“Open Concept” Floor Plan: Helicopter Parents’ Panopticon?

By laurelfelt | December 9, 2013 - 3:31 pm | Digital studies, Family dynamics, Gender and sexuality, Participatory culture & learning, Social and emotional learning

1A. Sensory Access (Sight, Sound, Temp) – Everyday:

OPEN CONCEPT: Monitoring safety, Lighting multiple rooms from common set of windows, Circulating sound from multiple rooms (e.g., children’s fighting, crying, querying), Universal heating/cooling

Diana: “Parents want to make sure their kids aren’t doing anything unsafe while the parent is trying to cook dinner.”

Melissa: “Right now, I wouldn’t be able to cook dinner if I couldn’t see my kids while I was cooking. Little ones are always getting into something. Not sure the open concept will be as important when they are a little older.”

Marci: “Also now that I have a boy, I have a new appreciation for how quickly a little one can get themselves into trouble. Lucy was easy peasy; James ends up on the coffee table ready to go over the edge in seconds and bruises and head bumps do not deter him – he’s an animal and totally born to be a running back.”

Marci: “In a world where even Lucy watches tv while on my iPhone with 3 other people in the room doing their own thing, I think your ability to hear changes for better or worse”

Hillukka, 2012: “You can also watch the little ones play while you are cooking or working in another room. Finally, an open concept allows more natural light into every room, making the entire area seem more spacious and welcoming.”

TRADITIONAL: Facilitating autonomy, Lighting each room from each set of windows, Creating sound barriers between rooms (e.g., TV in living room, food processor in kitchen), Specific heating/cooling

Liz: “the mirror on the wall to see into the living room from my place at the kitchen table works perfectly well. it has been there at least 25 years. i’m also a firm believer in “if it’s too quiet something is up.” especially having been the one making too little noise during childhood.”

Aylin: “dear laurel. hi. i am totally with you that kids need their own time and space to play.”

Jen: I absolutely agree with your thoughts on this, Laurel. American anxieties regularly interfere with play (is my child being bullied? is my child not talking enough? too much?) making it hard for kids to practice resolving things on their own. Honestly, this is one of the reasons we opted for a house without and open floor plan (that and cost–because nobody wants them!).”

Christine: “Very interesting to think about. I have a 5 and 3 year old (and one due any day now). I think what happens is that children’s abilities evolve so gradually, and parents don’t always see that growth because they’re in it every day. Parents may not realize their children can be trusted with the next level of difficulty. Also, I think our generation of parents prioritizes eliminating pain/suffering for our children and will go to great lengths (home construction, surrender of privacy, etc) to control their environment. It is physically and emotionally exhausting to try to keep this up for any length of time. We have tried to settle into a more comfortable style of mitigating risks so the kids can play unsupervised (we have a fence, we removed saws from the basement play area). It is so satisfying to hear the kids playing independently. We’re all having a lot more fun.”

Grace: “I remember childhood as a non-chaperoned experience. My parents were there but they would not have known to intervene unless we asked them to. They weren’t poor parents – they were parents in the 60’s and 70’s.

Today we have a number of issues that make this ideal difficult. -Heavily scheduled young kids. -Childcare – my nanny job often entails entertaining and daycare has a schedule to follow. When would most young children be able to experience this and living in America today – how would we facilitate it? Beyond safety concerns that have our hands tied – a group of cousins I know- spend time at gatherings away from prying parental units and every time, as their parents relate, they wreck the place or gang up and bully one or more of the group. I guess this might mean that they need more ‘alone time’ to work things out in a positive manner. But it could also just be Lord of the Flies. But as far as ‘open concept’ – in 30 years as a nanny working in other peoples homes, the last 15 years the homes are open -before that they were closed. I think you might be onto something!”

Hillukka, 2012: “Sight lines are challenging in an open concept plan. When painting the walls or decorating one area, you have to consider the way everything looks overall. Worst of all, sound carries throughout and it can cost more to heat and cool this type of home… If someone in the household wakes up early or likes to stay up late, keep in mind that the noise might carry throughout the house, keeping everyone else awake.”

