If Energizer ever decides to rebrand, my three-year-old son should be in the running for the new mascot. His battery never depletes. It’s like the boy has a built-in alternator. The more he runs, climbs, and flips the more energy he generates. Eventually, once he finally figures out how to do a backflip off of the top of the couch, I reckon our house will implode. The fact that it is still standing is a testament to how well-built houses were back in 1897.
Sometimes, when I see the slipshod McMansions that the developers are throwing up all around us, I wonder how many generations of children those houses could possibly withstand. My wife, who is up on family genealogy, tells me that twenty-one children have been raised in our old farmhouse in its 127 years of existence. That’s counting, Claude, who in 1898 died at age thirteen in our house from something called “flying rheumatism.” His mother had little time to grieve because the next day she was giving birth, also in our house, to another child, Burl. As tragic as Claude’s death was, I like to think that he got in some good running and jumping and effectively broke-in the floorboards for all the future pitter-patter.
Back before we had Thomas, I used to take comfort in the fact our house has existed so long, especially whenever bad storms approached. The house had likely weathered worse storms and was still standing. Now that I’m a parent, the fact that it is still standing after twenty-one children is a more reassuring thought. Surely, at least one of those twenty-one children was wilder than Thomas.
I’m not exactly sure where three-year-olds get their energy. It seems like Thomas is forever hungry and yet never stops long enough to eat. Mostly, he just plunders the cabinets for a good time, which makes me wonder what children did for fun back before they added on the kitchen to our house. It was added on in the early 1900s, so maybe they just scaled the walls of the outhouse for fun. Our house has had a lot of upgrades over the years, with each generation chipping in to make the floor plan more confusing. For our part, it seems like we’ve been re-siding the outside of the house for four years because, well, we have (part of the reasons old houses are so strong is because they’re armored in twelve layers of lead paint).
All I know is any house worthy of a mortgage at current interest rates ought to be well built, meaning it ought to be able to withstand a three-year-old, ideally generations of them.
They definitely don’t build like they used to. Where we live, McMansions abound, and they seem to only grow bigger as families grow smaller. I think a family could live in one without ever seeing each other. People’s expectations of what a house should be seem to have shifted to a realm where the horror of sharing a sink, or even a bathroom, is beyond comprehension.
Our house is too big for us, but to be fair, we bought it thinking my mom would live with us, our daughter was still home, and my husband’s English family visited on a regular basis. Now, it’s too big for us, and we are beginning the process of preparing to sell and move to a smaller place. I look forward to having less house to clean.
Less house to clean, amen! Sometimes I’ll stop by estate sales where they are selling off the stuff in all these McMansions once the owners are gone and apparently there are no kids or grandkids interested in all that stuff. What a waste! But I’d bet, the handmade things, the real heirlooms, the sentimental momentos, are far more treasured. Or are those days going, going, gone, too? 🤔
I’m not sure. My daughter prefers to own only a few things, but she does like the ones she chooses to accept from our plethora of belongings always have a sentimental attachment. My theory is our forebears owned fewer things so the ones they did own were treasured when they were passed along. My generation has many more possessions (or maybe it’s just me), plus those we (I) inherited from our family. And with smaller families, those items aren’t divided as much. At least that’s my theory. 🙂
I have a love/hate relationship with estate sales. Most of the ones in our area tend to be of old farms and farmsteads and those are definitely bittersweet. You can find some good deals though on antiquated farm equipment, which is all I can afford
it’s hard to believe that a family of 11 once shared a single outhouse here. We only have one bathroom, and if I ever win the lottery, I’d like to build another one onto the house, but if I don’t, we’ll just have to make do.
Hope you can find a good place to move to, maybe one with a small house but nice big barn to store all the beekeeping equipment
Exactly!
What a lovely collection of photos!
120 years ago, children worked – chores, chores, chores – especially on a farm! I’m sure that burned off a lot of that energy. (Still retaining enough to push over outhouses, or what ever mischief they could think up…)
Good point, I think it was as late as 1960s here, but school used to let out for two weeks in fall so children could help with harvest