Things, especially buildings, definitely shrink. The apartment I lived in when I was 2 to 5 yrs old was huge and had a hallway which doubled as family room and my personal raceway. About 10 yrs ago I saw it again and ok it had a large hallway but it definitely was not 100 yrds long!

How true all this is .When it happens to me, sometimes I smile and other times it tugs at my heart. You know,people shrink too,physically and often times mentally. When young we're wide open to new adventures,thoughts and ideas and for some, as they age,the world becomes a very small narrow place with little tolerance for anything different from the familiar. One philospher I read said that individually we are like the planet on which we live,which is like the universe of which it is a part... starting from nothing and then growing growing growing,and eventually shrinking,shrinking shrinking until nothing is left.

Unfortunately I am not shrinking. Especially not around this time of year. Hey, somebody has to finish off all those goodies, might as well be me. Date Nut Pinwheels are a very balanced breakfast. Walnuts and Dates, all very good for you.

LOLOL. My diet suddenly changed from cleaning out the fridge to cleaning out the bottle of Tums. Man, I did a job on my gut.

Interesting thoughts, Marda. And I think that is why age is a relative state. Even some kids tend to cling to the familiar....but for the most part getting old is really the inability to set off, with enthusiasm, on a new adventure. Everything is relative, and I once read a treatise on relativity about how time speeds up as we get old. The eternity from Thanksgiving and Christmas I endured in my childhood is now a blur and over in nanoseconds. As our body slows down, time moves more rapidly, relatively speaking.

There haven't been too many times I've returned to a place and seen it as smaller. Just one home in which I lived as a child and not the house itself, but the back yard. As a little person, that piece of ground was immense to me. I used to scale the old apple tree like a monkey and broke my nose after hanging from a branch by the crook of my knees and loosing my grip. The tree was still there when I came back to this area, and I thought surely it had been cut down and a new one planted in its place......but it was obvious at closer inspection the tree I found was ancient. I was just much, much smaller. LOL.

Time definetly shrinks, seems like I'm eating breakfast every twenty minutes.

The time shrinking has spread here, too. Last year at this time, our two great-grandsons were, respectively, 3 1/2 months and one month old. Now, they're both walking/running and speaking some identifiable sounds. And we just learned that by this time next year, the older one will have been a big brother since August! We're happy for them, but somebody's going to be very busy!

Time seems to have shrunk exponentially for me. I cannot tell you how many times I've thought, "That wasn't too long ago," only to do the math & realize that what I was thinking about happened, 25, 30 or even 40 years ago.

However,when I go back to my home town, I don't experience the OMG, this building is so small syndrome. Rather I look at the houses where my friends lived, which in the day seemed to be perfectly normal sized houses, & now find that they are just flipping enormous & i wonder how their families, none of whom were rich, could afford to live in them.

I'm not sure what is out of synch - my understanding of the wealth of the community I grew up in, or the inflation in housing values in the last few decades.

If I had a dollar for how many times I used the "It's not been so long ago" phrase, I'd go to Aruba for a week or two. Ditto, I then do the math and yeah..........thirty, forty years ago. No wonder some of my clothes and furniture I got when first married, and still have seem like freaking antiques to my g'kids. LOLOL. I have since tried to substitute "In my lifetime", because it buys me not such incredulous looks in response.

Ditto the house sizes, Andie. My folks, other than when we lived overseas, always gravitated to the huge, huge and usually brick Edwardian or Victorion houses. They usually sat in areas of other huge, old homes. So, they also looked normal to me. I return to my birthplace and many of them have been converted into FOUR unit apartment buildings. It's not that we were rich. Looking back, we were of modest means. It's just that energy was so, so cheap back then. What it cost in coal to heat a house, or light it wasn't an issue.

You're probably right about the houses. I remember them all as being really drafty - even with the storm windows on. Plus housing inflation has really taken its toll. I think my parents paid something like $30,000 for the house I grew up in & when they sold it in the 1980's they were astonished that when they priced it at $200K it sold in something like 2 days! LOL, maybe they should have listened to the real estate lady who told them they were low-balling their price.

I think many of those large older homes probably held 2 or 3 generations. As we get more and more cloistered and many of us can afford to live alone, the needed space becomes much smaller.

