It Will Be Ok If You Have Kids in a Small Space

I ended up in a long line at my favourite coffee shop today. We were going to cheer on the runners in the marathon so it was an especially long line today. And I ended up chatting with the woman beside me. I don’t know how it came in up in our small talk but she was mentioning her son and his wife and how she was worried about them never being able to afford a house in the city.

I can never just nod and smile so of course I said, it’s ok, we don’t have a house in the city and we are fine. She said, yes but they want to have kids.

I said, oh I have two and we share a two bedroom apartment.

She said, your kids must be the same gender then?

Nope!

She was surprised and asked if it was ok? I said , yes we happy and have a good life. We get outside alot and take advantage of so much of the city. The kids have everything they need!

I explained that we lived in a one bedroom with 2 kids for over 7 years to afford our 2 bedroom. While I can’t defend housing prices where we live, I do argue that we have more than we need.

I also mentioned that I think my generation needs to adjust our expectations of the house and the backyard. We can have a great life in a smaller space!

We said our goodbyes but I left that conversation feeling like maybe I shared a perspective they hadn’t heard before. Instead of focusing on what we can’t have or afford; focusing on all we do have and maybe it’s enough.

She didn’t ask me about what will happen as the kids get older but I have been thinking of that more and more as Theo is 12 (!!!!!!) this summer. And while I can’t speak to teenagers in a small space, I can confirm that 11 years of living in apartments in the city has worked for our family and the kids are alright!

I’m not sure what the future holds. We are fast approaching the teenage years and we won’t have a basement where the teens can hang out. But i’m thinking we will do what we do now which is give the kids their room and put our wall bed away so they have two rooms to hang out in. We (the adults) will make ourselves scarce in the living room/kitchen. I was also thinking we could build trust by giving the teens our apartment and we go out to a third space (coffee shop, workout, dinner, movies etc.) I think we will also take advantage of third spaces for the kids. We are now building up their activities and sports to keep them engaged, busy and building skills and confidence in areas beyond school.

As always, will let you know how it goes! I’ve put this call out before but would love to feature more small spaces with tweens/teens!

I think I take for granted our commitment to small living and get lost in our Vancouver-bubble of thinking everyone thinks or lives this way. It was a nice reminder today that this shift in embracing and loving our small spaces and living with fewer things is still new and still slowly making it’s way into the larger culture. Or maybe she left the conversation thinking I’m totally nuts for thinking small living is great, ha! I’ll choose to believe the latter.