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I find that doubling up as a guest in someone else’s home – though not hosting someone else in their home – threatens mothers’ identities as adults and good parents. Mothers describe doubling up in someone else’s home as incompatible with their ideals of adulthood and family life, which are organized around the independent nuclear family. While mothers expect to control their daily lives and childrearing, householders retain authority over the home and its inhabitants, and there is no taken-for-granted way of reconciling household members’ conflicting expectations.