In days past, families would gather around the fireplace in the living room or kitchen, often after a shared dinner and discuss the days events. Why would they gather around the fireplace…… it was probably the only heated room.
It was a time for children to speak with their parents to enjoy each others company and conversation to bond and of course in an enclosed room to develop the ability to get on. It was a time when social skills could be developed and advice administered, a time for debate and argument, a time for falling out and making up and a time for discovery of each others feelings.
Now what…… the whole house is heated, often with the windows open, heating the sky, damaging the environment and polluting the planet. But more practically, the children are likely to be upstairs in their own bedrooms watching TV or playing on the computer, the husband in one room and maybe the wife in another. After dinner each will scurry off to their own little sanctuary. I’m convinced that if there was only one room in the house that was heated then we would begin to see families bonding again, social skills being honed and husbands and wives beginning to talk again.
I make light, I know… but it does make you wonder…… doesn’t it?
