, and ultimately uncovers a pioneering landscape for living that throws the old blueprint out the window.
Through personal interviews and stories, media accounts, and in-depth research, How We Live Now explores thriving lifespaces, and offers the reader choices that are freer, more diverse, and more attuned to our modern needs for the twenty-first century and beyond.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published August 25, 2015
22 people are currently reading
418 people want to read
About the author
Bella DePaulo
24 books88 followersI’m Bella DePaulo. I’m proud to say that I’ve always been single and I always will be.
• “Single at heart” is my term for people who love being single – single life is our most meaningful, fulfilling, authentic, and psychologically rich life. My latest book, “Single at Heart,” is all about that.
• The Atlantic magazine described me as “America’s foremost thinker and writer on the single experience.”
• My TEDx talk, “What no one ever told you about people who are single,” has been viewed more than 1.6 million times.
• My 1st book about singles was Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After (St. Martin’s)
• I’m a social psychologist, a Harvard PhD with more than 150 scholarly publications. My 2023 article, "Single and flourishing: Transcending the deficit narratives of single life," was published in an academic journal but I wrote it in an engaging and jargon-free way so you don’t have to be an academic to enjoy it.
• I have bylines in the New York Times, the Washington Post, New York magazine, the Atlantic, Time magazine, the Guardian, the Chronicle of Higher Education, NBC, CNN, and many more.
• My work on single people has been described in many publications in the US and around the world, including, for example, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Cosmopolitan, New York magazine, Time magazine, the Atlantic, the Economist, the Week, the Nation, Business Week, AARP Magazine, Newsweek, and the TED Ideas Blog.
• I have been writing the “Living Single” blog for Psychology Today since 2008.
• I have been on NPR many times, as well as many other podcasts and radio shows.
• In 2022, I discussed single people with Maria Shriver on the Today show.
You can learn more about me at my website, www.BellaDePaulo.com.
• “Single at heart” is my term for people who love being single – single life is our most meaningful, fulfilling, authentic, and psychologically rich life. My latest book, “Single at Heart,” is all about that.
• The Atlantic magazine described me as “America’s foremost thinker and writer on the single experience.”
• My TEDx talk, “What no one ever told you about people who are single,” has been viewed more than 1.6 million times.
• My 1st book about singles was Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After (St. Martin’s)
• I’m a social psychologist, a Harvard PhD with more than 150 scholarly publications. My 2023 article, "Single and flourishing: Transcending the deficit narratives of single life," was published in an academic journal but I wrote it in an engaging and jargon-free way so you don’t have to be an academic to enjoy it.
• I have bylines in the New York Times, the Washington Post, New York magazine, the Atlantic, Time magazine, the Guardian, the Chronicle of Higher Education, NBC, CNN, and many more.
• My work on single people has been described in many publications in the US and around the world, including, for example, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Cosmopolitan, New York magazine, Time magazine, the Atlantic, the Economist, the Week, the Nation, Business Week, AARP Magazine, Newsweek, and the TED Ideas Blog.
• I have been writing the “Living Single” blog for Psychology Today since 2008.
• I have been on NPR many times, as well as many other podcasts and radio shows.
• In 2022, I discussed single people with Maria Shriver on the Today show.
You can learn more about me at my website, www.BellaDePaulo.com.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 5, 2019
i really tried to read it all , but i just can't and stopped my reading half the book exacly in the page 300.
what made me stop reading is just that the writer is showing only the bright side of living in community , all the persons the author has interrogated are given the same response , the same feelings for their experience in living with stranger under the same roof , however i got bored as i see the same impression hence all the persons had a positive outcome from their experiences and i didnt read about the one who had negative outcomes .
overall the book had opened my eyes for a new life style , which is a great think !!! but i feel that it's just one side of the story , i dont know if the other half part of the book is illustrating the setback of living in community.
what made me stop reading is just that the writer is showing only the bright side of living in community , all the persons the author has interrogated are given the same response , the same feelings for their experience in living with stranger under the same roof , however i got bored as i see the same impression hence all the persons had a positive outcome from their experiences and i didnt read about the one who had negative outcomes .
overall the book had opened my eyes for a new life style , which is a great think !!! but i feel that it's just one side of the story , i dont know if the other half part of the book is illustrating the setback of living in community.
May 14, 2023
Five stars because I honestly think literally everyone should read this book in order to break the shackles of normative "heterosexual marriage + kids + suburbian homeowhernship or bust" narrative that is proscribed by society. Bella DePaulo beautifully charts different types of fulfilling and heartfelt lifescapes, giving me hope for myself and the people around me to live happy, meaningful lives in homes of our own making and choosing -- despite what society says is "correct."
