A Little House Of Your Own

Beatrice Schenk de Regniers' A Little House of Your Own is a warm, thoughtful, and friendly book for young children about personal space, privacy, and the human need to occasionally be alone. It is didactic in a thoroughly accessible and nonaccusatory way, inviting both parents and children to reflect on their need for personal space and the mutual respect that allows for people in a single household to feel that they have space to themselves when they need it.

We have done our best to create such spaces for Z, and she is the proud owner of both a collapsible fire engine (highly recommended at 3 lb., about two square feet when folded up, and a low price tag of $20) as well as a bare-bones plastic outdoor playhouse we got at Toys 'R' Us. We decided early on that "busy" spaces with a lot of things to do served a different function than the need for privacy, and that with our limited budget, that need was easily filled by most of the other toys she has - her play kitchen, for example, or the simple act of playing with smaller toys or drawing. For a self-contained space to play in privately, we decided to go with basic items that did not suggest specific uses; we rejected a house with molded kitchen features, for example, like the one below -

- but instead to offer spaces which, at least on the inside, could be the stage for whatever events or activities she wished to engage in. (Coincidentally, the bare-bones model is much cheaper - $80 instead of over $200!) We're color-without-coloring-books folks already, and this choice is certainly consistent with our attitude towards toys in general - many with the most "imaginative" designs are the least engaging of a child's imagination. Most importantly, though, such spaces can be places where nothing has to happen at all - that is, where she can simply go to be away from us, a luxury we take advantage of whenever Grandma babysits so we can go out for dinner and a movie.

The irony is, most spaces that meet this minimalist criteria are free.

The purpose of a book like A Little House of Your Own - currently out of print but highly recommended if you can get your hands on it - is to help children as well as parents appreciate what such spaces, and the time spent in them, mean.