Remembering Ruth

By laurelfelt | January 4, 2014 - 9:41 pm | Asset appreciation, Blog, Child's play, Family dynamics, Gender and sexuality, Narrative

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These eulogies were given by my uncle, mother, aunt, father, and myself at the December 24, 2013, memorial service for my grandmother, Ruth Marcus. She had died two days prior, in her home and in the presence of her family, at the age of 91 and a half. Her cousin Beverly Copeland also created a written tribute for Ruth.

Dick Marcus

For the last several years, Mom and I would go out for lunch each Saturday. One of our favorite spots was Georgie V’s, a pleasant breakfast and lunch diner in Northbrook. At some point, I guess, we became regulars, known to the waiters and waitresses and bus boys as well as the restaurant owner, George Vlhalkis. On several occasions, after chatting with my mom, George would put his large hand on my shoulder and tell me that he wished all his customers could be like my mother.

I would smile and nod, knowingly. But there was a part of me that was thinking, “Whoa, George…Be careful what you wish.”

I would be thinking that if all of his customers were like my mother, the first thing George would need to do would be to throw away his reservation book. It would be worthless. To my mom, appointment times, movie times, event times, reservation times, were more like suggestions, more like ranges. And the older she got, the longer those ranges became. Mom just couldn’t be rushed, it just wasn’t her way.

And while he was at it, George might as well have tossed his menus too. Why? Because they would just be a nuisance. Listen. When mom went to Georgie V, she used to pick up the impressive six page menu and study it closely, intensely like a Talmudic scholar searching for clues to the meaning of life. And then, finally, she would order, yet again, two scrambled eggs. Which she wouldn’t eat. You see, to my mom, going to a restaurant, or gathering for a holiday feast for that matter, had nothing to do with eating. The food was irrelevant. Merely a prop. The importance was that we were together, talking, laughing, telling stories. So, no need for menus. Scrambled eggs for everyone.

And finally I’d think that George would need to double his staff. You see people like my mother attract a gathering of waitresses and busboys to their tables. They trade stories and catch up. George would need a lot more help then to keep the coffee cups filled and the orders taken.

But in truth, of course, I know what George meant. Actually, anyone who knew my mother at all knows what he meant. George meant that he wished all his customers walked into his restaurant with a smile as broad and bright as my mom’s. With a smile like a billboard broadcasting the message “It’s good to see you, good to be here at this moment, in this place, with all of you.” That smile of my mom’s was contagious and disarming. Even strangers were compelled to smile back at my mom, perhaps just out of courtesy, but maybe because my mom’s smile somehow tickled them, somehow reminded them that warm and kind people still walk the earth.

And George meant that he wished all his customers were, like my mom, quicker to compliment than to criticize. More inclined to point out the positive than to dwell on the negative. And, like my mom, believing that tone and temper should be thoughtfully calibrated to fit the situation. So that, if a customer needed to tell a waitress that the soup was too cold, then, like my mom, the customer would say it with a light touch, understanding that we are only talking about soup, not life or death.

And, I think that George meant that he even wished all his customers had my mom’s special talent, her special affinity, for putting people at ease and engaging them in conversation. I think he wished that all his customers had mom’s ability to listen to other people with an interest that was understanding and sincere. Indeed, wherever my mom went, including George’s crowded restaurant, mom could strike up a conversation with someone, and, more often than not, learn about the other person’s family, the person’s job, the person’s aspirations.

You see, Mom understood that every person’s life was a story, that every person’s life had its share of pathos, comedy, and drama. And by her asking a few questions and taking a few minutes to let a person share a bit of their life’s story with her, mom was affirming that that person’s life story was interesting, that it had value, that it was worth taking the time to hear. And who isn’t flattered a bit by something like that?

Mom’s smiles, kind words and friendly ear were not reserved to Georgie V’s of course. They were a part of her wherever she went. They were her gifts to all she met. Her contribution to making the world just a little bit brighter, a little bit happier. Indeed, you may find it fitting sometime during these next few days or weeks to pass a greeting on to someone you don’t know, or to take an extra moment to listen to someone’s story. I believe it would honor mom. And you might find it easier to do than you think, and more rewarding than you know.

Barbara Marcus Felt

I’ve been reflecting on my mom’s life lately and, these past few days, on her death.

I’ve been asking myself, “What did she want to teach me? And what have I learned?”

An anecdote keeps coming to mind. My mom had this habit that used to irritate my Aunt Audrey to no end. After my mom had finished washing her hands in a public ladies’ room, she would take a paper towel and wipe the sink area. The stray splashes on the counter and droplets on the faucet – my mom wiped ‘em all up. In a public washroom. After her hands were clean. My aunt would go crazy and even I would be mildly irritated because, usually, we’d be late to go somewhere.

I used to admonish her, “Mom, what are you doing???”

And she’d turn to me and say, “Barb, you have to leave it a little better than you found it.”

I think that’s the lesson that my mom meant for me to learn: As we go through life, we have to leave it a little better than we found it.

Sue Milner Marcus

I’ve had the privilege of knowing Ruth for over 44 years, for 7 years as Dick’s girlfriend (although he would never admit to that at the time), and for 37 years as her daughter-in-law. Now, many people love to make comments about their mothers-in-law, or tell mother-in-law jokes. I was talking with Rick the other day, and both of us independently came up with the same thought. Mother-in-law jokes did not apply to Ruth. She was one of the most warm, gracious, accepting women you would ever meet. Ruth, and Barbara as well, welcomed not only me, but my small extended family, into her life.

Prior to the death of Rick’s parents, our holiday gatherings consisted of the Marcuses, the Felts, and my family, the Milners. Dick and I never had to decide where to spend our holidays. We were one big family. Today, if people ask me who is coming over for Thanksgiving, which is a holiday we celebrate every year at our house, I don’t say that Dick’s family is coming over. Rather, without even realizing it, I say my family is coming over. And I believe that that is because of Ruth, and Ray as well, for whom family meant everything, and of course Dick and Barbara, who inherited Ruth’s values. And whenever Ruth would introduce me to her friends, she would introduce me as her darling daughter-in-law, and then would proceed to explain how she didn’t like to use the words “daughter-in-law,” as I was more like a second daughter. She accepted me unconditionally.

Ruth loved children, and had an unbelievable way with kids. A year after Leanne was born, I started teaching part time at Northeastern Illinois University. I would leave Leanne one afternoon each week with my mother, and one afternoon each week with Ruth, so that I could get some work done. When Dick or I would pick Leanne up from my mom’s, Leanne would be appropriately, if not over, dressed for the weather. But when I would pick Leanne up from Ruth’s house, I would be lucky if Leanne was even wearing a diaper. Ruth believed that kids needed to be free, and clothes were too encumbering. It sometimes dawns on me that Barbara and Dick are lucky that she ever let them go to school. It’s not that she didn’t value education. She just felt that public schools were too rigid. One of her favorite expressions was that our schools tried too hard to “put a square peg in a round hole.”

When Ruth used to baby-sit for our kids, we had to be careful not to come home to early, because Ruth would still be busy playing with them. One night, before Joe was born, Ruth and Ray baby sat for Leanne, who must have been 3 years old. We went out to dinner in Evanston, and then, since it was a very warm evening, decided to go for a walk along the lake. It was probably 8:30, and in the distance we noticed a little girl out on the beach with two adults, and we were thinking to ourselves that it was a bit late for a toddler to be out playing at that hour. As we approached them, we noticed that the little girl was blond, and the adults were not particularly young. Needless to say, once we got even closer we realized that the little girl was Leanne, playing with Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Ray. I am not sure who was having more fun—Leanne or Ruth.

Ruth was always so appreciative of everyone and everything. Whenever I had the family over for a holiday, I would always get a call from her the following day, and she would thank me for dinner and tell me it was amazing. It didn’t matter whether I cooked a brisket for Rosh Hashanah, or threw some hot dogs (which were her favorite) on the grill—it, and I, were still amazing. And “amazing” was one of Ruth’s favorite words. She used that word to describe her grandchildren all the time. It didn’t matter if they had only learned to blow their noses—they were simply amazing. And so, even though I could keep on going telling wonderful Ruth stories and providing more “Ruthisms,” I will end by simply saying: Ruth—you were amazing.

Rick Felt

I met Ruth Marcus in the winter of 1969 when I picked up Barbara for our first date. Barbara and I were both in our respective Skokie homes on Winter Break at that time. When I rang the doorbell, Ruth answered. She was smiling at me, and continued to do so for as long as we chatted in the foyer until Barbara completed her final touches upstairs. I wasn’t sure at that point whether Ruth’s smiles had anything to do with me in particular or just the fact that her daughter was going out on a date with a Jewish boy from Skokie.

During the next year, Barbara and I saw a lot of each other and we were engaged over the following winter break, and then married the next August. Ruth never stopped smiling. For the first 4 years of our marriage, until we left Chicago for a few years, we had dinner many Friday evenings at Ruth and Ray’s house– for her famous barbequed rotisserie chicken on the grill. Ruth smiled a lot as I gulped down that chicken each week.

In fact, Ruth kept smiling for decades to follow, encompassing the entire 43 years of our relationship. Even in the hospital bed in her apartment, until she no longer had the strength, she continued to smile and tell her stories. I had learned over the years that there were aspects of her life that troubled Ruth on occasion, as we all have experienced in our own lives for one reason or another. But Ruth was concerned enough about the feelings of the people she interacted with—whether new acquaintances, old friends, family, or staff at various restaurants and at the Vi where she lived– that Ruth did not want to trouble others with her problems and risk making them feel badly. So she just kept smiling and everyone smiled back at her.

If I were like a “fly on the wall” as they say, perched in a tree in the Garden of Eden, I am sure that I would have seen Ruth open her arms to greet the family who preceded her, and walk in with a big smile on her face, the smile we all knew and loved.