(One caveat: Much of the book describes communities very much like kibbutzim, with which I am already very familiar, and which are also not novel concepts. Much of the communities described also feels very much in line with Jewish Orthodox communities -- living close to friends/family, coming together for communal meals, helping community members out in times of trouble, etc. -- which I'm intimately familiar with as well. So, none of that was a real eye-opener for me personally, but the anecdotes still helped me shed light on how to live a life that feels authentic to me.)
(One caveat: Much of the book describes communities very much like kibbutzim, with which I am already very familiar, and which are also not novel concepts. Much of the communities described also feels very much in line with Jewish Orthodox communities -- living close to friends/family, coming together for communal meals, helping community members out in times of trouble, etc. -- which I'm intimately familiar with as well. So, none of that was a real eye-opener for me personally, but the anecdotes still helped me shed light on how to live a life that feels authentic to me.)
Read
November 4, 2022In How We Live Now (2016), you’re taken on a virtual trip across the United States to explore the different ways in which Americans create homes for themselves, their families and friends. This book reveals the latest trends in communal living as well as the forces driving people to create new, fascinating ways to live.
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Instead of massive, space-consuming collections, try smaller or even non-physical ones.
Do you have hundreds of records or books that you dread schlepping around next time you move? If you’re a collector, you probably invested countless hours and dollars into your collection, not to mention a great deal of emotional energy.
Some collectors love the thrill of the hunt. Desiring that rare item, searching for weeks, months, sometimes even years, and finally getting it and adding it to the collection is a rewarding and satisfying experience.
On top of that, many people view their collections as an investment. A collection might have a sum value that is greater than its parts, and it can be exciting to consider the profit you might make if you ever decided to sell.
Though these seem like good reasons, let’s consider them more carefully and critically.
Let’s take the careful collector who finally lands the latest set of first-edition books. Sure, she’ll be thrilled at first, but she’s likely to forget about it as soon as it’s on her shelf. Why? Because she’ll already be out hunting for the next acquisition!
Or let’s take the investment idea. Maybe you’re banking on your collection to make you wealthy, but the truth is that most items don’t increase in value. And even if the value does go up, the profits will probably be marginal and not even worth the space the collection requires.
What should you do then? Well, if you still insist on being a collector, be a better one!
Instead of accumulating large objects, try collecting smaller, but still meaningful, things.
Consider objects like marbles, stamps, or baseball cards – even if your collection starts getting a bit out of hand, it’ll be hard for these small items to take over the whole house.
Or consider the joy of bird watchers, who “collect” sightings of rare species, or of globetrotters, who’ve been to 30 countries. Remember, a collection doesn’t even have to consist of physical objects!
---
Instead of massive, space-consuming collections, try smaller or even non-physical ones.
Do you have hundreds of records or books that you dread schlepping around next time you move? If you’re a collector, you probably invested countless hours and dollars into your collection, not to mention a great deal of emotional energy.
Some collectors love the thrill of the hunt. Desiring that rare item, searching for weeks, months, sometimes even years, and finally getting it and adding it to the collection is a rewarding and satisfying experience.
On top of that, many people view their collections as an investment. A collection might have a sum value that is greater than its parts, and it can be exciting to consider the profit you might make if you ever decided to sell.
Though these seem like good reasons, let’s consider them more carefully and critically.
Let’s take the careful collector who finally lands the latest set of first-edition books. Sure, she’ll be thrilled at first, but she’s likely to forget about it as soon as it’s on her shelf. Why? Because she’ll already be out hunting for the next acquisition!
Or let’s take the investment idea. Maybe you’re banking on your collection to make you wealthy, but the truth is that most items don’t increase in value. And even if the value does go up, the profits will probably be marginal and not even worth the space the collection requires.
What should you do then? Well, if you still insist on being a collector, be a better one!
Instead of accumulating large objects, try collecting smaller, but still meaningful, things.
Consider objects like marbles, stamps, or baseball cards – even if your collection starts getting a bit out of hand, it’ll be hard for these small items to take over the whole house.
Or consider the joy of bird watchers, who “collect” sightings of rare species, or of globetrotters, who’ve been to 30 countries. Remember, a collection doesn’t even have to consist of physical objects!
September 26, 2015
In the 1970's, when I was 17 years old, I came out as a lesbian. This really upended my vision of my future which always included marriage and children. Unlike now, that did not seem possible so I began to shift my sense of how I would live as an adult. I lived collectively, singularly, with a roommate and in several other types of housing situations that I never even imagined. As Bella DePaulo describes in her engaging and original book, many more adults are choosing to live in these formerly "unimaginable" configurations as the numbers of traditional nuclear family has shrunk and in some ways lost its luster. Adults are exploring exciting new possibilities as they seek to establish and find ways to grow up, grow old and stay grounded in homes that feel right for them.