1B. Sensory Access (Sight, Sound, Smell) – Entertaining:

OPEN CONCEPT: Revealing process, Maintaining cohesive design across rooms, Enabling continuous dinner party conversation, Wafting kitchen smells

Mallory: “But mostly, I believe that the open plan house is a reflection of American society becoming less formal and acknowledging where our time is actually spent. Instead of hiding away the messiness of meal prep, it is now out there in the open for everyone to see.”

Brunner, 2013: “‘It also showcased a shift to a more casual lifestyle,’ says Andrea Dixon of Fiddlehead Design Group. ‘People weren’t afraid to expose reality — i.e., a messy kitchen.””

TRADITIONAL: Controlling spectacle, Establishing particular design per room, Enabling private tangents, Containing kitchen smells

Brunner, 2013: “‘There will always be some people who are uncomfortable with letting guests see their ‘unmentionables,” she [Andrea Dixon of Fiddlehead Design Group] says. ‘It’s definitely a more formal layout, but it ultimately comes down to personal preference.’

If you want to leave your smells and mess behind when serving meals, a closed layout could be for you.

[Said Andrea Dixon of Fiddlehead Design Group], ‘But a couple who loves to entertain might opt for a closed-concept space so they can prep courses ahead of time and not spoil the surprise. It totally depends on your lifestyle.'”

Hillukka, 2012: “For example, if you have lots of artwork, you will have little wall space to hang it. You also have to work extra hard to keep every space within the room clean; if one area is messy, it can affect the rest of the room.”

2A. Proximity – Everyday:

OPEN CONCEPT: Facilitating everyone’s desire to be close, Relying on multi-tasking

Diana: “Think about how much time working parents have with their kids on week nights. Hint: it’s not much, and a good part of it is spent frantically doing chores. Parents want to maximize their time with their kids. Open concept helps them do this.”

Marci: “For the kids, when you have what amounts to a second shadow, I imagine it helps decrease the number of times you hear mommy where are you and come in to the living room and watch me lol.”

Mallory: “I have three girls, so my take on toddlers is different than those with boys. My girls (2 and 4, the 4 month old can’t get away from me yet) can play in their bedroom or in the playroom in the basement if they would like to while I am preparing dinner, but they are at the age where they want me involved in their play a fair amount. And as Diana Tang pointed out, as a working mom I have to say no to those requests all too often, so having an open plan allows me to participate without sacrificing dinner. “

Mallory: “In terms of multitasking, you just get used to constantly doing two things at once.”

Marci: “Everything about parenting is tiring lol but if you are good at cooking, you will find you don’t need to devote as much of yourself to the process.”

Marci: “Lol, it’s also the best thing I’ve ever done and I’m sure you feel the same but it is tiring an involves a lot of multitasking. I can’t remember the last time I was able to focus on one thing for more than 30 seconds. I just don’t get that kind of free time anymore”

Aylin: “the open plan thing is helpful not so i can keep my eye on the kids but because they won’t go play somewhere far away from me. generally they want to be where the action is, where everyone is hanging out, where their mama is. if i put a playroom somewhere out of sight or hearing of me, my kids would never go in there. they would take their toys and come play by me, wherever i happen to be. my guys are little though so i’m sure it changes as they get older.”

Brunner, 2013: “Today this layout has become the go-to kitchen style, particularly for families. The combined layout allows for optimum multitasking — parents can prepare dinner, watch the news and help with homework at the same time.”

TRADITIONAL: Supporting everyone’s need for alone time, Boosting efficiency

Mike: “I also know that when I am cooking and people are over, I can only spend a small portion of my attention on others. So if the purpose is awareness of and connection to your children, I wonder how much this type of floor plan really allows for that.

I mean, I really enjoy cooking as a hobby and like how I can focus on a task and lose time in it. I know hobbies go on the backburner in parenthood, but I would think that the act of cooking and watching your children would really change the process. In fact, i wonder whether it would make it even more mentally taxing to have your attention split between two things you really want to be monitoring. It seems like it could be tiring to keep track of everything.”

Jen: “But with 3 kids we really didn’t want to see/hear all of their secrets and play. We also let them play in the pantry (the fairy cave), bedrooms with doors closed (letting the cat out first!) and other “secret” spaces.”

