A Little Bit of Room

My wife and I have been watching a lot of those shows on HGTV where people are either buying a house or fixing up a house. Sometimes the people are selling their current home and buying a new home. I especially like the episodes where they’re fixing up an older house, where they gut it down to the studs and the subflooring, and then redo it all up to so-called modern standards. That’s a talent that I definitely do not have.

However, there is one thing that really annoys me as I watch these shows. Most times, there is a couple with one or two kids, and every once in a while, there are three kids. I guess that is the typical family today and I fit into that category with my own. I don’t have a problem with that. It’s the way the people have to have a monster home, and every kid has to have their own bedroom and bathroom. Okay, so I exaggerate slightly about each kid having their own bathroom, but only a little. Many people say they absolutely need 3000+ square feet, at least three bathrooms, a fully finished basement, and the obligatory “open concept” main floor.

Really? There are only four people in most of these families and they must have these ridiculous sized houses. At one time, when all nine kids were still living at home, we had about 1000 square feet, three bedrooms, one bathroom (that is NOT a misprint) and no basement, finished or unfinished. Was it a bit crowded? Yes, it was. Did we need more room? Yes, we did, but that didn’t come for a few years, and until the three older ones were out of the house. How did we do it? We just did, just like a lot of other families did back then.

We shared bedrooms. Mom and Dad had theirs; another bedroom had two sets of bunk beds and another bed in the middle for the five oldest boys; and the third bedroom had two double beds, one for me and my younger brother and one for the two girls. So not only did we share bedrooms, we shared beds. Like I said, we made it work, we had no other choice really. But, it wasn’t just that we gritted our teeth and toughed it out, we actually didn’t mind it. At least I didn’t.

There was something about lying in bed, talking, laughing, and telling stories that I wouldn’t have traded for anything, even my own room. It built a great friendship between my younger brother and me, and with my sister who is a year older than me (the “Three Little Ones”). If we had each had our own room, I don’t think we would have had that. And I don’t think I would have learned to get along with others as well either, because being together in such tight quarters teaches you some great life lessons – sharing, respecting each other and each other’s space, working out a conflict, and compromise. It’s best to learn those at home while younger than learn them the hard way later in life.

I still watch those HGTV shows, even if they do annoy me at times. The people that think they’re doing their family a favor by buying huge houses where each person gets their own wing of the house will find out some day that they missed something. It wasn’t space, nor was it amenities, but something far more important; time together in the same room.

Trying to Get Ahead

I get frustrated at times because it seems like whenever I start getting ahead a little financially, BAM!, something happens. Get a little money from my tax return? Oh, that loud noise was the washing machine refusing to wash any more clothes! Get a little reward at work for doing a good job? The mailman just delivered the updated quarterly real estate tax that went up by – look at that – the same amount as my reward! How about a raise at work? Oops, not even enough to keep up with inflation. It sometimes feels like the more money I get, the more bills I get without even buying anything. Maybe I should stop trying to get ahead.

This is an area I give my parents a ton of credit. It’s not like we had a lot of money when I was growing up, but they always seemed to figure out a way. Sometimes they didn’t pay a bill, or we had to get by for a couple of weeks on powdered milk (Warning: not for the faint of heart). If I ripped my jeans playing street hockey or football, I didn’t get a new pair. No, Mom put a patch on them or sewed up the tear and I was good to go. As Dad used to say, “As long as we have a roof over our heads, food on the table, and clothes on our back we’re OK.” It’s that simple.

Don’t get me wrong, there were times I knew we weren’t very well off, but for the most part I didn’t think about it much. That was mostly because my parents were so positive that everything would be OK. I also think a large part of it was that they didn’t even look to the things they couldn’t have. They didn’t think about getting a brand new car like some of the neighbors did every two or three years. A dependable used car in good shape that ran well was enough for them. They didn’t think about going out and buying the latest model television. Until the one we had was unwatchable or died, we didn’t get a new one. Taking a trip to Disney was out of the question. If we drove to my Aunt and Uncle’s house in New Hampshire, that was a vacation!

Looking back through somewhat fading eyes and with less than 20/20 vision, I think we were pretty happy as kids. We played together, we did stuff with friends in the neighborhood and we made do. Though a few of my friends seemed to have a lot of money, there were a lot of families in the same place as mine. We had a house to live in, rented or owned, we had three good meals a day (and a few snacks thrown in to boot), and we always had clothes to wear, even if they weren’t the newest and greatest fashion. I don’t think any of us really cared.

