With three generations living in one two-story duplex in Calgary, Alberta, the kitchen is often chaotic and crowded.
Nga Nguyen, the matriarch of the family, is the first to wake up. She starts preparing a traditional Vietnamese breakfast of fried rice and pho around 7 a.m., and soon, her granddaughter, Morgan Nguyen-Bettle, saunters down the stairs. When the food is ready, Ms. Nguyen’s son, Dai Nguyen, and his partner, Herlina Siagan, help feed Morgan.
Upstairs, Ms. Nguyen’s daughter, Thao Nguyen-Bettle, and son-in-law, Josh Bettle, get ready for the work and school day. Meanwhile, Nghia Nguyen, Ms. Nguyen’s husband, starts his morning more relaxed, brewing coffee before driving off to play tennis. The family’s two diminutive dogs, Tyson and Lucky, partake in the breakfast festivities by awaiting pets and table scraps.
The Nguyens have all lived together since 2019, with Ms. Siagan, 31, joining them in February. Their living arrangement offers space, home-cooked meals and a steady stream of companionship for all seven of them, ranging from age 6 to 65.
Ms. Nguyen-Bettle, 33, was the first of her family to move to Canada from Vietnam, in 2011. Her brother followed a year later and the siblings sponsored their parents to join and live with them in 2018. The siblings’ names are on the title of the five-bedroom, 1,836-square-foot attached house in Calgary’s Forest Lawn neighborhood that they share. If not for the pooling of joint assets and a more favorable housing market at the time, the purchase, for 440,000 Canadian dollars in 2019, would have been more difficult, she said. And they’ve made it continue to work by successfully sharing financial responsibilities.
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