Laurel Felt

To be one of Ruth’s grandkids was to win the lottery. I doubt Gramma realized that, even though she thought quite a bit about lotteries.

Years ago, when the first Powerball was introduced in Florida, Gramma was convinced she would win. She fantasized about buying the apartment on Hollywood Beach that she and my grampa eventually rented for 17 winters.

Last Tuesday, my mom handed her mother a lottery ticket. “Somebody’s gotta win,” she said, reflecting Gramma’s logic right back at her. That was just after Gramma told my mom, “I’m not sure how much longer I can hold on.”

When a 91-and-a-half-year-old passes away, you can’t necessarily call it a surprise. Right? The probability of continuing to live just diminishes with time, and when you’ve racked up all this time, forget about it. But Gramma was so hardy – she was probably the strongest, definitely the sunniest, 91-pound, 91-year-old you’d ever meet. So this cancer just caught us by surprise.

I was home this past March and I’d got it into my head to interview Gramma. So we set up an interview date, and a time, and I’d got a set of prepared questions, but three days prior, Gramma comes over for dinner and she launches into stories – and my favorite kind of stories, about the old days. “This is gold,” I think, so I run for my laptop and as she talks, I turn the stories into full sentences.

Eventually our visit comes to an end and Gramma goes to get her coat. Then she walks back into the kitchen, coatless, to tell me something. I was a good student in typing class, just like my Gramma, so I was able to document her exact words. This is what she said:

RUTH: I couldn’t do this without your mother; she’s always there for me. And your father is always right there too.

BARBARA: That’s what we do.

RUTH: And that’s FOR TRUE! I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, guys: I’m just going to hang around.

BARBARA: See, she’s not going to leave me alone, even when Laurel retreats to California.

RUTH: And has about a dozen kids.

BARBARA: She’d better, we’re counting on it.

RUTH: Your daddy’s got his tongue hanging out, waiting for little kids. “Mit kennish oyz glochen de velt.” — You can’t even out the world. (reflecting on her Yiddish) I’m getting closer to my family, they’re all waiting for me.

BARBARA: There’s no hurry.

RUTH: And don’t ask me where I’m talking Yiddish in my old age. Like I said, they’re all up there laughing at me!

So that’s where we were coming from. That was nine months ago. You heard, Gramma had ideas about spirituality and rejoining her relatives, but she intended to stick around, and we took it for granted that she would.

So On December 1, she’s diagnosed with liver cancer. And on December 17, she tells my mom that she isn’t sure how much longer she can hold on. Mom and Uncle Dick and the whole family had been witnessing her daily decline for the past two and a half weeks. So, for the first time ever, my mom said okay. “What’s good for you is good for us,” she told Gramma. “We’ve got each other and we’ll be okay. We just want you to be comfortable.”

Then Mom went and showed Gramma the lottery ticket, maybe as a kind of inducement to hang around, to see what happens next, or maybe just as a joke, a callback. Gramma laughed when Mom showed her that Powerball stub.

Gramma died on Sunday, as you all know. We hadn’t matched a single number on our ticket but Gramma stayed with us for five extra days. So, in that respect, we won.

That night, Sunday, after we’d left Gramma’s apartment and didn’t really know what to do with ourselves, my cousin Leanne bought a scratch-off lottery ticket. It was entitled “The Good Life” and it just seemed so fitting. So Leanne scratches off the numbers – and it’s a winner! The heiress to five whole American dollars is sitting right there, folks. But it’s the principle that counts, of course. And because of Gramma, in so many ways more significant this, we just kept winning the lottery.

My Gramma once told me, “Our whole family was gentle, and the kids are the apple of your eye.” Her own mother used to say, “You get all of your pleasure from your children.” For Gramma that was certainly true, and her grandkids were the frosting on the cake. She used to say, “If I knew how much I’d enjoy my grandchildren, I would have had more kids.” In Gramma’s vernacular, our names were either prefaced with the words “darling” or “dear,” or given the suffix “love,” like, “Laurel love, it’s your Gramma here.”

We’ll tell more stories back at Mom and Dad’s house about the adventures we five used to have with our grandma. For now, I just want to tell you about Ruth’s final gift to us.

For as long as she knew us, Gramma gave so generously. Limitless was her love, her joy and delight in us, her fascination in our “doings out in the world,” her unshakable belief in our genius and talent. She gave and she gave and she gave. In her final weeks and days, as she physically couldn’t give by spinning more yarns or treating us to breakfast, she gave us each other.

Because of who she was, and the love she lavished upon and modeled for us, we came to sit with her. Relatives visited in person or by phone, and Gramma rallied for those visits. The rest of the time – in my mom’s case, all of the time – we were there: her children and her grandchildren. I got into town a week ago, when my chatty Gramma couldn’t manage very many words and spent a good deal of her time sleeping. So I chatted with my uncle. We brushed his dog’s coat, and we sifted through old photographs and told stories. We spent an entire day together, which is so much more time than we’ve ever spent one-on-one, even though we always celebrate Jewish and national holidays together as a big family. You know how it is, with the chaos of serving and eating and observing holiday rituals and trying to chat with everyone – there’s so little time for dedicated conversation.

I spent days with my cousins. We played improv games and listened to their original chemistry rap and told online dating horror stories. My aunt and I confided our guilty TV pleasures. And every night we’d all have dinner together, we descendants of Ruth and Ray, probably like families used to do in the old days.

My Gramma made us this beautiful family. And then she gave us time to enjoy it, and an opportunity to strengthen our bond to it. My Gramma gave us EACH OTHER.

So we won the lottery.

Beverly Copeland

My Cousin Ruthie Marcus
My relationship with Ruthie began just after I was born, when Ruthie and I met at my family’s apartment on Chicago’s West Side. I don’t recall the incident, of course, but Ruthie mentioned frequently that I was an adorable baby!

Our meeting took place at the first get together of the Marcus Family Club, founded by my mother, Betty, in memory of my dad Max’s grandparents, Bessie and Benjamin Marcus, in 1941, shortly after I was born.

As I was growing up, I remember Ruthie and her nice husband, Ray. We would see them at all the Marcus family functions. Ruthie was always so warm and friendly. When she and Ray started wintering in Florida, and we were there, we would enjoy having lunch or dinner together, often with other Marcus cousins. Once, or maybe twice, I gave Ruth a haircut during our visit. She was so excited and thrilled by that haircut (typical Ruth) that I felt like the new Vidal Sassoon! Ruth was very supportive of my editing and publishing venture, and was a subscriber to Glass Focus almost from the beginning. When our beloved daughter Erin died, and we began the Erin Copeland Building Minds with Books Project to honor her memory, Ruth was a very generous supporter.

Our friendship didn’t blossom until Ruth and Ray moved to the Hyatt in the Glen, later known as the Vi.

Ruth was an extraordinarily, warm, friendly and caring person. After, her initially balking at moving to the Vi, she quickly grew to LOVE, LOVE LOVE it, and was so grateful to Barb and Dickie for opening up this whole new life for her and Ray. She knew everyone at the Vi, as well as their life stories.

It was always fun being with Ruth and sometimes even educational. Ruth and I took one or two classes together at the Vi and not long ago she invited me to a fascinating lecture by a former U.S. Ambassador to England.

This past summer was the last time Ruthie and I had lunch together. I dined with her on the beautiful back veranda of the Vi with her and some of her friends. Ruth had her usual – a grilled cheese sandwich. Even though she ate like a bird, she always encouraged me to eat, eat, eat! It would take her forever to walk down the hall there, because she had to warmly greet every single person she would see.

Ruthie was a very lucky woman and enjoyed a beautiful long, life. She was born with a remarkable personality, had a wonderful and long marriage to Ray, gave birth to two exceptional children, Barbara and Dick who married two exceptional spouses, Rick and Sue. The couples produced, Benjy, Laurel and Sarah and Leanne and Joe. Did I mention that they too were exceptional?! Two great granddaughters, Lyla and Violet, were special gifts.

Ruth celebrated her 90th birthday in 2012 surrounded by loving family and friends and eating her favorite food, a hot dog!

Ruthie enjoyed great physical health throughout most of her long life, due to her good eating habits and her love of exercise.

Ruth was a poster girl for how to live a good life. She adored her family which was everything to her, immediate and extended. She was upbeat, friendly and outgoing, appreciative of all the good things around her; she was interested in the world and those less fortunate; she was active, involved, loved reading, listening to the radio, learning, and was a devoted fan of Jon Stewart.

After we heard the shocking and sad news that Ruth was in hospice, Shelly and I went over to see her. Afraid of what we would find, we saw a thinner but still outgoing and vivacious woman, just a bit more subdued. She was interested in what we were talking about and often joined in the conversation. Sadly, that was our last visit with Ruth.
While in Israel, we received an email from Laurel. We were saddened that we would miss her funeral, and being with the family.

We are very fortunate to have had her in our lives for so long. Her grace, friendship, warmth and love are gifts that we will always cherish.
-Beverly Copeland, January 5, 2014

Slip Slidin’ Away

By laurelfelt | December 21, 2013 - 9:05 pm | Asset appreciation, Blog, Family dynamics, Narrative

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Wall clock in Gramma’s kitchen

A few days ago, I found myself singing these lyrics from my old friend, Paul Simon:

God only knows
God makes his plan
The information’s unavailable
To the mortal man

…

I’ve sung it aloud to Joe and Uncle Dick and Gary and anyone who will listen. It’s the only sense I can make of things. What did my dad say this morning, when I expressed my surprise to have slept through the night (and most of the morning)? “It’s not our timetable.”

