Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: space "needs" (was Involuntary Simplicity)

[Witten & Fitch (lll]

Eris,

I liked what you had to say about our perceived needs.  It is funny because
I come to voluntary simplicity from the other angle - my parents have more
than I want.

However, as I sit here in my four bedroom house, I have often wished I
bought a smaller unit.  It is extremely extravagant.  Funny thing though, I
grew up in a house probably three times this size, and six kids shared 5
bedrooms (almost one each), and there were three bathrooms.  My husband grew
up in a mansion (8 bedrooms, at least 5 baths, a living room and a
commonhouse size great room), and his parents still live there 20 years
after their 3 kids flew the coop!  So we have both downsized - we just
haven't downsized enough in my humble opinion.

Our children share a room, and we have an office, so our fourth room is
often rented to foreign students.  This is a great financial and cultural
benefit to our family, but it is embarrassing housing Indonesians in an
extra room that is the size of their typical shared living space!

Us rich folks can chose voluntary simplicity - we have nothing to prove or
worry about.  But boy are we in trouble now that the rest of the world wants
to live like us!

Laura Fitch
Pioneer Valley Cohousing

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cohousing-l [at] freedom2.mtn.org
> [mailto:cohousing-l [at] freedom2.mtn.org]On Behalf Of Eris Weaver
> Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2000 1:14 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: space "needs" (was Involuntary Simplicity)
>
>
> I have been following with interest the different threads about house
> size -- number of bedrooms, square footage, etc.  What is very interesting
> to me, not just on this list, but in the greater world in general, is the
> whole idea of how much space one indeed "needs."
>
> My father, in a family of six people, grew up in a two-bedroom, one-bath
> home.  The parents in one room, the two girls in the other, and
> the two boys
> in the garage.  The kids not only shared rooms, but beds!  One of
> the things
> I loved as a child was staying at Grandma's house, BECAUSE of the shared
> beds -- my two aunts were still at home and I slept in the middle between
> them.
>
> I grew up, a family of four, in two-bedroom, two-bath home.  My
> sister and I
> shared a room.  This was the case with most of my friends, that
> two or three
> siblings shared a room.  We thought that having one's own room was the
> epitome of luxury.
>
> As an adult, my ex-wife and I lived in a 40-foot trailer with our
> infant son
> for three years, later buying the two-bedroom, one-bath condo
> (~900 sq. ft.)
> I now live in.  The number of people living in my current home has varied
> from one to four; I had one neighbor who had a family of five in the same
> size unit.  (Teenage boy and girl shared  a room, baby slept with mom &
> dad.)
>
> In my entire forty-one years, I've had "my own room" for about six years.
>
> Now, it seems that so many of the people I know feel that they
> need not only
> one bedroom for each individual but an additional room for an office,
> whether they actually work at home or not.
>
> There may be a unspoken class issue going on here, too.  I have definitely
> "moved up" from my roots in the company I keep.
>
> It is just interesting to me that we feel we "need" so much space, when in
> many parts of the world an entire extended family might live in a house
> smaller than mine!  Why do we feel we need it?  To house all our stuff?
> What do we actually DO in each room?  Are our kids missing out on learning
> how to share space and stuff, on how to hold on to a sense of inner self &
> privacy surrounded by others?
>
> My cohousing group is not anywhere near the design phase yet; I hope that
> differing ideas about space "needs" do not become an issue.  With one
> potential retrofit site we considered, it did; one family left the group,
> over both that site's location, esthetics, and size.
>
> Just some random thoughts, feel free to reply off-list.
>
> *****************************************************
> Eris Weaver                            eris [at] wco.com
> SoCoHo                                http://www.wco.com/~eris/socoho.html
>
> "Let the beauty we love be what we do."
>                          ---Mevlana Jelaladin Rumi
>