Sunday Editorial: In Defense of the Small Family Home

As we see more strollers around Edgewater these days, we get excited for our changing community. Over the years though we’ve seen families move out of Edgewater when they have their second child and realize they need a bigger home in the suburbs. Through our journey as a family, we’ve found that the big family home in the suburbs isn’t the only option. We love our small family home in Edgewater and the benefits the small square footage has on our family.

In mid-2005 our oldest daughter was born and the large closet in our condo was the only place to put her crib. So we started to search for the perfect family home. My wife and I had both grown up in larger suburban homes and so we thought that’s what we wanted for our expanding family. We wanted the suburban two story home with a basement and a two car garage. And that’s what we found in southwest Littleton (top picture above). Then when our second daughter was born, we were glad to have another separate room for her as well as a guest bedroom when the grandparents would come. We were living the suburban dream.

Then with the recession of the late 2000s, we moved for a new job in Illinois and sold our suburban dream home. Trying to dig ourselves out of debt, we decided to rent a home instead of purchasing a home again. The rental home in Champaign, Illinois only had three small bedrooms and one bathroom so we had to get rid of a lot of stuff to move from a two story with a basement to a small, one story ranch. We still remember the sense of freedom in decluttering and simplifying our life.

The two years we spent in Champaign, Illinois were freeing for our family. We lived within our means and stuck to a budget. The best part was living in a smaller home and enjoying physical and relational closeness with our two daughters. We also lived within walking distance of coffee shops, restaurants and the downtown area. There was no going back to the big suburban home.

Another job transition and we were headed back to the Denver area. Based on our experiences with the smaller home in Illinois, we were searching for a neighborhood and a home that felt part of community, not just a subdivision of homes. I still remember driving north on Kendall Street, crossing 20th Avenue into Edgewater and knowing this was the type of community we wanted to lay down roots. We rented a home on Kendall for a year and began searching for a home to buy in Edgewater. We finally found one just up the street from the elementary school our daughters were attending and bought it in 2013 (bottom picture above).

Now our daughters who were once walking to the elementary school are now walking to the high school up the street. Seven years have gone by and we love our small family home in Rose Acres. Even through the trials of the pandemic and being cooped up in our home more than usual, we don’t feel the sense that we need more space.

Here are some of the benefits we’ve found in raising our daughters in a small family home in Edgewater.

Physical Closeness Can Bring Relational Closeness

Our home in Edgewater has three bedrooms and one living room connected to the kitchen. Our high school daughters can have their space to retreat in their rooms, but we also have common areas to watch TV and connect. When their friends come over, their time is spend in the living room because their bedrooms don’t have much room for a group. The limited space in our house gives us more physical time with our girls in the same room and this proximity brings relational closeness as well. We’ve often wondered how different our lives would be with our teenagers if we were still at our suburban home in Littleton. We definitely would not see our teenagers as much.

Proximity to Walkable Amenities

When we lived in suburban Littleton, we never walked to the grocery store, school or a restaurant. The community was built around the assumption that people would drive, not walk. When we lived in Champaign, and now Edgewater, our small homes were in communities designed around walking, not driving. We would much rather be in a small home within walking distance of a local beer and neighborhood restaurant than in a large house in the suburbs where we have to drive everywhere.

Retiring Where You Raise Your Kids

When we were walking through our soon to be home in Littleton, our realtor talked to us about buying a home where we could retire. That seemed so foreign to us when we were 25 and 26 years old. Now that we are in our forties, and sadly our daughters are  three years away from high school graduation, we have moments when we think about our home with the girls at college. Instead of a large family home with two people, we have a small home that is perfect for my wife and me. And our home is the perfect space to enjoy the second phase of our family life like many in our community that raised their children in the same home that they are now retiring in.

Decades ago it was normal to raise a family in a home our size, we know that it is rare to see middle class families choose to raise their children in a small ranch house. Families are leaving their home in walkable communities and moving to new housing developments in northwest Arvada and western Lakewood. There is an alternative that involves staying in our walkable community, close to neighborhood restaurants and breweries, and choosing to raise your children in a smaller home. It is possible and we would argue there are many benefits to smaller spaces and relational closeness with your children.

Joel Newton

Joel has been a resident of Edgewater, Colorado with his family since 2012. He is the Executive Director of local education nonprofit Edgewater Collective and Editor of the Edgewater Echo.