She’s almost slipped away. She’s so close that I alerted my brother and had Mike book his ticket. Mom and I remarked on our new normal. On the one hand, this isn’t tenable, this isn’t the place where we would keep Gramma. She’s stopped swallowing. Every so often, she lets us know that she’s at least somewhat aware by moaning loudly in response to our direct address. Mom said goodnight to her — she moaned. I kissed her three times on the cheek — she moaned. The last thing I heard her say, which to Uncle Dick sounded like a moan, was, “What, sweetheart?” He had put his face close to hers and said, “Mom?”

“What, sweetheart?” she replied. Barely intelligible. But I caught it.

So, no, this isn’t a place we would have her stay. But on the other hand, we can still look at her. We can hold her hand and massage her forehead. Her stuff is still where it belongs, winter hats and scarves and decrepit, duct-taped house shoes in the closet. Turner Classic Movies is on 24 hours/day, only switched to WTTW (Chicago’s PBS station) when the TCM fare is just too intensely racist (for example, yesterday they played Bush Christmas and Doctor Doolittle — unbearable). So on WTTW, first Simply Ming stormed the small screen, and we criticized his pairing of lobster, eggplant, proscuitto and walnut, among other ingredients. Then Martha Stewart took the stage and claimed that baking bread is both easy and worthwhile, before doggedly working that dough on and on and on… “She’s a nut,” I leaned over and told Gramma. Her mouth was agape — that’s how it’s been for some time now — but it seemed like she was resting easy, and I liked talking to my gramma.

There’s the rub. That’s what fuels my mom’s and my ambivalence. We want her to be comfortable and well. Of course we do. We want her to enjoy whatever comes next. But then, when she goes, she’ll be gone forever. And we won’t be able to call her anymore, at least not on the phone. We’ll have to script her responses instead of accepting them straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

“Hello hello,” is how Gramma answers the phone. She did it in my presence twice this week, talking on the phone first with Helena and then with Jack London, Grampa Ray’s childhood friend.

I used to call her from the car on my way to or from work, and marvel at the magic of it. Not only was I contacting a house from a vehicle that was navigating traffic half a continent away, but I was casually chatting with a relative to whom most people my age had bidden farewell decades ago. I was touching 1922 and all of the history that’s transpired since. And rather than mining that sociological trove, I was accessing everyday/extraordinary love. There was my ever lovin’ gramma, as she sometimes refers to herself in her signature, who cares about all of the minutiae of my professional and personal life, who agrees with me always (except when I maintain that my doings aren’t so special).

“Hi Gramma, it’s Laurel.”

“Yeah!” she would exclaim.

“How are you?”

“How am I, how are you?” she would respond. “You’re the one who’s out in the world.”

So I’d launch into a story. At the end of the conversation, I would press again about her. Maybe I’d drop a name or two, inquiring about Goldie and Bernice, the aged sisters with whom she sometimes dines, or ask about her lunches at the bistrot. She wouldn’t provide many details. “Oh Laurel,” she would say. “The days pass so gently.”

Last night, Leanne and I said goodnight to her. After my kisses and her moan, I moved down the bed and said, “I’m holding your hand,” then signaled Leanne to approach. “And here’s Leanne.” Leanne told her to sleep well, and smoothed her hair. Finally I got out what I’d wanted to say for some time. “It’s okay to go if you need to go.”

“Yeah, Gramma,” Leanne echoed. “It’s okay to go.”

We stood in silence awhile.

“You told Helena that you’d see her on the other side. And that’s okay,” I whispered.

We kissed her again and left the room.

So I told my brother and my fiance, Get ready. Mom and Sarah and I talked about how we would handle a middle-of-the-night phone call. Then I woke up this morning at 11 am.

Sing it, Paul:

God only knows
God makes his plan
The information’s unavailable
To the mortal man

…

Endurance

By laurelfelt | December 20, 2013 - 7:56 pm | Asset appreciation, Blog, Family dynamics, Narrative

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Ruth Feldman | c. 1942

How much longer can she hold out?

And how much longer can we?

Mom reports that Gramma seems surprised each time she opens her eyes. Still here? her gaze seems to say.

We stay all day, from just before 9 am to just after 9 pm. Then we go to sleep, expecting a middle-of-the-night phone call to awaken us. We rise at 8 am, somewhat shocked to have slumbered uninterrupted.

We sit with her when she’s asleep, and try to entertain her when she’s awake. Yesterday, my cousins and I played an improv game on the “stage” at the foot of her bed. Mom did some pliés and relevés at my coaxing. Gramma chimed in occasionally when I read aloud from Wikipedia, variously relating the filmography of Gene Kelly and researchers’ latest theories about brain hemispheres. Gramma acknowledged, when I explained Laughter for a Change’s latest program with the NOW Academy, that bullying is a big issue these days.

Because the regular pain meds were no longer delivering Gramma from pain, at lunchtime Mom administered a small dose of morphine. The hospice lady said that this means that Gramma’s condition is “changing.” I asked if there’s a normative timeframe associated with this change, as in, Does morphine now mean expiry at x-time? No, she told me. Oh, I said. Okay.

I had slept in this morning, and then gone with my dad to Michael’s to buy 12 more 8×10 frames and one more 5×7. Curating the photographic exhibit of Gramma’s life has been my feverish occupation for the past three days. The completion of my masterpiece just means that I’m out of a job. A government employee probably could have told me that efficiency only jeopardizes the doer once the doing’s been done. Now what? This morning’s extra hours at home didn’t serve me, and neither does my current idleness. It leaves too much opportunity for anxiety to creep in.

My mom is sitting beside her mother, knitting a scarf for no one in particular, and listening to Cary Grant’s inimitable blusterings. My dad is sitting across from me at the dining table, engrossed in his Nook — specifically, The Book Thief. Caleb is panting under the table. My sister is picking up the maki rolls. Leanne, Joe, Aunt Sue, Uncle Dick, Mayta and Joan just left to celebrate Mayta’s 88th birthday.

“You’re the grandma now,” my mom had told Mayta as they were heading out for dinner. “We need a gramma for the wedding.” That would be my wedding, and thank goodness I’m getting married. Such happy news is a cherished counterweight to our current grief.

“I feel like your family,” sniffed Mayta.

“You are!” we cried.

Dabbing her eyes, “I’d like to be here…”

“You’re fine,” Mayta’s daughter Sue assured her.

“It’s in a couple of months,” I scoffed, trying to make little of the time from now to then. I can’t imagine anything happening to Mayta. But then again, three weeks ago, anything happening to Gramma seemed unthinkable. Don’t think.

Later, as we toasted to Happy Hour and Shabbos over tumblers of three-buck Chuck — deliberate doses of self-medication, my mom made a confession. “I’m afraid to try to wake her up,” she admitted, referring to her snoring mother in the next room. “What if she’s in her coma, and not just asleep?”

“You’ll find out as soon as a reasonable amount of time for a nap passes,” replied my dad, ever the logician. We raised our eyebrows and nodded.

So we continue to hold out, to hold on, until at last, too soon, and finally, Gramma lets go.

Nigh

By laurelfelt | December 16, 2013 - 8:38 pm | Asset appreciation, Blog, Family dynamics, Narrative, Social and emotional learning

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Ethel Rich, Marci Katz, and Ruth Marcus | January 1962

Ethel Rich, Marcy Katz, and Ruth Marcus | January 1962

“I’ve had a good life,” said my grandmother last week, comforting her 70-year-old niece who wasn’t ready to let her go.

Gramma Ruth, aged 91 and a half, hasn’t yet seen the last of her good life. But the end is nigh.

I’ve written extensively about my incredible grandmother, and the events that both shaped her life and describe this century’s pursuit and attainment of the American Dream. But for old time’s sake, let’s give it another whirl. Ruth’s story goes something like this…

My gramma was born in 1922 to Yiddish-speaking, Russian Jewish immigrants on Chicago’s West Side. Harry Feldman, Ruth’s father, was a barber who dreamed of real estate and slowly acquired some; Sarah Rich, Ruth’s mother, ran a luncheonette and then a delicatessan while working weekends as their apartment building’s janitor. Ruth attended Austin High School during the Depression, when teachers were “paid” by I.O.U. and Ruth’s most valuable class, taught by her most dedicated teacher, trained girls in shorthand and typing. An Honors graduate (whatever that meant, Gramma would say, since the academic regime was hardly rigorous), she began studying at a junior college. Unbeknownst to Ruth, her future husband Ray Marcus also earned high marks at Crain Technical School and enrolled in Wright Junior College. But both Ruth and Ray were forced to abandon their studies after less than a year due to the punctuated maladies of family members. For Ruth, her mother slipped on a patch of ice and broke her wrist, leaving her incapable of operating the meat slicer at the deli. For Ray, his older brother Art developed appendicitis and could not sell his shipment of Sheffield-Bronze paint door-to-door throughout the Midwest. Both families needed someone to fill in; both Ruth and Ray answered the call. And when each respective family member recovered, neither Ruth nor Ray returned to school. Rather, they continued to contribute to their family’s financial wellbeing. The two met when a mutual friend brought the lonely young paint salesman into the South Water Street deli owned by Ruth’s family.

Twenty-one-year-old Ruth married 22-year-old Ray at the dawn of World War II. He was only the second boy Ruth had ever kissed. They had been going together for about a year and enjoyed each other’s company. Had the times been different, perhaps this relationship would have been nothing more than a fling. But the times decreed that Ray was to be Ruth’s last boyfriend. Ray enlisted with the army and, despite eyesight so poor that he should have been designated 4F, Ray was accepted into the military fold. Wedding a G.I. before he shipped out overseas was framed as a girl’s patriotic duty – to refuse was considered both cruel and un-American. Still, Ruth initially resisted; unwed, Ray attended boot camp in the deep South. Then he returned to Chicago for a 15-day furlough before his dispatch to Europe, and he petitioned for Ruth’s hand repeatedly. Even Ray’s mother Gussie got on the telephone and asked Ruth why she would not marry her soldier son. On the furlough’s 12th day, Ruth finally relented. The couple went to City Hall, where a blood test was required prior to legalizing the union. The government employee successfully drew blood from Ray’s vein but could not, despite repeated attempts, find or tap Ruth’s veins. Ray offered to undergo a second draw but worried that whoever checked the blood for syphilis would notice that the two samples were identical. So they went around the corner and drew blood from the dentist on call. It was his blood that sanctioned the wedding of Ruth and Ray at City Hall on September 30, 1943.

