Childhood in a Strict Modernist Household

Once again I find myself reading the NY Times out of time. I couldn't tell. The cover said "Design & Living Winter 2009". (I didn't know when it was published. After a few perfunctory searches I decided to bag the baloney and move on. Here's a quick scan of the cover.)

On second thought, I went to the NY Times site and searched for the title of the article. "Empty Nest Syndrome" and there it was with the subheading "When your parents are hard-core-minimalist, you grow up with nothing — and like it." by Fred A. Bernstein. The article was practically new having been published on November 8, 2009. A passage bothered me:

In Chicago, Emanuela Frankel has spent her life in a loft with concrete floors, white walls, black leather furniture and not much else. Even in her own room, ‘‘I can’t have anything on my desk except a pencil holder and a tissue box,’’ says Frankel, 15, whose parents are both designers in the strict Modernist camp. And nothing on the walls — ‘‘no posters, no magazine cutouts,’’ she said. She compensates, however, with a colorful wardrobe.

No clutter. I can appreciate the thought, the dedication, the rigor and ruthlessness of their lives. I am appalled. I've been in very modern designer residences saddened by the lack of the warmth, the absence of humanity. They don't have a dog do they? Who would want to live in such a sterile environment? Weren't kids supposed to be able to hang posters in their room so that 10 or 15 years later they could mock their younger selves?

Where are the books that a kid in sheer desperation and boredom might pick up and hours later, where did the afternoon go? Perhaps kids of those parents have enough of the parental gene and psyche to be able to live in that environment. To me it smacks of Harlow's maternal-separation and social isolation experiments on rhesus monkeys and infant macaques. (See for example A Critique of Maternal Deprivation Experiments on Primates and The Nature of Love by Harry F. Harlow, first published in American Psychologist, 13, 673-685. I remember reading reports of the experiments not long after they were published.)

The only claim I have to knowing about child-rearing is that I was one once. (My immaturity allows me to speak with greater authority on the subject, but I'll wait to be asked.) A strict modernist house, as I interpret the term, doesn't let kids be themselves. In that regard, the "100 feet of sock-sliding potential" cited by Phoebe Greenwood might be a saving grace.