You have something there, I'm sure. But the last decade, and maybe even two have shown multiple generations of families are beginning to share space again and somehow, those percentages are not really showing up in the published demographics.

We have had both sets of kids move 'home' temporarily when they have come to help, or been between their own houses..taking advantage of markets or job changes. We have also had my mother move in with us as an alternative to care in a facility. Both we, she and all concerned felt this was the best alternative. When housing prices peaked, generations living together is sometimes the only workable solution to temporary quarters. Now, with jobs disappearing, financial stability shall probably cause this to happen more often, ditto the hideous increases in the price of custodial care.

I suppose our choices for home sizes shall always be in a state of flux, and as much dependant on social options as mere economics of what we can or can't afford.

But the last decade, and maybe even two have shown multiple generations of families are beginning to share space again and somehow, those percentages are not really showing up in the published demographics.

Good point, but check this out. According to the National Association of Home Builders, the average home size in the United States was 2,330 square feet in 2004, up from 1,400 square feet in 1970.

I believe that multiple generations will become much more common and accepted. I have always thought it made much more sense to have multiple generations under one roof. I don't think it will be too far in the future that society will no longer continue to see grown children living in the same household as their parents an anomoly or parasitic relationship.

Huh, weebus. It's all very well to glow about multiple generations under one roof, but if I had had to share space with my MIL or with my mom, I probably would have ended up in the local asylum. Individually and for very limited amounts of time, they were each nice and interesting people. But it isn't an aversion to anomalies or familial parasites, but totally opposite temperments that admit the heart grew much fonder with lengthy separations.

Oh, I totally, totally agree with the average (new house) size being much larger than it was. That is really obvious with the mcMansions and even watching one evening of HGTV where engaged folks look at a five bedroom home and shreik......It's soooooo small! LOL.

But, when I was a kid, a young married, it wasn't the norm to walk straight from the altar into a brand new house. It wasn't the norm to have your first babies in a brand new house. A brand new house was often the culmination of years of equity building......and many families never really had a brand new house. My folks lived in some modest and some swell homes, but not a single one of them was built brand new. So, the average sized home, according to home builders, were the average sized NEW BUILT. And it was indeed a cycle, because even my 200 year old "old" home is larger than the average new home of today. As were many Victorians. There was a small middle class in that era, and the rich had BIG homes, and the poor little ones. The middle class just got richer, is all.

I loved it when my kids came home to roost for awhile. I was in my glory and it worked well......suppose it was a carryover from single motherhood, where we had to learn to function as a unit to survive. Also 'moved' back with my folks for a very short while when I first moved here and I know they were in their glory too. I had 'independence' issues, however. LOL. Baggage like that, even normal baggage can make the experience harrowing. If you can move past it or endure it cheerfully for the short term, it can work.

Not only are kids moving back home, but as parents age, they're moving in with their kids. Maybe those big houses will become really crowded in a few years - LOL!

My home is not big enough for my mother to move in (she is only living parent left of both of us) without some remodeling. Shoehorn in a shower in the downstairs 1/2 bath, convert dining room into bedroom, not too hard, curtains on the french doors, get a wardrobe. But she would have to put up with a litter box for the geriatric cat. We have a bedroom upstairs she could have but the problem is that srairs are becoming a problem. We could do it except as meldy said, I would either be hauled off in a straight jacket or in prison for attempted matricide, Or the dh would be in jail for murdering me because I would be soooo stressed out living with my mother that I would be impossible to live with. And the dd would be so thankful she was going off to college.

As an aging Mom, I thank my lucky stars my son and DIL understand my need for independence. The statement "I'd rather die" applies to moving in to their home, not because I don't love them dearly but my life literally depends on quiet time alone every day, and eating/sleeping when I please. And cooking at 3:00 a.m. if I want to.

A house nearby was our solution...they visit only after phoning...and I rarely go to their home because of poor eyesight...I feel most comfy negotiating my way around here. I've cut out inessentials like a jillion magazines and cable tv and use housekeeper less often but there's still a lot of leeway for further cuts if necessary. And if and when I can't live independently it'll be time... quality of life trumps all else. Not for everyone...my DH is content in Assisted Living Facility but not for me...ever! josh