Parenting/Housing

I have been playing with the thought of instead of buying a house for a big family, maybe I should buy a small land/house for me and my potential fiancee, and seperate lands/houses for my children.

At what age would you be confident that your child could handle living alone-ish?

I plan to have a large family (this is coming from a childless person, so make of it what you will, but I am entertaining the idea of double digits...so what this means in practice, is that their number probably won't be bottlenecked by my willingness, and thus, the future possibilities vary quite a lot, and as such, it's harder to plan for them). I think the standard route is to buy a big-ass house which will fit all your future-kids. But, when they fly out of the nest, you are left with a house too big for you to maintain, and frankly, I wouldn't care much for a big house, if only I would be in the picture. Also, I would probably be delaying starting a family, until I've got enough money for the bigger house.

Now, I can think of some advantages to this (assume that the costs are equivalent):

• I wouldn't have to sell our house once they move.
• They would get to have their own houses: 1. land tenure is god (and oh my, did you ever see how involved kids get the moment you allow them to customize their rooms more to their liking? (even in dorm rooms, posters go everywhere!) I feel like they could really make something great out of a piece of dirt they can call their own. Having some free time helps a lot with that, too.) 2. past a certain age, kids really value some privacy
• They get to learn to be more independent early on
• There is an age until which kids are comfortable with sharing a room, and you have all this time to find a piece of land, so you will probably find better deals than if you'd to choose from the options on the market RIGHT NOW
• Getting together for a 'barn-raising' is freaking great!

Now, I'll be honest, I didn't think too much of why this might be a bad idea. There seems to be a spectrum from sharing a room, through using different rooms in the same house, or different buildings on the same family land, which I think are all pretty standard, to living in seperate houses on different plots. It does not seem THAT extreme to me? Now, if they were to live in a different city, I suppose I would get more uncomfortable?

So, uh, any thoughts? Is there something I did'nt think of?

Seperate but related ideas:

• phasing in/out liberties/monetary allowances gradually, as they grow up: when kids come of a pre-agreed upon age, you may start gradually decreasing the monetary support they get. The standard I usually encountered was that the moment kids start working, they start paying a fixed amount as 'rent'...or they can continue paying nothing.
• treating child/student-ness as a job: with allowances adjusted by performance (also involving them with the family business/whatever as such)