Back when I still lived in the city, my fellow displaced urbanite mom friends and I used to fantasize, sometimes, about how lovely it would be to have our families --  the parents and siblings we'd left behind in the burbs -- close by.

Jacqueline Burt is a freelance journalist living in Connecticut who frequently contributes to the Ne...read more

If Grandma lived on the other end of town, instead of on the other side of the country, it would be like having an on-call babysitter (we imagined). If Auntie So-and-So lived across the street, instead of across the Atlantic, we'd have help carting the baby's onesies to the Laundromat anytime we needed it (we daydreamed).

Had we all made a horrible mistake, moving away from the only people obligated to rush to our aid at a moment's notice (without expecting to be well compensated for their trouble)?

The answer is simple: No. And yes.

About a year ago, when my husband and I split up, I packed up my son and daughter and moved back home to the suburbs, into the same house where I grew up, the house where my mother and grandmother still reside.

"How wonderful! Four generations!" acquaintances remark upon learning the specifics of our living arrangement, as if it were some intentional throwback to the days when respected elders and newborn babies all huddled in the same teepee.

"That's two generations too many," is my standard response.

Perhaps if there were some unifying belief holding us three mothers together, a sort of blood truth that transcended our personal differences, we'd have that ancient community vibe going on.

Instead, we tiptoe around each other's agendas, silently -- or loudly -- judging preferences apart from our own: My grandmother, raised during The Great Depression, bemoans my extravagant use of paper towels and daily implores my artist mother to find a job "with benefits;" my mother, an ex-hippie, worries herself sick over my grandmother's "negative energy" and the fact that I sometimes "yell" at my kids; and I, an emotionally repressed cynic with ambiguous ideas about life in general, dream only of escape -- to a home where my children and I can be ourselves without fear of disappointing anyone (and where we can make a mess. Did I mention my mother and grandmother are both neat freaks?).

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate that, in general, I don't have to worry about who will watch my kids if I need to get a haircut, or finding someone to take over should I catch a bug my daughter brings home from school.

Indeed, if I didn't have my mother and grandmother around when I was smote down with the worst flu of my life for two weeks this past winter, I don't know how my children would have survived. And laundry is certainly easier to get done these days, since the mothers superior in my house can't stand to let clothes sit in the dryer for five minutes without folding and putting them away.

Enough can't be said about the usefulness of an extra set of hands or two, particularly when those hands are attached to people who don't need their references checked.

Yes, practical matters like housework and childcare are handled with relative ease when there's family around to pitch in. It's the emotional stuff that's trickier. Every decision that I make as a mother is made under a microscope, magnified way beyond its actual importance or potential effect on my kids.

"No more juice today," I tell my daughter Charlotte when she reaches for another box of fruit punch.

"What's wrong with juice?" my mother asks, looking at me like I'm Joan Crawford.

"No juice in the living room," interrupts my grandmother. "I don't want any stains on the carpet."

Charlotte, taking advantage of our three-way standoff, grabs the juicebox and runs upstairs, where she can sip her beverage in relative peace.

On the one hand, all I want to do is tell them both to butt out. Loudly. But I bite my tongue, more often than not, and not just because of my intense fear of conflict.

However flawed, the love my grandmother and mother have for my children is true. Their intentions are pure. And if I am honest, I know that I have as much to learn from them about being a good mother as I do about (not) being a bad one.

Little gestures, isolated moments take me back to a time when I loved them because I knew they loved me, before I'd accumulated enough psychic scars to start assigning blame.

My mother, exhausted after a long day at work, nevertheless finds the energy to dance around to Hannah Montana (one of the rare activities enjoyed by both my 7-year-old and my 2-year-old).

My son slips and bumps his head on the doorframe and my grandmother is transformed into an instrument of clear-headed compassion, fetching ice and wiping tears, her face absorbing Julian's pain. And I think, as helpful as extra hands are when you're a mother, extra hearts are what really make family worth having around.

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