This secular ceremony was a sacrilege to Ruth’s über-religious grandfather Jacob, so the next day he dragged the two newlyweds to the kitchen of a local rabbi, who performed the marriage rites “properly.” Ruth and Ray spent some of Ray’s remaining time together. Technically, Ray went away as a “man”; yet virtually, the husband and wife were little more than strangers.

More than two years passed before they saw each other again.

During the war, Ray encountered anti-Semitism, enjoyed camaraderie, survived injury, and witnessed horrors. Ray was assigned as a mechanic since he not only had graduated from a vocational high school but also had serviced his car during his solo treks across the desolate Plains States. (The truth was, there wasn’t much Ray couldn’t do with his hands, a fact that was made clear many years later when he carved a bust of Gramma Ruth out of a random piece of driftwood.) Yet this manual labor didn’t satisfy my ambitious grandfather. Time after time, Ray applied and was denied admission to Officer Candidate School; the only reason that seemed plausible after so many rejections was his religion. So Ray drove a truck that carried replacement parts for military vehicles, including tanks, and spent more time among his contemporaries than he ever had during his youth. Poor eyesight had kept Ray from excelling in neighborhood sports like stickball, while his traveling salesman occupation consigned him to solitude, dining alone in roadside restaurants and flopping down at fleabag motels with shared bathrooms (only on weekends did he allow himself the luxury of his own bathroom).

After some time in service, a large industrial battery fell on Ray’s foot and landed him in the infirmary. Ray recalled that a visiting officer was passing out Purple Hearts “like they were candy” but honor kept Ray from accepting a medal. He hadn’t gotten injured in the line of duty, he reasoned, and so he didn’t deserve distinction. Time passed. Ray bedded down in foxholes, ate pork for the first time, and became a pack-a-day smoker thanks to the cigarettes included in his K-rations. He drove his truck, which he cleverly named Ruthless, anywhere and everywhere his superiors commanded. That is, until D-Day + 1.

Ray didn’t like to talk about the war, and what occurred on the beaches of Normandie is probably part of the reason why. As the history books chronicle, our American boys were mowed down on D-Day; the ocean ran red and bodies – of both corpses and the agonized wounded – littered the shore. Ray was ordered off the enormous ship upon which he and Ruthless were afloat, told to follow the tanks making their way across enemy lines. To do so would mean rolling over the bodies, the thousands of bodies, mutilating their faces, crushing their limbs, entombing the dead, murdering the injured. Ray refused. It was the first and only time he opposed a direct order. He could have been court martialed. During that feverish time, he could even have been executed. But Ray would not, could not follow such a command and luckily, his life was spared. My grandpa didn’t drive off the ship until a lane was cleared and, to be honest, I’m not sure whether he assisted in clearing the bodies for it. I can’t help but think, he probably did assist with that task — who else was there to do it? Dear God…

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, my grandma was growing up in a less harrowing but no less significant way. She worked as a secretary at Sears where, like Ray, she also experienced anti-Semitism but enjoyed camaraderie. Sarah, Ruth’s whip-smart but illiterate mother, got a job at Sears too, filing forms by number. Ruth was lured away by Turner Manufacturing Company, a Jewish-owned business that both paid her more money but expected greater responsibility and provided fewer social outlets. Ruth lived with her parents (her older brother Maury, eight years her senior, had married and moved out) and delivered her wages into a family kitty; only upon her mother’s death did Ruth discover that Sarah had set aside Ruth’s salary. “All those years, she’d been saving it for me,” Ruth had confided, her voice alight with wonder. During her employ, Ruth’s bosses at Turner sent Ruth on a train trip to the East Coast, where she observed New England’s autumnal splendor and navigated glittering Manhattan.

The 21-year-old who Ray had married was not the 23-year-old to whom he returned. And obviously, the same was true of the battle-worn Ray. Together they told me candidly, as we strolled the boardwalk of Hollywood, Florida, around 1999, that had they not been bound by marriage, they would not have stayed together after the war. This honesty both impressed and devastated me. What a sad truth; what an honorable pair. And so Gramma’s loving nature never found a romantic outlet. The two were married for 67 years, until Grandpa’s death in 2010. Ruth visited him daily in the Memory Unit of their senior community — she was the only person who, through the lens of his dementia, Ray still could recognize. I remember encouraging Gramma to visit a little less and to live her own life a little more. She informed me that Grandpa was like a child and she couldn’t abandon him — “It isn’t nice, Laurel.” Yet, in an interview we conducted in 2012, Gramma couldn’t tell me the story of her “first love” – she had never fallen in love.

As a wife and stay-at-home mother during the late 1940’s, 1950’s, and 1960’s, Ruth kept house in Bud Long Woods, Highland Park, and Skokie (where she and Ray lived until 1991, at which time they sold their modest home and moved to a ranch-style townhouse in Buffalo Grove). Their first child, Barbara, was born in 1948; their second child, Richard, was born in 1952. Ruth kept their house spic-and-span — thoroughly scrubbing clothes, floors, and windows was probably her favorite aspect of housework. Cooking was probably her least favorite chore. Ruth’s mother was a gifted cook with a talent for “eyeballing” ingredient quantities and appetizingly seasoning dishes; Ruth doubted herself in the kitchen, never knowing how much of an ingredient qualified as “a pinch” and preferring her food bland. Ray’s job — both traveling door-to-door as well as managing operations at the Marcus Brush Company, the business he had inherited from his father — kept him away from home during the week and every Saturday. Sometimes on Sunday’s, the family would go for a drive. Ray’s absence was both a burden and a blessing since, temperamentally, Ruth and Ray were rarely in sync. Ruth was usually smiling and laughing, perennially upbeat and easily amused. Ray came off as distant or grouchy, perhaps put off even more than he would have been by the contrast between his own mood and his wife’s sunniness. He would retreat into crossword puzzles or yard work; at the kitchen table, he would imitate her giggles, dismiss her prattling with a wave of his hand and/or pronouncement of “Feh,” or boomingly intone, “You’re crazy, Ruth.”

Now one mustn’t think my grandpa was a monster, for he was far from it. Ray was a wounded survivor. As a young child, Ray’s mother Gussie told him that he had killed his baby brother by “loving him too much” (i.e., infecting the infant with a case of whooping cough). Gussie also suffered from the tragic loss of her parents, siblings, nieces and nephews in a raging apartment fire, which limited the extent to which Gussie could emotionally “be there” for the sensitive Ray. It’s doubtful that Ray found much comfort in the presence of his father Oscar, whose running around with their married neighbor Bea was an open secret. Immediately upon Gussie’s death in 1966, Oscar gave Bea almost all of Gussie’s possessions and promptly made her his wife. The choices that might have helped Ray find happiness — namely, career and marriage — were imposed upon him by sickness and war and, unfortunately, both ill fit the man who would emerge from the bloody conflict. Finally, Ray was bothered by his lack of high-quality schooling (which, by no means, was his fault and, in fact, indicated his honor). He would scorn his own intelligence at times, especially when we would talk of my own (hoity-toity, and enabled by his own labor and sacrifice) pursuit of multiple advanced degrees. He didn’t begrudge me my education; he was in awe of it, and judged himself harshly for barely getting any at all. It wasn’t easy being Ray. In his eulogy of his father, Ray’s son Dick stated, “The dementia that caused Dad to lose his strength, that robbed him of his talents and his wit, that caused him to even forget how to operate a fork and a spoon, that same awful dementia, also caused him to forget what he had been angry about all his life. In the end, Dad’s bitterness vanished like so much smoke.”

And that was the way it was.

In the late 1960’s, Sarah came to live with Ruth and Ray during the summers (she wintered in South Beach at the Carlyle Hotel). Sarah and Ruth were devoted to each other, despite Ruth’s perception of her own shortcomings, over which, Ruth believed, her mother despaired. Whereas Sarah had thick, curly locks, Ruth’s hair was always thin and somewhat wispy. “My mom always used to tell me, ‘Fluff it up, fluff it up!”” Ruth laughingly relates as she simultaneously recreates the gesture of hair fluffing. She routinely admires my thickish, curly hair and bemoans her own follicular fate. “If I had your hair…” she often says, and tells me how she cries over the few strands that she’s forced to sacrifice to her comb. Although nowhere near the same league as the hair issue, which reigns supreme as her number-one lamentation, Ruth also feels bad about her bust, whose size is more modest than her well-endowed mother’s had been. And finally, she rues her unadventurous palate, chuckling in retrospect at her misguided distaste for her mother’s flavorful cooking. Ruth’s self-identified limitations don’t end there. She claims to lack artistry, and so aesthetic endeavors like home decoration completely befuddle her. “I hold the pencil like this,” Ruth often says, demonstrating a shaking grip, to explain her fear of and lack of talent for writing. Among the well-educated and/or well-traveled (certainly well-monied) residents of the senior community in which she has resided since the mid-2000’s, Ruth humbly occupies a “less than” position. I’ve been led to believe, the only thing she brags about is her amazing children and grandchildren — never herself.

