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We Own Too Much Stuff

I borrowed this book, Life At Home in the Twenty-First Century a few weeks ago after reading about it in an article. It's an ethnography carried out by the Center of Everyday Lives of Families by UCLA. They observed 32 families in California and their findings were very interesting to me. I tried to talk to my husband about it and he questioned if this was a book that was aimed for people to get rid of their stuff. I explained to him that it's a collect of findings of families of today, and if historians were to look back at us now, this is the kind of reports they would make for the way we are living.
Here are a few of the things I didn't know about prior and thought they were very intriguing:

  • The majority of houses are child centered, with art and toys filling all spaces of the home
  • Having a child in the home increased home possessions by 30%
  • Parents expressed stress with the mess in their homes as well as not having time to clean
  • Homeowners were unable to use their garages because so many objects are in them
  • The amount of objects a person has on their fridge equates to the about of objects in the home-The more objects on the fridge, the more possessions in the home
  • Families are spending money to have nice yards, but are not spending time in those yards
    • Most spent about 15 minutes outside in total a day
    • Several stated that they did not have time to go outside
Overall, this was a good fast read. It was eye opening and inspired me to clean my fridge off, and to go outside more! 

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