So why, forty years later, does it bother me that I’m not getting ahead? I think it may be that there are things that are almost within reach, that they’re just beyond my fingertips but I can see them. When you can’t even imagine buying a new car financially even if you may need one, it doesn’t bother you as much as when you have almost enough saved to do it. It seems like every commercial on TV is for cars when you’re getting tired of the one you have but can’t afford a newer one. It’s like the car industry is taunting you, daring you to buy a new one with their nobody-is-turned-down credit.

Thankfully, I can break the spell of the so called American Dream by just looking back over my life. Mom and Dad never lived the high life, never really got ahead financially, but they were happy. As a kid, I was happy with the little I had because I had something way more valuable – a family that loved each other. I don’t need more stuff or new stuff, I just need to be more grateful.

It really is that simple.

Clean Does Not Equal Comfortable

I feel very uncomfortable when I go to someone’s house and the place is spotless. Not just the main room where you’re hanging out, but every room in the house. You go into the kitchen and there’s not a stray glass on the counter, there’s not even a hint of the remnants of a spill on the countertops, the stove top is perfectly clean, the sink is just gleaming and all the kitchen utensils, from spatula to ladle, are in their proper places, neatly arranged and in order. You go into the living room and there’s not even a molecule of dust or dirt visible to the naked eye, the magazines are neatly stacked by publication in date order, the coasters for drinks are all in their holder and the various remote controls are stored neatly. You go into the bathroom and you could practically eat off the floor, there’s not any toothpaste spatterings anywhere, there are decorative soaps that are never to be used and the towels are all perfectly matched, hung and clean.

These kinds of houses scare me because, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m a bit of a klutz. When I’m there I’m always worried that I’m going to knock something over, or spill something, or worse, I’m going to break something. You know how that works; the more you worry about something, the more likely it is to happen. When sports teams play to not lose instead of playing to win, they usually lose. So as I’m sitting in the beautiful, immaculate living room and enjoying a drink, I’m afraid that the glass is going to slip out of my hand and smash on the coffee table, probably taking a divot out of the table for good measure. In reality, I’m not even enjoying the drink. While we’re eating dinner, I’m afraid that I’m going to drop my forkful of food onto the plate, breaking the plate and sending food flying across the room.

When I went over to some of my friends’ houses as a kid, they had whole rooms you couldn’t even go in. The first time I went to one of my friend’s house, we were goofing around and I ran into a room that seemed like any other. He stopped at the edge of the room and shouted, “Get out of there!” Seeing the panic in his face, I looked around, thinking his parents were in there or maybe a dead body was hidden in there. There was a couch, a couple of chairs, some lamps and end tables. However, everything was covered in plastic. I went to sit down on the couch and my friend practically burst into tears. “Don’t sit there! Get out of there now!” I loved the power I had at that point, but the sheer panic and lack of color in my friend’s face was freaking me out. He wouldn’t even go into the room. It turns out that the room was used like twice a year on specific Jewish holidays – and only on those days. He said that if his parents caught him in there, they’d kill him.

I can tell you we had no such room in my house. Every room in my house got used all year round. There were no off-limits rooms where everything was cover in plastic. Our house wasn’t the nicest, nor the neatest, but what can you expect with nine kids? As Mom used to say, we lived in our house. I guess that’s one of the things I remember most about our house. It was never spotless and things weren’t just so, but it was comfortable, homey and lived in. When my friends came over, they didn’t care that we didn’t have a brand new living room set or that all the magazines weren’t in perfect order. No, they were there to hang out and do what kids do – have fun. My kids have had to remind me of that on occasion when they had friends coming over unexpectedly. I’d look around the house and go into a little panic because the house wasn’t perfectly clean. When I’d start to tell them all the things that needed to be done, they’d just say that their friends didn’t care what the house looked like. It took a few times of this happening before I realized they were right. Kids don’t look around and make mental notes of the condition of a house or judge a person or family based on their house.

So come on over to my house, sit down, relax and have a drink without worrying about spilling it. If you’re expecting to see a perfectly clean, spotless house like you see in magazines, you’ll be disappointed. But if you’re expecting to see a house that looks like people live in it, and a house that is warm and comfortable even in the middle of the winter, then you’ll feel right at home. Besides, even if there are a few stains on the couches, they are much more comfortable without a plastic covering.