2B. Proximity – Entertaining:

OPEN CONCEPT: Allowing all guests into their favorite gathering space– the kitchen, Avoiding host’s kitchen-based isolation

Marci: “I want an open concept floor plan but not because of the kids. It’s great for entertaining since everyone always ends up in the kitchen and since I cook a lot, I can still be part of the party or the kids playing or whatever.”

Mallory: “And as Marcy pointed out – entertaining is much more fun, which we do a fair amount.”

Brunner, 2013: “And it’s difficult to interact with friends and family while whipping up meals, since most of the room is reserved for the work triangle.”

Hillukka, 2012: “If you like to throw parties, you will never feel like you are stuck in the kitchen again.”

TRADITIONAL: Satisfying most guests’ comfort in plush gathering space(s)– living/dining room(s), Promoting host’s kitchen-based focus

No one made this argument but it’s the logical counterpart to the former set of assertions. By closing off the kitchen, one “forces” guests to relax in staged and comfy surrounds. This removal of all/most guests from the kitchen also frees the host’s focus from conversing and hosting and directs it solely to the kitchen-based tasks at hand.

3A. Lifestyle – Everyday:

OPEN CONCEPT: Making house/rooms seem larger, Welcoming everyone to join in projects

Melissa: “Definitely makes our living space seem bigger though.”

Sara: “We are building a house and designed an open floor plan with kitchen and family room. Not for surveillance, but those are the 2 most used rooms so why not combine them for use?!”

TRADITIONAL: Giving sense of coziness, Maintaining nooks for privacy or specific purpose

Lauren: “We lived with an open floor plan for 10 years, 6 of those with a child. We recently moved to an older home that is not open, and I love it. I like for every room to have its own purpose – with our open space, the kitchen and family room all blended together. So keeping food in the kitchen didn’t really happen. Papers were everywhere, toys were everywhere. I like separate rooms…but I do feel “old-fashioned” saying that. I’m clearly in the minority.”

Jen: “They [her children] have their own culture and complex power balance and we mostly try to stay out of it. Adults need to remember that we are less important than we think. Thanks for posting!”

3B. Lifestyle – Entertaining:

OPEN CONCEPT: Hosting parties frequently, Preferring informal structures, Enabling unfettered flow between/among spaces

Mallory: “We actually entertain more than we did before we had kids. We don’t have to get a sitter, leave before bedtimes or try to keep toddlers entertained in a restaurant. It is somewhat backwards but it is actually easier than going out and we get to see our friends.”

Marci: “Most definitely but surveillance at least for me would be a very small component. It would mostly be for entertaining. We actually entertain more at home since having kids. It can be tricky to coordinate sitters and expensive so often it’s easier to have people come over after bedtime. It’s also impossible to eat out with small kids — you spend the entire meal wrangling them. But at home, they can play with each other while the adults have a civilized meal at the table with conversation and everything. It’s an entirely different world to have a meal somewhere the kids can run around and play.”

Brunner, 2013: “This layout doesn’t allow for direct access from the kitchen to the dining table, or vice versa.”

TRADITIONAL: Hosting parties infrequently, Preferring formal structures, Setting aside spaces for different types of energy/activity

Brunner, 2013: “‘You’ve got to consider the way you live in your home and the way you use your home,’ says Carrino. ‘How do you use your kitchen? How do you foresee using your new kitchen?'”

Say I, in terms of energy, especially when hosting, I think there’s value to having different “zones.” The gregarious need space to loudly cavort, introverts crave a less stimulating place to chat, and gamers might want a room to focus on their match-ups. While folks tend to use anchoring furniture to designate spaces within an open concept expanse, in practice I wonder whether these spaces get smushed or the potential for really getting loud/personal/competitive is limited by outsiders’ noise and eyes.

Discussion

This work reveals both opportunities and unintended consequences related to design choices and parenting practices.

While I began this research by grappling with provocative questions about effects and implications, this study does not illuminate if/how architectural affordances impact child development. Rather, it is a descriptive study, illuminating everyday and entertaining opportunities that parents (and a few non-parents) consider in order to make floor plan decisions.

