I wanted to write a story like Ricky Gervais' The Invention of Lying but about the first Single family home instead.
My family is crazy! I have so many chores to do. Tending the garden, folding laundry, washing dishes. It's just my parents, my brother, and I in this small house. Mom is always tired and dad complains of having too many things that need to get done.
None of the other families live like us. They always remind us how we're making it hard on ourselves when we pass on the street. The adults hold their children close, as if we've got a disease they might catch.
Dad just says we don't live like them because we believe in personal responsibility. We want to be able to choose our own destiny without having to convince a group of ornery elders who value tradition over feeling and freedom.
A few days ago, I met Tommy, a kid from a normal house. He was walking near the creek when we ran into each other. He said he doesn't have any chores until he's 16. Right now, he just follows along with the 15 other kids of almost the same age in his house. He says they have 240 people in their house. I think that's pretty average sized. Everybody shares the chores so they all get most of their time free.
Tommy said he walked down near my house because he was curious to see the weird family with such a small house. One of the adults in his house says we're going to destroy their way of life if we get what we want.
I had to ask Tommy what my family wanted. He seemed to know more about us than I did about any of the other houses. They've always been out of my reach but how I've admired them for their order and beauty.
He says we want to buy and sell things, conveniences to save time doing chores. If more and more people live like us, the large houses will specialize to provide services for the small ones. When a house specializes and trades its work output, they work themselves out because producing more becomes their only tool for improving their lives.
Just by spreading the load between many people, Tommy's family's practices and house architecture save them lots of time and energy. They've refined their ways over generations while a lot of what we have is what we can manage under very tight constraints.
Like us, they grow enough food to live, as well as make all their clothing and maintain their building. Unlike us, they each contribute a tiny bit at each part and it all gets done. They've got time to build elaborate architecture with beautiful ornamentation.
They're afraid that if more people live in minimal families, asking to trade in order to save time, they'll have us all slaves to production.
At first, I didn't really understand what Tommy meant but now I'm starting to see it as significant.
I ask dad what he thinks of Tommy's ideas. He tells me that when he was a kid, he lived with mom in a normal house just past where Tommy lives. When they were 17, he convinced her that they should live together on their own. They couldn't express themselves the way they wanted within a big family so they would build their own house and do away with the elders' council. What right did they have to say someone's love is wrong?