How atypical families are emerging as safety nets for millennials, GenZ

For a good three-quarters of his life, Bharath*, a creative producer with the Tamil film industry and a resident of Bengaluru, has been raised by ‘the community’. 

At the age of 11, Bharath found his first family outside of his biological home in the friends he made at boarding school. Following this, most of his life was spent outside of home.

At 23, when he left his home in Chennai once again following a property dispute, Bharath found a family in the friends with whom he shared shelter and resources with. Today, at 44, a core group of six friends—who are constants—and a fluid group of 15 artists who share his apartment, embody what Bharath calls ‘family’. 

In August 2022, the Supreme Court said “atypical manifestations” of the family unit were equally deserving of not just protection under the law, but also of benefits—such as maternity and child care leaves—available under social welfare legislations. This judgment was specific to safeguarding the rights of domestic, unmarried partnerships or queer relationships, single parent households, and those who remarry, adopt, and foster children. 

But irrespective of their marital or relationship status, urban millennials are building their own ‘atypical’ families comprising individuals they share values and experiences with, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Especially for urban millennials struggling with childhood trauma, queer individuals and those with mental health challenges, these families are emerging as the safety nets that biological families have traditionally been presumed to be. 

“We find ourselves navigating the deep cultural conditioning of the pre-millennium upbringing that in so many ways was enmeshed with choiceless codependency, narrow worldviews, and toxic relationality. On the other hand, as adults, we are exposed to a world where these detrimental patterns are being called out,” says 35-year-old Sruthi Kannath, a fashion designer from Chennai.

“The only space where I find empathy and strength to grow through these changes at my own pace is in other people fighting the same battles,” says Kannath, who shut down her store in Chennai last year and has since been shuttling between Goa and Kodaikanal to join a community of permaculturists.

While the advent of dating apps and social media has transformed how Gen-Z views relationships, the cultural shaming and stereotyping plaguing single and unmarried women is real and enduring, going on to affect the legal provisions and social agency available to them when they want to parent a child, or rent out homes, for instance. This historical stigma only impacts people with disabilities and those from the LGBTQIA+ community in worse ways, sabotaging their self-worth and leading to isolation.

Jayati Doshi, 32, a freelance consultant from Mumbai, grew up in different cities across India, where neighbours, friends and their families were an extension of her own family.

But as an adult, when she returned to India from the US where she was doing her Masters, Doshi found that many of these friends were now married. This shifted the power dynamics in these relationships; from the time when she could crash at a friend’s place, to now, when she was aware of their husbands and in-laws also being around. 

“It wasn’t so much the literal idea of not being able to share space with my friends, as much as it was about defining our respective positions in each other’s lives,” she says. “I began questioning the role of family in my own life, what it meant, and how it would serve me. And vice versa.”

During the pandemic, Doshi hosted virtual listening circles for people to safely voice out what they were experiencing in interpersonal relationships, when hey were compelled to spend long periods of time at home. After the pandemic, she took these dialogues out into the real world, where everyone—from her landlady to her friends and workmates—engaged in active listening and sharing. 

This has allowed for some beautiful relationships to bloom, says Doshi.      

“A couple of my friends and their husbands have come to understand how we can all be there for each other, involve and commit ourselves to important decisions in each other’s lives—making time to meet/talk, caring for ageing parents, taking care of children (including my own if I decide to adopt), and playing the role of caregivers,” she says.      

Passing on the gifts of community

As the discourse around mental health grows louder and complex, so do popular and clinical understandings of trauma. The digital world expands and connects people across the globe, while educating them to understand their families’ life experiences and the impact they had on their ancestors, them, and possibly, their children. 

Communities are vital sources of support during crises. People today know there are not alone, growing up in dysfunctional or violent families, or living through a debilitating mental illness which runs in the bloodline. When you know there are others like you, it’s easier to find your own support system, or if you may, a ‘family’ of your liking, say mental health experts.

This, by no means, requires you to abandon your biological or intimate partner relationships. It is, rather, about finding your tribe and from there, heal collectively. 

Manasi*, a 23-year-old asexual woman moved from her hometown in Coimbatore to Mumbai a year ago to study designing. Among the first things she did on arrival to the new city was to contact her private circles for a roommate who was either asexual or queer. “I could afford a house for myself, but I wanted to have someone to talk to, watch TV or smoke with, which I couldn’t necessarily do with friends back at home who had their own relationships,” she says.

After two months of looking, Manasi found a friend’s friend—a 27-year-old PhD student—who identified as gay. “We’re both still closeted to our families and I feel so much less lonely when he’s around. Back at home, my sexuality was always a cause for alienation rather than connection,” she says.  

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Community-powered mental health

Research shows that when individuals realise they are not alone in their struggles, they are more likely to seek help and engage in open conversations about their mental well-being. 

The first time Bharath realised his need for connection was when he was battling clinical depression alone in his early 20s. “I knew then that I wanted people to be a part of my life—even if not in the form of conventional intimate partner relationships. Today, I see that cohabitation works when there is a clear understanding of each other’s boundaries and needs, and the ways we could meet them,” he says.

Isai, a Chennai-based trainer and educator for government schools, too has opened his house to “anyone looking for a place to rest and a home-cooked meal,” and is hosting eight to ten people at any given time.

With an abusive father and a young mother who separated when he was young, the 30-year-old was forced to grow up sooner than most children, to protect his mother from untoward attention. As an adult, Isai found the safety and connection—deprived to him as a child—by working with people at Rotary and volunteering at government schools. “My own challenges with trust dissolved the more I met people going through systemic oppression, and discovered others who worked hard to make them feel less alone,” he says.

While traversing across Tamil Nadu on his bicycle five years ago, Isai encountered strangers who joyfully shared their homes, food, clothing, and resources with him—expecting nothing in return. “I then realised that out in the world, there were several ‘families’ I could find,” he says.

The power of social integration and community living in mental health recovery has been demonstrated in dynamic models across the world. 

A pioneering example of this are the SOS Children’s Villages—a global non-governmental organisation focused on supporting children without parental care and families at risk—with a presence in 130 countries.

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SOS Villages have been built on the insight that children who have lost the care of their families are disproportionately affected by adverse childhood experiences, and therefore more likely to suffer from mental disorders well into their adulthood.

Orphaned or abandoned children are cared for in family homes by SOS Mothers—women who raise a generation of children as their own—and care for them till adulthood. 

Many SOS mothers are single women and widows without families of their own, who commit themselves to the responsibility of raising these children. In turn, they also find rehabilitation and a secure environment.

Likewise, the Home Again Programme started in 1979 by The Banyan, a mental health NGO in Chennai,  offers services across India. It provides alternate and inclusive living options for women with mental health concerns, and is built on the idea of a ‘formed family’ wherein groups of four to five women with mental illnesse are provided with housing and continued care. Those whose mental disability is severe are given on-site assistance to navigate their way through social transactions. 

“Many of these women have been rejected by their families who don’t have primary caregivers or wherewithawl to take care of them. Some have come out after living in institutionalised care for decades,” says Salih PM, Deputy Director, The Banyan Kerala Chapter. 

“In a family formed with peers, they are united in their challenges with mental health, societal rejection, trauma, and poverty, and find resonance and identity. As with any individual, their desires are universal—to have a family to come home to, live with dignity, be financially independent, and thrive in the community,” says Salih.

(*Names have been changed on request)