Certainly Ray’s years of belittling did nothing to build up Ruth’s confidence. But why was her sense of worthiness, at least in these enumerated areas, low in the first place? Why did she believe that the volume of her hair mattered a bit, let alone so very much? A small bust was made fashionable by icons like Audrey Hepburn, and certainly it matched my gramma’s slim figure. So what was the problem? And who cared if she liked spicy food or unspicy food? That’s no sign of valor. My grandpa had an ulcer for much of his life, so bland food happened to be perfect for his purposes. How limiting was it, I wonder, for her to believe she lacked any talent for creativity? Why did Gramma keep herself in that box?

Ruth actually loved music and movies and books. She ceaselessly listens to the radio, keeping up with the news or humming and dancing around the kitchen. When my mom went back to college, Ruth took a Piano Appreciation class but did not keep up with it for very long— somehow, she became unconvinced her talent. Maybe teacher told her that she’d never be a virtuoso…? But what did that matter? She was a middle-aged housewife, not gunning for Orchestra Hall. Gramma stopped taking those piano lessons and returned to the workforce, serving as the secretary to a head honcho at Sears’s new store in Northbrook Court. She left this job when she felt that she needed to care for her elderly mother. But throughout the decades, and up until quite recently, Ruth would cheerily plunk away at the keys of her upright piano (except for the brief time during the 1990’s when Gramma generously lent her piano to me, so that I might study the instrument (which I never truly did)). Music was beloved, and always a part of her.

Ruth loved stories. She went to the cinema year-round and at whatever time of day she pleased, regardless of whether the movie had already started. She would remain in the theater until she’d seen every part of the film, be it from beginning to end or from middle to middle. She told us conventional grandkids that this habit was a throwback from her younger days, when moviegoers would always get a newsreel and a cartoon, etc, for their nickel’s admission. Ruth loves black-and-white films and, since she never used to sleep much, getting the Turner Classic Movie channel via cable totally changed her life for the better. Gramma has always enjoyed reading too, even maintaining Grandpa’s subscription to the Library of Congress’s “book-on-tape” program for the visually impaired long after he lacked the capacity to attend to its tales, and even after Grandpa passed away. All of this suggests a feeling for art if I ever saw one.

And is there any finer or more challenging a practice than the art of conversation? Ruth can and does talk with everybody. My uncle, her son Dick, told me with reverence that his mother retains the stories of CEO’s and chambermaids, and holds them all (both the stories and their tellers) in equal esteem. Never will you meet a more personable and joyous old lady, made all the more charming for her advancement in years. She laughs and smiles, touches busboys on the forearm, pats random children on the head, and sees people. Domestics are not invisible to Ruth — she greets them as easily and as regularly as her aged neighbors. She knows the names of her waiters’ children, and the doctor son of the woman at the bank (who she used to visit often since Ruth insists on giving the grandkids “a few bucks” every time she sees us). The employees at The Corner Bakery start cooking her scrambled eggs (which aren’t even on the menu) as soon as they lay eyes on Gramma, and the staff at Georgie V’s whip up her regular order (and my mom’s and my uncle’s) within moments of her settling down in a booth. Whenever I identify myself to the front desk staff at Gramma’s building as Ruth Marcus’s granddaughter, their knowing and appreciative “Oh” informs me that Gramma is special to them too.

Gramma twinkles. Her joie de vivre is exceptional, unflagging, infectious. She gives everyone the benefit of the doubt and describes most people as “dear” — except for those who embattle the lives of her loved ones. “Don’t let ‘em push you around,” Ruth habitually tells us grandchildren, the youngest of whom is 25 years old. “Tell ‘em your gramma will get ‘em,” she instructs. We all agree: No we won’t; yes we will. “Keep the faith, baby,” Gramma also tells us. And she thanks us for calling, with a genuineness and humility that could break your heart. “Of course, Gramma,” we say.

She tells me that I’m special, so special, and everyone who surrounds me, particularly my fiancé, better know that. He knows, I assure her. “There’s no one in the whole world like Laurel,” she tells me, and won’t hear any protestations to the contrary, will not accept that among my contemporaries, I’m only maybe above average. “If you knew what it was like to live life like the rest of us…” she tells me. For the past few years, at the end of every phone conversation, I tell her I love her. She used to laugh at this, I think because such a sentiment is obvious and such words are inadequate for expressing the magnitude of our feeling. She would tell me, “I love you more,” and I would permit her this one-up. But now she tells me first, “I love you” or replies, “I love you too.” Maybe this is an indication of her complete assimilation — I once read a book entitled I Love You’s Are For White People. Or maybe Gramma knows that, at any time, this might be her last chance to let me know, unmistakably, how she feels. We know; we both know. But we still say it.

My great-grandmother Sarah passed away when I was one year old, so I never really knew her. I know she was an incredibly strong woman, and I know that my gramma still adores her, still misses her. I try not to begrudge Sarah for the hang-ups that her daughter acquired and retained throughout her life; the times were different, and so were parenting philosophies. I know that Sarah did her best. Consistently since 1981, Gramma has visited with her dear, departed mother. Sarah appears in Gramma’s dreams; they often sit side-by-side on a bench facing the ocean in Florida. They chat. It gives me immeasurable comfort that soon, Gramma will be with her mother.

I also gladly comfort in the fact that Sarah will fetch Ruth and shepherd her to the other side. After all, Gramma’s family has a long, well-documented history of spirit-assisted crossing over.

One evening during the late 1970’s, Sarah found herself alone in South Beach, without a phone, and feeling quite poorly. Certain that she would die that night, Sarah laid out various paraphernalia on her dresser so that whoever discovered her body would be able to identify her and call her daughter Ruth. When she went to sleep, she dreamed. She was seated at a dining table with her husband Harry (d. 1959) and son Maury (d. 1961). When the men finally got up to go, Sarah rose to join them. “No,” they told her. “It isn’t your time yet.” Sarah awoke the next day feeling much better, and later visited a doctor. He contended that Sarah had suffered a minor heart attack yet recovered.

By February 1, 1982, Sarah had been living full-time with Ruth and Ray for quite a while. She awoke that morning and informed Gramma, my mom, and anyone who would listen that her deceased husband Harry was coming for her. Sarah dedicated that day to saying her goodbyes, even driving out to Glenview with Ruth to bid farewell to Barbara (and baby Laurel). Before going to sleep that evening, she walked slow through the house, looking, looking, looking for Harry. Everyone dismissed her behavior as dementia — after all, the 90-year-old Sarah had wandered off recently and been unable to find her way home. Once, Sarah had convinced herself that Ruth was her landlady, and this landlady was licentiously sleeping with some strange man (who, in fact, was Ray). Sarah refused to speak to Ruth for an entire day — “You know what you did!” she had told my blameless “strumpet” grandmother. But on this day in February, it seems that Sarah was lucid. In the dead of the night, Sarah arose from her bed and, without the aid of her glasses, dentures, or walker, she made her way through the dark house, descended the stairs, undid the multiple deadbolts on the front door, and experienced a massive heart attack before falling dead upon the snowy lawn.

In 1988, my mom feared for her life; a malady from which she was suffering might be a brain tumor, and she was on pins and needles waiting for the results. During that time, she had a dream. Her grandmother Sarah, her grandmother Gussie, and her uncle Maury appeared at her bedside and told her that it wasn’t her time yet. Indeed, my mom was cancer-free.

In the 1990’s, Sarah’s youngest sister Ethel was facing her final days. Ruth and Ray would attend to her during the day, while a nurse would accompany her overnight. My grandpa told me that she used to cry out in her sleep, “No Maury, I’m not ready yet!” He explained that Ethel’s financial affairs were not in order. With an accountant, Ray helped to settle Ethel’s estate. And when the task was completed, Ethel awoke one morning and announced that Maury was coming for her. She went to bed that night and neither did she stir nor ever wake up.

A few weeks ago, my mom had a dream. In the dream, she was at the grocery store with her Uncle Art, Ray’s older brother. He assured her, “Everything will be okay.”

It seems that my gramma believes this too. When a hospice social worker asked Ruth last week if she understood what was going on, Ruth said yes. “I’ve had a good, long life,” she said. “And nobody lives forever.” Yesterday, she abruptly awoke from a nap and told my cousin Joe, “I’ve still got some time left.” But the end is nigh. Today, after Ruth woke up, my mom asked if she had been dreaming. “Of course!” Ruth laughingly replied. I think that Gramma was dreaming of her mother, in fact was with her mother, on that bench outside the Carlyle Hotel.

Tonight I sat with my gramma. She’s faded, and fading, and oh-so-skinny, but the words she can muster definitively prove that she’s still herself. We’re blessed by that fact; my grandpa was dead years before he died. When I announced my arrival over Gramma’s bedside, she smiled happily and accepted my kisses. Later in the evening, when I asked her if she’d ever seen Meet John Doe, the Barbara Stanwyck-Gary Cooper movie we were all watching on the TV in her bedroom, Gramma murmured, “It sounds so familiar…”

We left Gramma in the care of Elizabeth, her sweet night nurse, and promised to return for breakfast. “Okay,” Gramma agreed. I believe we’ll reunite in the morning. But maybe we won’t.

“I’ve had a good life,” Ruth said. According to developmental psychologist Erik Erikson, the imperative that people face in their life’s final chapter is Integrity vs. Despair. Either they make peace with the life they have lived, with the way things have gone and the legacy they leave behind, or they bitterly wonder, “Is that all I get? What was it for?”

If I could, I would have eased my grandpa’s burdens, which perhaps would have made him a happier man and a better mate for my gramma, the one into whose arms she might have fallen, lovestruck. I would have helped my gramma to believe in her own specialness and revel in her beauty, both outer and inner. But Ruth herself admits few, if any, regrets. She has said that, had she known how much she would enjoy her grandkids, she would have had more children. I know that she would have loved to have lived part of her later life amid the hustle and bustle of downtown… But overall, she’s made peace; she’s prepared; she’s peaceful.