This book is full of stories. They level of detail in them was fantastic as we learned how individuals and families made their situations work. . Everybody was enthusiastic and though, in many ways, delightful to read, did not feel true to life. Living together means there will be conflict and a fair amount of it. Many of the collectives I knew broke apart, people got hurt and it was hard (I was lucky. I have loved all of my collective experiences) and I think it is important to include this so that we know is is just part of the experience too. Additionally I did not think there was enough in the book about the impact of race, class, gentrification and economics in how people came to make the choices they did. Overall, however, an important book that was fun to read and teaches us so much about how we are living differently from our parents and what possibilities there will be for the generations to come.
Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to review this book for an honest opinion.
This book is full of stories. They level of detail in them was fantastic as we learned how individuals and families made their situations work. . Everybody was enthusiastic and though, in many ways, delightful to read, did not feel true to life. Living together means there will be conflict and a fair amount of it. Many of the collectives I knew broke apart, people got hurt and it was hard (I was lucky. I have loved all of my collective experiences) and I think it is important to include this so that we know is is just part of the experience too. Additionally I did not think there was enough in the book about the impact of race, class, gentrification and economics in how people came to make the choices they did. Overall, however, an important book that was fun to read and teaches us so much about how we are living differently from our parents and what possibilities there will be for the generations to come.
Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to review this book for an honest opinion.
December 24, 2022
There was a time when the ideal family had a mom and a dad and two kids living in their own house. That’s how I grew up. But things have changed dramatically, and DePaulo offers a fascinating look at the way people live now. Many live alone. Married couples sometimes live apart. Divorced moms share homes with other divorced moms, creating a new kind of family. Modern-day villages bring families together to share meals and activities and take care of each other. People share houses as in the Golden Girls TV show, and multiple generations of one family may share a home. Architects are building homes with multiple “master bedrooms,” separate family suites, and other innovations. With people marrying later, if at all, more people not having children, and older people living longer, the old plan doesn’t work as well anymore. DePaulo has done extensive research and many interviews to look at new ways to live. Bottom line: if the old way doesn’t work, try something different. The book is beautiful written in language lay people can understand, and I learned a lot.
February 17, 2022
This was an okay book. The stories and interviews she shared were heart warming and there was a wide breadth of “ways of living” explained, but it wasn’t mind blowing and I probably won’t ever come back to it.
P 143:
…plan for the ways in which families expand and contract over time…inclusion of smaller accessory units, rooms that could be closed off to provide greater privacy, and suites of bedrooms and bathrooms that could open up to a shared living room and kitchen.
P 245:
[In a longitudinal study of singles under fifty over six years] for those who married, things changed. As married people, they had less contact with their parents and spent less time with their friends than when they were single…three years after their weddings, they were still less connected to families and friends; and by the end of the study, they still had bit resumed the relationships they had before.
P 143:
…plan for the ways in which families expand and contract over time…inclusion of smaller accessory units, rooms that could be closed off to provide greater privacy, and suites of bedrooms and bathrooms that could open up to a shared living room and kitchen.
P 245:
[In a longitudinal study of singles under fifty over six years] for those who married, things changed. As married people, they had less contact with their parents and spent less time with their friends than when they were single…three years after their weddings, they were still less connected to families and friends; and by the end of the study, they still had bit resumed the relationships they had before.
January 14, 2021
As how most critical scholars challenging the dominant narrative, the author of this book argues that we also need to cherish, or at least accept, the many ways and places we could live our lives. We as a society cannot claim ourselves modern but are unable to move beyond our primordial conception of home. This has been an insightful book for me as it has given me a nod on a personal level about the way I redefine home.
February 1, 2021
This was a great book to read if you’re wondering about the various ways to live your life- together with a partner, single, together but living separately, cohousing communities (which is what I read it for), aging communities- had it all! Very interesting to hear people’s stories.
September 8, 2015
This book was amazing; especially the dual-dwelling duos. Something to think about.
February 5, 2016
This is a really interesting book ,it took me a couple of days to finish . The way we live is changing ,for the better. Fascinating ideas .
October 19, 2016
I usually lovve non fiction, especially about chosen families. This sadly dragged for me. Not sure why.
November 16, 2017
An interesting read that sparked a lot of thoughts for me about community.
January 13, 2019
I skimmed it, fairly repetitive and nothing that couldn't have been covered in a long magazine article.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews