The Cocktail Party Contrarian: My Tiny Rental House

In exposing my children to my relatively ‘humble’ beginnings, I suppose I wanted them to appreciate what they had. I didn’t want them to be ‘spoiled.’ I wanted them to see that other people lived differently.

Elle Hughes via pexels.com
The columnist writes that her little rental house, not pictured, was situated on a quiet lane in a safe, affluent suburb in Westchester County. What most of the world would have seen as idyllic, her children saw as untenable. Elle Hughes via pexels.com

A few years ago, I drove down the suburban street where my parents rented their first home after fleeing New York City in the early 1970s. At the end of the cul-de-sac, I found that the tiny split-level house where I spent my early childhood years had been replaced by a slightly larger one. I took photos of the house and of the others around it that had remained exactly as I left them 42 years earlier.

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