“I’ve had a good life.”

I’ll be with my gramma until the end. And I know that she’ll be with me afterwards.

“Open Concept” Floor Plan: Helicopter Parents’ Panopticon?

By laurelfelt | December 9, 2013 - 3:31 pm | Digital studies, Family dynamics, Gender and sexuality, Participatory culture & learning, Social and emotional learning

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http://www.jwhomesblog.com/wp-content/uploads/open-layout-4-with-people.jpg

I’ve made some new (parasocial) friends.

My Canadian pals include income property expert Scott McGillivray, fixer-upper angels Drew and Jonathan Scott, designer & realtor nemeses Hilary Farr & David Visentin + (their junior counterparts) Jillian Harris & Todd Talbot, and even Type A reno maven Candice Olson. In Minneapolis, I’ve got my girls Nicole Curtis and Amy Matthews who absolutely rule. In LA, there’s home-makeover fashionista Sabrino Soto, real estate gurus Josh Flagg, Josh Altman, and Madison Hildebrand, and perfection stager Meridith Baer. Cuddly cousins Anthony Carrino and John Colaneri make housecalls in Jersey, David Bromstad keeps it colorful in Miami, Egypt Sherrod assists property virgins in Atlanta, Allison Victoria crashes Midwestern kitchens, and house hunters troll the country (and overseas) for turnkey bargains.

Clearly, I’ve got quite the social life.

When a debilitating cold couched my body but skirted my mind, I was in prime condition for (over)analyzing HGTV.

I’m thinking about if/how American parents’ belief in surveillance has influenced residential architecture and home purchases, specifically in favor of the “open concept.” Do parents really need unwalled kitchens so they can always see their kids in the living room? Talk to me.

I posted that status update to Facebook, a condensed version of this URL + comment I’d posted a few moments earlier:

Love this: “They [Japanese people] like for the children to spend a lot of time with each other with minimal adult intervention so that they can learn how to get along with each other. …children deserve a childhood where they’re able to walk around and have fewer adult eyes on them every moment, then really things can change. Parents can feel that trust in their children.”

Similar sentiments were voiced by a preschool teacher in Norway (not the nature barnehage, a teacher at a conventional preschool). They had a room that was ONLY KIDS ALLOWED, like a clubhouse, because they believe that kids need some time to themselves. In American preschools, there are no doors on bathrooms because teachers need to be able to see kids at all times (and, due to fear of predation, adults are never allowed to be alone with children at any time).

So I’m thinking about if/how American parents’ belief in surveillance has influenced residential architecture and home purchases, specifically in favor of the “open concept.” Parents (usually moms) claim that they need unwalled kitchens so they can see their young children in the living room. How much time do they spend in the kitchen, and why is this chiefly the woman’s concern? What would happen if their eyes were off the kids during their kitchen time? How might lack of privacy and the unimpeded carrying of noise adversely affect familial relationships or activities? Talk to me.

I tipped my biased hand by trotting out the term “surveillance,” which hardly has neutral connotations. It’s a credit to my FB friends that they didn’t totally bristle at this, and I’ll share their insightful comments a little bit later. But before we examine what my friends taught me, I’d like to explain my interests in child-rearing, home design, and surveillance.

My Background

During the spring of 2002, I observed and interviewed educators at several early childhood education and care (ECEC) establishments in eastern Norway, Paris, and Chicago. While my objective was to investigate dimensions of educating vs. caregiving, I couldn’t help but notice how different laws and philosophies influenced the activities of teachers and students alike. From 2003-2006, I had the great good fortune of working in ECEC at The Open Center for Children, Harvard Yard Child Care Center, and The Eliot-Pearson Children’s School; I also regularly visited my best friend Jenn at Garden Nursery School.

In 2008, I began my doctoral studies in Communication at the University of Southern California‘s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Two years later, as a student in IML 501: Digital Media Workshop, I worked with a couple of phenomenal classmates to record a satirical video about ceaselessly measuring and surveilling young children. We designed our video in order to hyperbolically emphasize both the ridiculousness of unremitting assessment and the toll it exacts in the form of overstressed parents and burned-out children. We argued that such a joyless, goal-oriented approach to life and learning, as well as its accompanying usurpation of the free time necessary for developing sensory, social, and emotional skills, may significantly hinder children’s capacity to negotiate in-school and out-of-school challenges.

For three weeks during the summer of 2011, I co-taught two classes of children (aged 5-7 years old and 7-9 years old, respectively) enrolled in a private enrichment program in Mumbai, India. A huge part of the job was educating my privileged students’ wealthy parents. From Monday through Friday, I wrote each class’s daily newsletter for distribution to the parent listserv. Not only did I enumerate our activities, I also explained how the children’s work facilitated their development of fine motor, gross motor, pre-literacy, pre-math, and social and emotional capacities. At the end of each week, we hosted an Open House for parents. I would narrate our slideshow of classroom images, again demystifying the connections between Activity X and Learning/Developmental Goal Y. Then my co-teachers and I would invite parents to both peruse their children’s products and recreate an art project/science experiment. We struggled to strike a balance between keeping parents convinced of the program’s “value-add” and keeping students engaged with projects of value.

The following fall, I was a Teaching Assistant for COMM 395: Gender, Media & Communication. From Dr. Alison Trope, I learned about Foucault’s theory of the panopticon (and then turned around and taught it to my students). Literally, a panopticon is a round, windowed guard tower in a prison yard; from it, rifle-aiming overseers can surveil inmates at all times while inmates never know if/when/who is watching. Foucault reviews societal institutions such as schools, factories, and hospitals and identifies “panopticons” in those environments — sites from which people in power can observe/control subject populations.

Today, I study and design pedagogy that endeavors to teach the whole child; dote on the children of pals and passersby; think about children’s toys and leashes and media and meaning-making; and yearn for (the right time when I can have) children of my own. Two weeks ago, I visited ECEC exemplar Stock School and the autonomy-supportive Chicago Quest Schools. Inspired by a recent in-flight conversation with a Swedish seatmate and friends’ posts of an article + a documentary about “forest kindergartens” (operational in Norway and Switzerland, among other places), I’ve lately been reflecting on European child-rearing. And also, don’t forget, I watch a lot of HGTV, especially since I got that pesky cold.

Research Questions

On most HGTV shows, the high-maintenance home seekers want “open concept” floor plans and rule properties/plans in or out of consideration according to this criterion. So, the Property Brothers, Love It or List It’ers, and other patron saints of home renovation blow out walls, install header beams, and design spaces in order to accommodate this “open concept” craving. Collectively, this adds up to a whole mountain of money.

And why? I hear a lot of parents on these shows claim that they need “open concept” because they have to supervise their children. And I wonder, Do you really _need_ to supervise your children? What happens if you don’t supervise — will the kids REALLY get into life-or-death situations and/or incorrigible patterns of danger-making? What happens if you do supervise — will the kids never learn how to self-monitor and/or entertain themselves?

I also hear parents contend that they entertain a lot, and I wonder what “a lot” means. How frequently do they really have people over, and to what extent should these occasional visits dictate how the house functions on all of the other days of the year?

So that’s how I got from “open concept” floor plans to parenting to panopticons. And now that you know the context, you might very well ask how I could have done otherwise.

Methods

From my two FB postings, I welcomed 20 fascinating comments from 13 friends (Jen, Christine, Grace, Sara, Mike, Diana, Melissa, Marci, Joy, Lauren, Mallory, Liz, Aylin), and also contributed to the conversations eight times in order to clarify, query, and/or share. Here are a few of my comments:

I remember when we were older — maybe it was when my brother was 14, that would make me 10 — my brother and I would be bothered by the light and noise coming from our mom in the kitchen because it interfered with our easy TV watching (poor us, right? anyway). So Benjy figured out that if he opened a storage closet door, it would block our sightline of the kitchen and help a bit with the light and noise… And so I wonder what happens when kids grow up in these homes — do these issues cause them to retreat even further, like to basements or bedrooms, foiling the “all together” rationale of open concept? Is that just a normal part of adolescence? Is open concept really about getting a grand room and not about “all together”?

and

I guess I just wonder about how often kids will get into unsafe stuff during food prep time, and I wonder about the consequences if/when they do. Is the frequency and/or intensity of either enough to justify expensive choices, and potential incursions into privacy? I also wonder if non-catastrophic consequences — like, a child gets a booboo — provide opportunities for learning about cause-and-effect and ultimately, self-regulation and self-efficacy. We all know, I DON’T HAVE KIDS and I’m an egghead for a living, so enlighten me, debate me. I’m just, as the pretentious call it, problematizing… Thank you, friends :)

I also did a very wee bit of online research (Brunner, 2013; Hillukka, 2012) and continued to consume HGTV programming in gluttonous proportions.

Results

From these data, I identified opportunities related to “open concept” vs. “traditional” floor plans in terms of three areas:

Sensory Access
Proximity
Lifestyle

Attached to each opportunity are considerations for “everyday” and “entertaining.” I cite the arguments (e.g., raw data) that support each perspective directly beneath them. I purposely leave my judgmental frame behind, instead using positive terms to describe the affordances and assumptions that come with each floor plan. This is not a table of pro’s vs. con’s; it is an inventory of pro’s and pro’s.

1A. Sensory Access (Sight, Sound, Temp) – Everyday:

OPEN CONCEPT: Monitoring safety, Lighting multiple rooms from common set of windows, Circulating sound from multiple rooms (e.g., children’s fighting, crying, querying), Universal heating/cooling

Diana: “Parents want to make sure their kids aren’t doing anything unsafe while the parent is trying to cook dinner.”

Melissa: “Right now, I wouldn’t be able to cook dinner if I couldn’t see my kids while I was cooking. Little ones are always getting into something. Not sure the open concept will be as important when they are a little older.”