Future Research

Future research might examine whether and how floor plans are correlated with parenting practices and/or children’s self-regulation. If any correlation exists, which came first, the chicken or the egg — that is, did parenting practices inform floor plan acquisitions or did floor plans shape parenting practices? Did parenting practices lead to children’s self-regulation, or did children’s self-regulation inspire their parents’ practices? Obviously, working with a larger, non-convenience sample also would lend more credibility to my findings.

I was fascinated to discover how my friends introduced gender into the conversation. Rather than engaging with the feminization of housework and child care, which I briefly mentioned in my first unabridged comment, my (heterosexual female) friends talked about young boys’ and girls’ distinct play styles and subsequently differing “needs” for supervision. So how, if at all, would fathers’ and/or same-sex parents differently respond to my queries? Additionally, is my friends’ observation about boys’ and girls’ dissimilar behavior universally shared? How might expectations that sex/gender compel particular parenting practices then cause the manifestation of these particular parenting practices?

The question of class is the elephant in the (hybrid kitchen/living/dining) room. The “open concept” might be the exclusive province of the middle class — the upper class might prefer a closed kitchen in which their domestic help can invisibly toil, while the lower class might prefer several small rooms in order to shelter extended families and/or they may lack access to the newer construction in which “open concept” can be found. Gathering data on both rates of and preferences for “open concept” among families of various classes might be interesting. It’s also worth considering whether this entire examination is of limited import, reasonably chalked up to “first world” or “white people’s problems.” Like Ellen Seiter illuminated in Sold Separately, educated white women sometimes hand-wring over inconsequential issues that might affect their kids, instead of focusing on major issues (e.g., poverty, homelessness, broken public schooling) that do affect other people’s kids and, due to the vastness and ripple effects of the problem, them too.

My sorority sister Mallory observed, “What is somewhat interesting to me is that the open plan kitchen has risen while cooking meals is on the decline, or at least that is my perception.” Mike, my former classmate from both high school and college, replied, “I, too, have the impression that desire for this layout has increased when the actual amount of entertaining or cooking has decreased.” Is this inverse relationship borne out by the data? If so, does the decrease in cooking help to explain the permissibility of an “open concept” because the interference of cooking sounds and cooking smells, as well as the need for cooking concentration, no longer exist?

Finally, Mike went on to identify a few additional factors that also might have influenced the rise of the open concept:

“Right, so you could characterize the opening up of American floor plans to be about multi-tasking (or normalizing increased demands on attention) as much as you could surveillance. Although, you could also view it through the lenses of socialization, family interactions, electronics-centered entertainments, our approach to food and eating, etc. etc. People seem to be drawn towards it for a variety of reasons.”

Conclusion

I found that attributing the rise of the “open concept” floor plan to the surveillance needs of helicopter parents is too simplistic. Differing preferences for sensory access, proximity, and lifestyle in contexts of both everyday and entertaining help to explain parents’ gravitation towards or away from the “open concept” floor plan.

Thank you all for your contributions and inspiration!

Digital Equity

By laurelfelt | November 12, 2012 - 7:29 pm | Blog, Digital studies, New media literacies, Participatory culture & learning

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“Digital equity is the social-justice goal of ensuring that everyone in our society has equal access to technology tools, computers and the Internet. Even more, it is when all
individuals have the knowledge and skills to access and use technology tools, computers and the Internet”
(International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Digital Equity Toolkit – Working Draft, 2006).

Nora Fleming recently queried me on digital equity. After writing back an extremely long response (see Q’s and A’s), I decided to plunge deeper — and probably more responsibly — into Nora’s specific area of interest and the work that she previously has done to that end. I wish I had done this digging first — and I hope any/all readers will do as I say, not as I did; from this point forward, I will do my homework first and pontificate last. Lesson learned.

So today I searched for a definition of digital equity and, to my relief, it is as I had conjectured — a state in which both the digital divide and the participation gap are bridged. I wonder if the term digital equity has fallen out of favor, as the definition and other articles I found that used this verbiage were not current; indeed, the piece I cite above (a working draft at that!) is six years old, which is a lifetime in the digital realm. If this is indeed the case, then Nora might want to consider adopting a more relevant label.

