Jeremy Anderson resisted at first. She wasn’t ready yet. Sure, she was in her 60s, but she wasn’t that old and she was still in good health. But still, her adult children and their families would ask her when she was going to move in with one of them.

“We had talked about it from time to time and I would say, ‘No. Are you kidding?”‘ says Anderson, 64, of Fresno, Calif., who works in the office at New Harvest Church in Clovis, Calif.

Then, one night this past fall, she and her children and their families talked about it more seriously.

“We’ve been thinking about it for a year,” says her son-in-law, Chip Hancock, of Fresno. “We’re just trying to help her with her expenses as she’s going into her senior years. She wasn’t responsive at first. … She didn’t want to feel like a burden.”

But they persuaded her that she should move into an in-law suite that Hancock and his wife, Jennifer, would add to their home.

“After the deep conversation, I thought: What am I fighting?” Anderson says. “This is a wonderful opportunity. I did have to take some time to process it, but what an opportunity to spend time with my children and grandchildren.”

Since then, the Hancocks have been turning their covered patio into an in-law suite. About 300 to 400 square feet, the addition will have a bedroom and bathroom.

The room, which is next to the kitchen, will have a door to the kitchen and an outside entrance. It should be completed in another month, and Anderson can’t wait.

“I’m getting anxious,” she says laughing. “I made the decision (to move), and so now it’s like hurry up. I need to get going.”

As more early baby boomers begin to reach retirement age, many of their adult children are searching for ways to help them maintain their independence but also keep them close by. Late baby boomers also are looking for options for their parents. Some have turned to in-law suites, either adding them onto existing homes or building them detached from the main houses, and making these secondary dwellings popular again.

Technically known as accessory dwelling units, in-law suites or granny flats were common in the 1940s and ’50s. The units were attached to the main house or were on the same lot, but detached. They provided places for extended family members to live. Sometimes, the rooms were rented out for extra income.

“We’re seeing a definite need,” says Karen McCaffrey, vice president of The McCaffrey Group in Fresno. “You hear buyers coming in who have a parent living with them, or they’re planning ahead that perhaps they could have or should have space to accommodate a parent.”

In-law suites can take several forms, she says. For example, they can be units, which often have a bedroom and bathroom, in the main house. They usually are separate living quarters, maybe at a different wing of the home, with no outside entrance.

Also common are suites that provide more privacy for occupants with their own main entrances. The units may or may not be attached to the primary residence. If they are attached, they may have direct access to the main house with doors.

For some parents such as Anderson, living with their adult children can be an uncomfortable idea – at least sometimes, at first.

“There’s a certain perception of that if you’re sick, infirm or older, then you move in with your family,” she says of her initial reluctance. “But to do it when you’re young and fit and your kids want you? … It’s changed my thinking a little bit. I had to get my arms around that – that I’m not doing it because I’m old and infirm.”

Once the parents are in their new quarters, the close proximity also can take some getting used to for them and their adult children.

“It was a huge adjustment,” says Stacy Daly, 39, of Oakhurst, Calif. She and her husband, Clark, moved into her parents’ home when her father developed health problems. They then converted and expanded the garage into a 1,700-square-foot in-law suite for her parents, Don and Candi MacAlpine, a job Daly says cost around $100,000.

“You learn about (having) grace,” she says. “If you want to go somewhere, we need to let them know. If we want to add anything to the house, we have to talk (about it).”

Ed and Mona Guzman, also of Oakhurst, can relate. They built their house 16 years ago. Since then, her parents have lived in an in-law suite on the other side of the three-car garage.

“You give away a measure of your privacy and independence,” says Ed Guzman, a 50-year-old manager at Sierra Ambulance in Oakhurst. “Whenever we’d go anywhere, they knew, and when they (went) somewhere, we knew.

“When you’re in close proximity, you step on each other’s toes, and you try to be sensitive about that. You learn to be more thoughtful of other people when you come and go.”

The Guzmans have built two in-law suites for her father, Walter Jenkins, and her late mother, Chiyoko. The first was a unit between 600 and 800 square feet above a garage when they lived in San Diego. The current suite, which is 1,500 square feet, has a living room, a bedroom with a bathroom, a small kitchen, sunroom and office.

The living arrangement also has many advantages, including having someone watch over your house and landscape while you’re away and just being near your loved ones.

“My wife being Japanese, being close to her family was really comforting,” says Jenkins, 75, of his wife, who died about a year ago.

The Guzmans also have enjoyed having them nearby.

“It was a blessing as a young mother to have my mother watch our young daughter,” says Mona Guzman, 48, a nurse practitioner and mother of two daughters. “They also get a blessing from getting to know their grandchildren, and (her children) learned from their grandmother.”

Daly also agrees.

“My dad was diagnosed this summer with a serious illness,” she says. “I love it that my boys have as much time to spend with my dad. … We have our own separate lives, but we’re together.”

In-law suites might not be for everyone. But if they seem to fit your family’s needs, they can offer good solutions.

“I think it’s a win-win situation for everybody,” Anderson says. “In this day and age, when so many families are fractured, embrace it. It’s not without difficulties, but the benefits far outweigh them.”