Marci: “Also now that I have a boy, I have a new appreciation for how quickly a little one can get themselves into trouble. Lucy was easy peasy; James ends up on the coffee table ready to go over the edge in seconds and bruises and head bumps do not deter him – he’s an animal and totally born to be a running back.”

Marci: “In a world where even Lucy watches tv while on my iPhone with 3 other people in the room doing their own thing, I think your ability to hear changes for better or worse”

Hillukka, 2012: “You can also watch the little ones play while you are cooking or working in another room. Finally, an open concept allows more natural light into every room, making the entire area seem more spacious and welcoming.”

TRADITIONAL: Facilitating autonomy, Lighting each room from each set of windows, Creating sound barriers between rooms (e.g., TV in living room, food processor in kitchen), Specific heating/cooling

Liz: “the mirror on the wall to see into the living room from my place at the kitchen table works perfectly well. it has been there at least 25 years. i’m also a firm believer in “if it’s too quiet something is up.” especially having been the one making too little noise during childhood.”

Aylin: “dear laurel. hi. i am totally with you that kids need their own time and space to play.”

Jen: I absolutely agree with your thoughts on this, Laurel. American anxieties regularly interfere with play (is my child being bullied? is my child not talking enough? too much?) making it hard for kids to practice resolving things on their own. Honestly, this is one of the reasons we opted for a house without and open floor plan (that and cost–because nobody wants them!).”

Christine: “Very interesting to think about. I have a 5 and 3 year old (and one due any day now). I think what happens is that children’s abilities evolve so gradually, and parents don’t always see that growth because they’re in it every day. Parents may not realize their children can be trusted with the next level of difficulty. Also, I think our generation of parents prioritizes eliminating pain/suffering for our children and will go to great lengths (home construction, surrender of privacy, etc) to control their environment. It is physically and emotionally exhausting to try to keep this up for any length of time. We have tried to settle into a more comfortable style of mitigating risks so the kids can play unsupervised (we have a fence, we removed saws from the basement play area). It is so satisfying to hear the kids playing independently. We’re all having a lot more fun.”

Grace: “I remember childhood as a non-chaperoned experience. My parents were there but they would not have known to intervene unless we asked them to. They weren’t poor parents – they were parents in the 60’s and 70’s.

Today we have a number of issues that make this ideal difficult. -Heavily scheduled young kids. -Childcare – my nanny job often entails entertaining and daycare has a schedule to follow. When would most young children be able to experience this and living in America today – how would we facilitate it? Beyond safety concerns that have our hands tied – a group of cousins I know- spend time at gatherings away from prying parental units and every time, as their parents relate, they wreck the place or gang up and bully one or more of the group. I guess this might mean that they need more ‘alone time’ to work things out in a positive manner. But it could also just be Lord of the Flies. But as far as ‘open concept’ – in 30 years as a nanny working in other peoples homes, the last 15 years the homes are open -before that they were closed. I think you might be onto something!”

Hillukka, 2012: “Sight lines are challenging in an open concept plan. When painting the walls or decorating one area, you have to consider the way everything looks overall. Worst of all, sound carries throughout and it can cost more to heat and cool this type of home… If someone in the household wakes up early or likes to stay up late, keep in mind that the noise might carry throughout the house, keeping everyone else awake.”

1B. Sensory Access (Sight, Sound, Smell) – Entertaining:

OPEN CONCEPT: Revealing process, Maintaining cohesive design across rooms, Enabling continuous dinner party conversation, Wafting kitchen smells

Mallory: “But mostly, I believe that the open plan house is a reflection of American society becoming less formal and acknowledging where our time is actually spent. Instead of hiding away the messiness of meal prep, it is now out there in the open for everyone to see.”

Brunner, 2013: “‘It also showcased a shift to a more casual lifestyle,’ says Andrea Dixon of Fiddlehead Design Group. ‘People weren’t afraid to expose reality — i.e., a messy kitchen.””

TRADITIONAL: Controlling spectacle, Establishing particular design per room, Enabling private tangents, Containing kitchen smells

Brunner, 2013: “‘There will always be some people who are uncomfortable with letting guests see their ‘unmentionables,” she [Andrea Dixon of Fiddlehead Design Group] says. ‘It’s definitely a more formal layout, but it ultimately comes down to personal preference.’

If you want to leave your smells and mess behind when serving meals, a closed layout could be for you.

[Said Andrea Dixon of Fiddlehead Design Group], ‘But a couple who loves to entertain might opt for a closed-concept space so they can prep courses ahead of time and not spoil the surprise. It totally depends on your lifestyle.'”

Hillukka, 2012: “For example, if you have lots of artwork, you will have little wall space to hang it. You also have to work extra hard to keep every space within the room clean; if one area is messy, it can affect the rest of the room.”

2A. Proximity – Everyday:

OPEN CONCEPT: Facilitating everyone’s desire to be close, Relying on multi-tasking

Diana: “Think about how much time working parents have with their kids on week nights. Hint: it’s not much, and a good part of it is spent frantically doing chores. Parents want to maximize their time with their kids. Open concept helps them do this.”

Marci: “For the kids, when you have what amounts to a second shadow, I imagine it helps decrease the number of times you hear mommy where are you and come in to the living room and watch me lol.”

Mallory: “I have three girls, so my take on toddlers is different than those with boys. My girls (2 and 4, the 4 month old can’t get away from me yet) can play in their bedroom or in the playroom in the basement if they would like to while I am preparing dinner, but they are at the age where they want me involved in their play a fair amount. And as Diana Tang pointed out, as a working mom I have to say no to those requests all too often, so having an open plan allows me to participate without sacrificing dinner. “

Mallory: “In terms of multitasking, you just get used to constantly doing two things at once.”

Marci: “Everything about parenting is tiring lol but if you are good at cooking, you will find you don’t need to devote as much of yourself to the process.”

Marci: “Lol, it’s also the best thing I’ve ever done and I’m sure you feel the same but it is tiring an involves a lot of multitasking. I can’t remember the last time I was able to focus on one thing for more than 30 seconds. I just don’t get that kind of free time anymore”

Aylin: “the open plan thing is helpful not so i can keep my eye on the kids but because they won’t go play somewhere far away from me. generally they want to be where the action is, where everyone is hanging out, where their mama is. if i put a playroom somewhere out of sight or hearing of me, my kids would never go in there. they would take their toys and come play by me, wherever i happen to be. my guys are little though so i’m sure it changes as they get older.”

Brunner, 2013: “Today this layout has become the go-to kitchen style, particularly for families. The combined layout allows for optimum multitasking — parents can prepare dinner, watch the news and help with homework at the same time.”

TRADITIONAL: Supporting everyone’s need for alone time, Boosting efficiency

Mike: “I also know that when I am cooking and people are over, I can only spend a small portion of my attention on others. So if the purpose is awareness of and connection to your children, I wonder how much this type of floor plan really allows for that.

I mean, I really enjoy cooking as a hobby and like how I can focus on a task and lose time in it. I know hobbies go on the backburner in parenthood, but I would think that the act of cooking and watching your children would really change the process. In fact, i wonder whether it would make it even more mentally taxing to have your attention split between two things you really want to be monitoring. It seems like it could be tiring to keep track of everything.”

Jen: “But with 3 kids we really didn’t want to see/hear all of their secrets and play. We also let them play in the pantry (the fairy cave), bedrooms with doors closed (letting the cat out first!) and other “secret” spaces.”

2B. Proximity – Entertaining:

OPEN CONCEPT: Allowing all guests into their favorite gathering space– the kitchen, Avoiding host’s kitchen-based isolation

Marci: “I want an open concept floor plan but not because of the kids. It’s great for entertaining since everyone always ends up in the kitchen and since I cook a lot, I can still be part of the party or the kids playing or whatever.”

Mallory: “And as Marcy pointed out – entertaining is much more fun, which we do a fair amount.”

Brunner, 2013: “And it’s difficult to interact with friends and family while whipping up meals, since most of the room is reserved for the work triangle.”

Hillukka, 2012: “If you like to throw parties, you will never feel like you are stuck in the kitchen again.”

TRADITIONAL: Satisfying most guests’ comfort in plush gathering space(s)– living/dining room(s), Promoting host’s kitchen-based focus

No one made this argument but it’s the logical counterpart to the former set of assertions. By closing off the kitchen, one “forces” guests to relax in staged and comfy surrounds. This removal of all/most guests from the kitchen also frees the host’s focus from conversing and hosting and directs it solely to the kitchen-based tasks at hand.

3A. Lifestyle – Everyday:

OPEN CONCEPT: Making house/rooms seem larger, Welcoming everyone to join in projects

Melissa: “Definitely makes our living space seem bigger though.”

Sara: “We are building a house and designed an open floor plan with kitchen and family room. Not for surveillance, but those are the 2 most used rooms so why not combine them for use?!”

TRADITIONAL: Giving sense of coziness, Maintaining nooks for privacy or specific purpose

Lauren: “We lived with an open floor plan for 10 years, 6 of those with a child. We recently moved to an older home that is not open, and I love it. I like for every room to have its own purpose – with our open space, the kitchen and family room all blended together. So keeping food in the kitchen didn’t really happen. Papers were everywhere, toys were everywhere. I like separate rooms…but I do feel “old-fashioned” saying that. I’m clearly in the minority.”

Jen: “They [her children] have their own culture and complex power balance and we mostly try to stay out of it. Adults need to remember that we are less important than we think. Thanks for posting!”

3B. Lifestyle – Entertaining:

OPEN CONCEPT: Hosting parties frequently, Preferring informal structures, Enabling unfettered flow between/among spaces

Mallory: “We actually entertain more than we did before we had kids. We don’t have to get a sitter, leave before bedtimes or try to keep toddlers entertained in a restaurant. It is somewhat backwards but it is actually easier than going out and we get to see our friends.”

