What's better than this?

In pursuit of higher learning I'm being driven to ponder lots of "things" and isn't that really the point in many ways? So I'm in a dialogue with a classmate about why we (Americans) can't live "smaller" and what would happen if we COULD.

When I was younger my memory of the "average" family was a mom and dad and ~3 kids. Houses were Cape Cods or split levels or older homes like Victorians, Dutch Colonials or Craftsmans. Of these the only ones I recall that had more than one bathroom were the split levels which usually had a "powder room" in the entryway, the others had one bathroom and usually 3 bedrooms. Kids shared rooms with their same-gender siblings. There was usually one, maybe two "living spaces" for the family to gather; a living room and a den or a living room and a finished basement. The finished basement usually had things like a ping-pong table, a bar, and some sofas.

What would happen if we could live "small" again? How would it be to not expect to move into a McMansion as your first home? Wouldn't it be great if we could learn to appreciate smaller things?

In the recent past a local official near me said that any house that didn't have a 2-car garage, 2 1/2 bathrooms and central air should be blighted! That would put me out on the street! It's shocking that someone would think that way.

Growing up in a series of increasingly bad apartments I sometimes imagine what it would've been like to grow up in THIS house, the one I live in as an adult. It's old, built in the late 1920's. It has 3 bedrooms of modest size and 2 bathrooms but one of those bathrooms used to be the downstairs pantry and looks like it was switched over in the 1970's sometime so if I'd lived here as a kid it would've had one bathroom unless my dad switched over that pantry himself (highly likely since he did nice tile work back in the day) so let's say that he did do that just for the added comfort of imagining my childhood self with two bathrooms (indulgent, I know).

I've tried to imagine which of the bedrooms would be mine. The front one has a better closet and since I'm a girl I think I would've gotten the bedroom with the better closet. My parents would've had the middle bedroom, it's the largest and also, being right at the top of the stairs they could've easily monitored me or my brother coming home past curfew. My brother would've had the back bedroom and would've done all the things bad boys do like climb out on the back roof to smoke (you decide what he'd be smoking out there) or just hang out.

I can often imagine myself bursting in from school and dumping my books on the stairs only to hear my mom remind me to bring my stuff to my room. I can see myself sprawled out on the bed, gabbing on the phone and looking down at the neighborhood sprawled out below my window.

Homework would be done in the kitchen maybe while mom pulled dinner together (remember, in my little world this is the 1960's not 2010). Everything I needed would be there for me. Nothing fancy but enough. I don't know that we understand "enough" in America anymore.

Last I heard ~$57 million had been donated for Haiti from the special last Friday night which is great, but those people already knew how to live with less. Haiti had serious problems BEFORE that devastating quake hit. I'm not saying that we should be subjected to fire and brimstone but we do need to take stock of our needs again and get a bit more realistic. What would really be enough?