Hard-Earned Patience: An Interview with Hannah Grieco
When Hannah Grieco responded to a call for pitches I put out for my anthology, Living, Together: Reimagining Community in the Age of Disconnection, I was eager to hear what she had to say. I’d long admired Hannah’s short stories, essays, and poetry (what can’t she do?!) for their emotional resonance. Every piece is a kick in the gut, a knife to the heart (complimentary).
Hannah told me she’d recently moved into her parents’ house with her three kids and her husband. The house was too much for her parents to take care of as they age, but the thought of leaving their home for a senior community was crushing to them. Hannah and her husband needed help, too; their kids were young and not all of them well.
The essay excerpted here, which appears in the anthology, doesn’t mince words about the difficult parts of sharing space with many different personalities and age groups. It also illustrates what’s joyful and even necessary about the arrangement. Hannah describes an added bonus: being able to watch her parents become who her grandchildren need them to be, which was something they couldn’t always do for Hannah. This piece invites readers to observe how an extended family that lives together can grow, together. I asked Hannah a few questions for MUTHA about the inspiration behind her essay, the surprises she’s found within her living situation, and what we could all gain from having less time alone. – Samantha Paige Rosen
Samantha Paige Rosen: What inspired your essay in Living, Together, “Come with Us?”
Hannah Grieco: I’ve tiptoed around writing this essay for a while. I sometimes struggle with writing honestly about my parents, who are still alive (and live with me)! I want to be kind and generous with my loved ones, but also share what’s true. This was my attempt to explore the nuance of multi-generational living, to express gratitude and care for my parents and children, and maybe to purge a little. To let some things go.
The theme of this anthology was too compelling to pass up.
SPR: What has surprised you (for better and for worse) about having your parents be so involved in you and your children’s daily lives, and vice versa?
HG: It’s brought great love to my children, a large (and loud) communal dinner table, and a hard-earned patience in all of us. My oldest child can sink into isolation, but there is a daily hug requirement with grandparents in the house. There is always a quick chore to be done: a peanut butter jar to open, a cup to reach on the top shelf.
And honestly, I believe it’s kept my parents alive. We love them and need them, and so they are more active, more involved, more aware of their importance in our lives and on this earth!
SPR: If readers, especially mothers, take one thing away from your essay, what do you hope that will be?
HG: We are isolated in America. We are exhausted and sad, yet somehow supposed to be fiercely independent. But multi-generational living has changed that for me. I am simply never alone! That can also be exhausting, but I never feel lonely or hopeless. I’m never pushing forward on my own. If nothing else, I sit down at our loud dinner table, everyone yelling and interrupting like the movie “Moonstruck,” and laugh.
How unlike 2026, you know? To feel so messy and deeply loved and never alone.
Imagine a wave of families choosing this.
SPR: What has writing about parenting allowed you to understand about yourself or your children that you otherwise might not?
HG: This is my therapy. This is how I learn who I am. I start writing with a thousand questions, searching for something, anything. I finish the essay, finally, with more questions. Different questions. Farther along the path. And being a mother intersects with literally every other aspect of my life. So this is what I write!
About the Author
Samantha Paige Rosen’s writing on identity, culture, and the arts has appeared in the Washington Post, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, Slate, Them, Literary Hub, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and lives outside of Philadelphia, where she is a freelance writer and editor, a writing tutor and coach, and an amateur potter. Living, Together: Reimagining Community in the Age of Disconnection is her first book.
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