Marci: “Most definitely but surveillance at least for me would be a very small component. It would mostly be for entertaining. We actually entertain more at home since having kids. It can be tricky to coordinate sitters and expensive so often it’s easier to have people come over after bedtime. It’s also impossible to eat out with small kids — you spend the entire meal wrangling them. But at home, they can play with each other while the adults have a civilized meal at the table with conversation and everything. It’s an entirely different world to have a meal somewhere the kids can run around and play.”

Brunner, 2013: “This layout doesn’t allow for direct access from the kitchen to the dining table, or vice versa.”

TRADITIONAL: Hosting parties infrequently, Preferring formal structures, Setting aside spaces for different types of energy/activity

Brunner, 2013: “‘You’ve got to consider the way you live in your home and the way you use your home,’ says Carrino. ‘How do you use your kitchen? How do you foresee using your new kitchen?'”

Say I, in terms of energy, especially when hosting, I think there’s value to having different “zones.” The gregarious need space to loudly cavort, introverts crave a less stimulating place to chat, and gamers might want a room to focus on their match-ups. While folks tend to use anchoring furniture to designate spaces within an open concept expanse, in practice I wonder whether these spaces get smushed or the potential for really getting loud/personal/competitive is limited by outsiders’ noise and eyes.

Discussion

This work reveals both opportunities and unintended consequences related to design choices and parenting practices.

While I began this research by grappling with provocative questions about effects and implications, this study does not illuminate if/how architectural affordances impact child development. Rather, it is a descriptive study, illuminating everyday and entertaining opportunities that parents (and a few non-parents) consider in order to make floor plan decisions.

Future Research

Future research might examine whether and how floor plans are correlated with parenting practices and/or children’s self-regulation. If any correlation exists, which came first, the chicken or the egg — that is, did parenting practices inform floor plan acquisitions or did floor plans shape parenting practices? Did parenting practices lead to children’s self-regulation, or did children’s self-regulation inspire their parents’ practices? Obviously, working with a larger, non-convenience sample also would lend more credibility to my findings.

I was fascinated to discover how my friends introduced gender into the conversation. Rather than engaging with the feminization of housework and child care, which I briefly mentioned in my first unabridged comment, my (heterosexual female) friends talked about young boys’ and girls’ distinct play styles and subsequently differing “needs” for supervision. So how, if at all, would fathers’ and/or same-sex parents differently respond to my queries? Additionally, is my friends’ observation about boys’ and girls’ dissimilar behavior universally shared? How might expectations that sex/gender compel particular parenting practices then cause the manifestation of these particular parenting practices?

The question of class is the elephant in the (hybrid kitchen/living/dining) room. The “open concept” might be the exclusive province of the middle class — the upper class might prefer a closed kitchen in which their domestic help can invisibly toil, while the lower class might prefer several small rooms in order to shelter extended families and/or they may lack access to the newer construction in which “open concept” can be found. Gathering data on both rates of and preferences for “open concept” among families of various classes might be interesting. It’s also worth considering whether this entire examination is of limited import, reasonably chalked up to “first world” or “white people’s problems.” Like Ellen Seiter illuminated in Sold Separately, educated white women sometimes hand-wring over inconsequential issues that might affect their kids, instead of focusing on major issues (e.g., poverty, homelessness, broken public schooling) that do affect other people’s kids and, due to the vastness and ripple effects of the problem, them too.

My sorority sister Mallory observed, “What is somewhat interesting to me is that the open plan kitchen has risen while cooking meals is on the decline, or at least that is my perception.” Mike, my former classmate from both high school and college, replied, “I, too, have the impression that desire for this layout has increased when the actual amount of entertaining or cooking has decreased.” Is this inverse relationship borne out by the data? If so, does the decrease in cooking help to explain the permissibility of an “open concept” because the interference of cooking sounds and cooking smells, as well as the need for cooking concentration, no longer exist?

Finally, Mike went on to identify a few additional factors that also might have influenced the rise of the open concept:

“Right, so you could characterize the opening up of American floor plans to be about multi-tasking (or normalizing increased demands on attention) as much as you could surveillance. Although, you could also view it through the lenses of socialization, family interactions, electronics-centered entertainments, our approach to food and eating, etc. etc. People seem to be drawn towards it for a variety of reasons.”

Conclusion

I found that attributing the rise of the “open concept” floor plan to the surveillance needs of helicopter parents is too simplistic. Differing preferences for sensory access, proximity, and lifestyle in contexts of both everyday and entertaining help to explain parents’ gravitation towards or away from the “open concept” floor plan.

Thank you all for your contributions and inspiration!

Dick Marcus

Barbara Marcus Felt

Sue Milner Marcus

Rick Felt

Laurel Felt

Beverly Copeland

Sensory Access

Proximity

Lifestyle

1A. Sensory Access (Sight, Sound, Temp) – Everyday:

Diana: “Parents want to make sure their kids aren’t doing anything unsafe while the parent is trying to cook dinner.”

Melissa: “Right now, I wouldn’t be able to cook dinner if I couldn’t see my kids while I was cooking. Little ones are always getting into something. Not sure the open concept will be as important when they are a little older.”

Marci: “In a world where even Lucy watches tv while on my iPhone with 3 other people in the room doing their own thing, I think your ability to hear changes for better or worse”

Hillukka, 2012: “You can also watch the little ones play while you are cooking or working in another room. Finally, an open concept allows more natural light into every room, making the entire area seem more spacious and welcoming.”

Aylin: “dear laurel. hi. i am totally with you that kids need their own time and space to play.”

Grace: “I remember childhood as a non-chaperoned experience. My parents were there but they would not have known to intervene unless we asked them to. They weren’t poor parents – they were parents in the 60’s and 70’s.

1B. Sensory Access (Sight, Sound, Smell) – Entertaining:

Mallory: “But mostly, I believe that the open plan house is a reflection of American society becoming less formal and acknowledging where our time is actually spent. Instead of hiding away the messiness of meal prep, it is now out there in the open for everyone to see.”

Brunner, 2013: “‘It also showcased a shift to a more casual lifestyle,’ says Andrea Dixon of Fiddlehead Design Group. ‘People weren’t afraid to expose reality — i.e., a messy kitchen.””

Brunner, 2013: “‘There will always be some people who are uncomfortable with letting guests see their ‘unmentionables,” she [Andrea Dixon of Fiddlehead Design Group] says. ‘It’s definitely a more formal layout, but it ultimately comes down to personal preference.’

[Said Andrea Dixon of Fiddlehead Design Group], ‘But a couple who loves to entertain might opt for a closed-concept space so they can prep courses ahead of time and not spoil the surprise. It totally depends on your lifestyle.'”

Hillukka, 2012: “For example, if you have lots of artwork, you will have little wall space to hang it. You also have to work extra hard to keep every space within the room clean; if one area is messy, it can affect the rest of the room.”

2A. Proximity – Everyday:

Diana: “Think about how much time working parents have with their kids on week nights. Hint: it’s not much, and a good part of it is spent frantically doing chores. Parents want to maximize their time with their kids. Open concept helps them do this.”

Marci: “For the kids, when you have what amounts to a second shadow, I imagine it helps decrease the number of times you hear mommy where are you and come in to the living room and watch me lol.”

Mallory: “In terms of multitasking, you just get used to constantly doing two things at once.”

Marci: “Everything about parenting is tiring lol but if you are good at cooking, you will find you don’t need to devote as much of yourself to the process.”

Marci: “Lol, it’s also the best thing I’ve ever done and I’m sure you feel the same but it is tiring an involves a lot of multitasking. I can’t remember the last time I was able to focus on one thing for more than 30 seconds. I just don’t get that kind of free time anymore”

Brunner, 2013: “Today this layout has become the go-to kitchen style, particularly for families. The combined layout allows for optimum multitasking — parents can prepare dinner, watch the news and help with homework at the same time.”

Jen: “But with 3 kids we really didn’t want to see/hear all of their secrets and play. We also let them play in the pantry (the fairy cave), bedrooms with doors closed (letting the cat out first!) and other “secret” spaces.”

2B. Proximity – Entertaining:

Marci: “I want an open concept floor plan but not because of the kids. It’s great for entertaining since everyone always ends up in the kitchen and since I cook a lot, I can still be part of the party or the kids playing or whatever.”

Mallory: “And as Marcy pointed out – entertaining is much more fun, which we do a fair amount.”

Brunner, 2013: “And it’s difficult to interact with friends and family while whipping up meals, since most of the room is reserved for the work triangle.”

Hillukka, 2012: “If you like to throw parties, you will never feel like you are stuck in the kitchen again.”

3A. Lifestyle – Everyday:

Melissa: “Definitely makes our living space seem bigger though.”

Sara: “We are building a house and designed an open floor plan with kitchen and family room. Not for surveillance, but those are the 2 most used rooms so why not combine them for use?!”

Jen: “They [her children] have their own culture and complex power balance and we *mostly* try to stay out of it. Adults need to remember that we are less important than we think. Thanks for posting!”

3B. Lifestyle – Entertaining:

Mallory: “We actually entertain more than we did before we had kids. We don’t have to get a sitter, leave before bedtimes or try to keep toddlers entertained in a restaurant. It is somewhat backwards but it is actually easier than going out and we get to see our friends.”

Brunner, 2013: “This layout doesn’t allow for direct access from the kitchen to the dining table, or vice versa.”

Brunner, 2013: “‘You’ve got to consider the way you live in your home and the way you use your home,’ says Carrino. ‘How do you use your kitchen? How do you foresee using your new kitchen?'”

Jen: “They [her children] have their own culture and complex power balance and we mostly try to stay out of it. Adults need to remember that we are less important than we think. Thanks for posting!”