Spurred by many, many comments on my last post (most of which were upon seeing my beloved readers around town--love comments written on the blog as well ;), I've been thinking a lot about families in their houses. And how dwellings contributes to how families work. Firstly, I've realized I have a goal: I don't want the size of our house to be what our kids remember about it. I don't want them to recognize it's "smaller" or "bigger" than other homes. Or has more or less stuff. What I hope they remember about our home is that it is where they felt safe and loved and (mostly) organized. Where they laughed a lot, slept really well, and enjoyed their mother's amazing cooking :)
What is home? Inside and outside? What do we remember about our childhood homes and how does that impact what we build on this fine earth? Certainly, the (screaming) man mentioned in the last post who built the 11,000sf home was impacted by his upbringing: "having lots of room is a good thing. Look, he says, his wife grew up in the projects of New Haven, and he grew up without much. He always shared a room with his brother." Uh-Oh. Should I be worried that Mason and Fergus will be building homes over 11X as big as ours because they are sharing a room? Contrast this man with many friends who, even though they have enough bedrooms to give everyone their own, are purposely putting their kids together. They have such fond memories of sharing.
Certainly, I have limited control over what my boys will remember. Here we spend all this money on activities and they'll probably just remember digging worms in the garden. Yet, big house or small house, what's happening inside is what matters most. Why, exactly, do we need to get away from each other?
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