Iván Segura, 26 years old, has returned to live with his family in Barcelona after spending five years in the Pyrenees and eighteen months traveling through Mexico. Upon his return, Segura lacked savings and decided to leave his mountain sports studies to dedicate himself to theater, which represented a significant change in his personal and family life.
Personal and family impact after the return to Barcelona
The young man from Barcelona has explained that communicating to his family the change of studies was a delicate moment. His mother almost suffered a shock upon learning the news, although she finally understood it.
"The mother almost had a heart attack when I explained it to her, although afterwards she understood it" - Iván Segura
Segura has recognized that she felt shame upon returning to her mother's house, perceiving the return as a step back in her independence. She has recounted that she even avoided speaking aloud about her situation, feeling that the autonomy she had gained during her years away from home was moving further and further away.
"I think what I basically felt was shame. I told myself "Wow, I live with my mother". I even explained it quietly. I felt it was a step backward, that being independent was getting further and further away, that I was going around from one side to the other"
Currently, Segura pays for a theater school and obtains sporadic income organizing escape room events and team building activities for companies. However, he recognizes that family coexistence implies resuming dynamics that he had left behind precisely to gain personal freedoms.
"I felt that I had started to grow as a person and had my independence. And when this stopped abruptly and returning to my mother's house, dynamics return that you had precisely wanted to leave behind to have certain freedoms. In a way, it's logical, you can't have the house as you want, you can't be with whom you want. You arrive and talk with your mother about the family, about the uncles... And, in my case, you also don't have the own space you need to have your things, to think or to create something"
Other similar experiences in Barcelona
Enrique Fernández, 39 years old, has also had to return to his mother's house on several occasions out of necessity. Fernández has highlighted the lack of privacy and the obligation to adapt to family schedules as the main challenges of this cohabitation.
"The worst is not having privacy or your own space and having to stick to a schedule. They ask you what time you get home, if you're coming for dinner or where you are. These things, after 30, bother a little. The treatment makes you think a little of when you were more a child or teenager; they don't control you, but you do feel that you have to give explanations continuously" - Enrique Fernández
For Fernández, the feeling of going backward in autonomy generates tension in coexistence.
"The fact of feeling that you are going backwards also generates tension" - Enrique Fernández
The vision of families
Montse Ribalta, mother of Enrique Fernández and resident of Barcelona, has pointed out that the lack of space and privacy can cause conflicts at home. Her son contributes "a little bit" to the expenses and must follow some minimum rules.
"Especially for him, because he loses privacy and clashes can arise" - Montse Ribalta
Ribalta has added that, in her memory, her son continues to be "her child", which influences the daily relationship and the perception of family roles.
"In her memory, he is still her 'boy'" - Montse Ribalta
The situation of Iván Segura and Enrique Fernández reflects a reality present in many homes in Barcelona, where intergenerational cohabitation becomes a temporary solution due to the lack of resources or vital changes, but also a challenge for autonomy and family coexistence.