Making Ends Meet – A Mood Killer
“Mommy, I forgot my water.” The words of an innocent two year old brought laughter for days after.
In the darkness of the midnight hour, the realization of what life must have been like a seventy years ago, in a two room sod hut on the prairies of Colorado when my grandparents shared their home with a married daughter, her husband and their four younger children, comes to life. As young couples across the United States seek to cut the outrageous costs of living, many choose to co-mingle households with other family members.
Privacy issues?
The topic often comes up. How do you get around the privacy issues? Then we chatter about the options. “There are options you know…” my son-in-law laughs at the idea of conception. “I’m pretty sure we conceived behind the tennis courts,” he shrugs. “It was dark, we took a walk, and um…”
I raise an eye brow and suggest that I probably don’t need details, but the discussion reminds me again of my grandparents two room stone and sod hut on the prairies. How did they have any privacy? There were no extra rooms. Nobody spent the night at a motel back then. And, I can assure you, they weren’t making out in the cozy comfort of the back seat of a 1957 Chevrolet in 1940. Married couples didn’t always have their own rooms for the wedding night even.
In one case, I remember a young couple talking about spending their wedding night in the lean-to attached to her parents home, because it would be their home in the coming months, until her husband had earned enough to build a home of their own on the back forty acres of her father’s ranch. Others had less privacy.
A two bedroom apartment may offer the simple privacy of two bedrooms, but with children who go to bed early and two families sharing a residence, there may be a question as to who gets the bedroom? One couple in the master, kids in the extra bedroom and the other couple on the couch is a good solution, until someone needs a drink in the middle of the night.
Can we say mood killer?
Sharing that two room mansion on the prairie in the tailwinds of the dirty 30′s, my Aunt and Uncle managed to conceive and deliver two children. I won’t tell you they weren’t slightly brain damaged from the experience, but seriously, none the worse for the wear of their entrance into the world. Both managed to grow up, have children and be productive adults most of their lives. And, I’ve heard plenty of stories about the delightful events, acknowledgments and intrusions that filtered through lives lived in close proximity.
Not even the Coolest Woman on the Planet can top that story!
As for young couples sharing a residence in today’s world – should I suggest you enjoy those moments of uninterrupted pleasures and when you do get interrupted, laugh it off. It’s nothing that hasn’t happened in the past…
Now, about that tennis court situation…
