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[YorkieonmyPillow]

@QVCkitty1 

[Kachina624]

When someone mentions family compounds, I always think of the Kennedys.

[Tigriss]

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@house_cat wrote:

I grew up in NYC. My mom, her sister and her brother all lived in two apartment houses on the same block.  It was magical having my aunts, uncles and cousins in my everyday life.  The adults had some disagreements, but nothing that could ruin a relationship.  They got along remarkably well.  I wish my own kids could have had the same kind of upbringing.   Any family who could manage to live in close proximity should go for it.  I very much regret being so far away from mine.

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We have this down here frequently.  People that live out in the county tend to have lots of land that has been passed down from generation to generation, so people build or put trailers on.  Most have several acres per their "lot" (as people in the cities call their plot of land), but even that can be too close if you have nosey family or MIL trying to rule your new marriage/life alone.  Most down here do it because it is the cheapest to set up instead of buying in an established neighborhood, they just create their own but its just family.  It is nice having your family nearby for help and sharing the load with the kids.  As a kid growing up with family near, we always had playmates and what not, so we just grew up together like Beaver did, but we were family and not strangers per say.  The definition of family is one that adapts to different situations.

As @house_cat pointed out, it doesn't have to be land and houses but apartments, townhouses, etc will do as well.

[software]

much rural area here in Alabama and I find this not to be unusual

But you can't please everyone.

Like another poster mentioned, it never materializes like the plan

I don't care to live that close to family.

I love my family but I want to love them when I want.

Not every time I open my door.

[proudlyfromNJ]

We all scattered after college except one of us. We all got new friends, new lives, etc. One got married and moved a few times, another traveled the country and lived in different states another did years of traveling and wound up on the other side of the world. A compound wouldn’t have worked for us.

[Ruby Laine]

DH always thought of the TV show “Dallas”!  Remember Southfork?  So he thought, hey, wouldn’t that be great to have something like that for us and the girls, for when they have families of their own?  I said, sure, sweetie, they’d just love that. Bless his heart. 

[YorkieonmyPillow]

I think families should stay near each other, sort of like the 3 musketeers...all for one and one for all....not in each other's faces but nearby, an acre or two away...

I think I'm the only one who feels that way though!  LOL

[Sooner]

NO!

[Libbylady]

I grew up living in many places and never near family, even though my parents had 18 siblings between them.

Many who have answered this question seem to assume that the "family" they might live near is THEIR'S, not the spouse's family.

If my DIL's chose to live in such a tight community of just their relatives, , I would feel quite left out of their lives.

Moving every few years to different areas of the country was the best social education I could imagine.  not every move was wonderful, but my family made the best of it and we learned so much.

[RedTop]

We certainly never looked at it like a compound, but I still live on part of my paternal grandparents 200+ acre farm here in southern WV.  

Grandpa gave land to any child who wanted to live here.   My dad was the only child who cleared land and built a home; we lived in sight of each other, but it was a good 15-20 minute walk between houses.  

My dad had an outside job, but also helped his dad work the farm, and care for the cows and hogs we raised for food.    My brothers and I were extra sets of hands for many jobs on the farm.   I washed hundreds of canning jars, picked up a ton of fruit off the ground in the orchard, stacked hay in the barn, and at one time I knew all the grease points on Grandpa’s Farmall Super C tractor.   It didn’t bother me to put my hand in the grease bucket, or reach inside the sow and pull out a piglet that was stuck.   

Dad and Grandpa never argued, and my Mom was loved like a daughter.   We lived very peacefully, but my uncles and aunts were a different story.   They ruined every family gathering with their arguing, and as soon as they started, my dad said it was time for us to go!