_与母亲“同居”的日子

　　自摆脱婴儿床后，我就一直和母亲同睡一张床，不是因为我是“长不大的孩子”，不是因为我不够自立，而是在我成长的那个拥挤的家里，我根本就找不到任何私人空间。如今，我快大学毕业了，也终于有了属于自己的房间和床，但独眠之初，我竟无法安睡了??
　　The last time I slept alone, it was in a crib. Ever since then, I have shared a bed with my mother. And this is in Washington Heights, a Manhattan neighborhood known for its relatively affordable and spacious apartments.
　　I guess our place, with its four bedrooms, is considered big by many standards. But with only one bathroom, it definitely wasn’t meant for eight people.
　　There’s my mother, 61, and my father, 82, and my Uncle Ramon, who has lived with us since he got his green card back in January 2000. Then there are the twins, Elaine and Rosemary, my 30-year-old sisters. And last year my 27-year-old sister, Vanessa, was laid off from her job in Virginia Beach and wound up1) moving back home with her 3-year-old daughter. She is pregnant, due this August. We’re like the Dominican2) Kardashians3), with all of the drama but none of the wealth.
　　According to 2011 census data, 10 percent of women (and 19 percent of men) age 25 to 34 live in their parents’ homes. I’m 24, and for women in my age bracket4) the figure is 50 percent—though that includes college students living in dorms, something that wasn’t an affordable option for me. Demographers say that the trend is rising—that it started going up before the recession, and has only continued since.
　　But I don’t feel like part of a new trend. It just seems normal to me. Since the age of 13, I have been waking up early to prepare breakfast for my family, anything from farina5)—basically Cream of Wheat—to eggs, bacon and mangu, a plantain mash. My father never went to school and my mother only went to third grade, so reading and translating were also my responsibility. I wore hand-me-down6) clothes from my sisters. There were times we slept on the couch because there weren’t enough mattresses7). Our lives were based on traditional values about the importance of family, values many of our neighbors shared. I love my parents, but it was hard taking care of them when I was still a child myself. I got really stressed and cried at times.
　　Later, it was hard to date because I didn’t want to bring a guy to my house where he could see how crowded it was. Most of all, I didn’t want anyone to find out that I had to share a bed with my mother. Because she was a noisy and restless sleeper, my father refused to share a bed or even a room with her. He had his own room, and so did my uncle. Since I was the youngest girl, I had to bunk8) with my mother, while my sisters shared the last room. It meant that, even at 3 a.m., when everyone was asleep, I still didn’t have any privacy.