I would argue for a different term in any case because I’m wary of limiting our scope to just digital. Do we really wish to focus exclusively on the digital, I wonder — just 1’s and 0’s, only what’s written on microchips? Is that the characteristic of interest? Or do we wish to consider media and communication more broadly? This would encompass beneath its wide umbrella all things digital, as well as information products and communication processes that qualify as analog. Rather than digital equity, then, perhaps we need to call for communication equity... That doesn’t sound as catchy but maybe it’ll catch on…

I read Nora’s 6 November 2012 article, Schools Are Using Social Networking to Involve Parents, and was struck by a number of things. First, Nora already knows a lot of what I spewed in last night’s email. In fact, she had a few things to teach me; all the way from Washington, DC, she discovered and reported that I have a colleague in my backyard: “Wendy Lazarus, the chief executive officer and co-founder of The Children’s Partnership, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based nonprofit that helped launch a school-based digital education initiative for parents in the Los Angeles area several years ago” (Fleming, 2012, para 28). Overall, I found this article extremely interesting and full of useful information.

If I were to offer any constructive critique, it would be to consider some of the (1) human, (2) professional, (3) commercial, and (4) environmental impacts of this pursuit of equity. Often, good-intentioned interventions fail to deliver unqualified benefits — or even any benefits at all — where these dimensions are concerned.

1. Human

In terms of human impacts, I would challenge us to consider the toll that unremitting digital access can exact. According to Michael Searson, the executive director for the School for Global Education and Innovation at Kean University in Union, N.J., and the president of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education, “It’s unethical to provide a robust digital learning program in school for kids who don’t have access in their bedrooms and family rooms. As schools begin to integrate mobile devices and social media into education, the out-of-school equity issues have to be considered. Education leaders need to understand equity is not only access to devices, but access to the networks that allow people to get information” (cited in Fleming, 2012, para 38).

I disagree with the first part of Searson’s argument. A robust digital learning program can certainly be utilized in classrooms, and skilled educators there can help their students to scaffold their development of digital/new media literacies. It’s unfair to expect students to work on digital projects at home if they don’t have digital access at home — I agree with that. But what are the ethical implications of working towards online access in kids’ bedrooms and family rooms? The body of research on televisions in children’s bedrooms demonstrates that the presence of this media fount is correlated with impaired sleep (e.g., see this most recent write-up of a study from the University of Alberta). Humans need sleep. Humans need respites from any given activity, and certainly from more passively-oriented, visually stimulating activities. I happen to find it unethical to introduce powerful technologies into sensitive contexts, such as children’s bedrooms and families’ spaces for togetherness, without thoughtful, deliberate processes for establishing boundaries, and without offering some sample guidelines for reference and remixing.

Without these conversations and limits, some (most?) folks will struggle to appropriately portion control and will inevitably overuse. They’ll send infinite messages, spend excessive amounts of time managing Inboxes, bury their noses in their smartphones whenever there’s a lull in the action, and keep their mobile device at their bedsides, to jar them from sleep when an email comes in and to consult with immediately upon waking. We all know people like that, don’t we? And we cannot dismiss them all as addicts run amok, slaves to frivolity.

2. Professional

My partner, for example, is one of these embattled individuals. He’s accountable to notices that beep their way into his iPhone (which he pays for himself) at all hours of the day and night. I plead with him to just turn it off, but it’s not that simple. If Mike doesn’t react to the communique, he’ll soon hear about it from his boss in three other mediated ways (e.g., text, phone call, skywriting). And it’s not as easy as sitting down with his boss and saying, “Ease up.” If they institute a company policy to ignore the late-night notices, then another company will scoop up the notices’ embedded opportunities. Then this other company’s clients will ultimately land the jobs that will help them feed their families — these other company’s clients, not his. And Mike’s clients have hungry families too.

So we have a systemic issue here, which requires an industry-wide solution, perhaps a multi-industry solution, to give adequate amounts of time during the workday for the execution of professional labor, and to recognize that a limited workday does exist — all time does not equal work time. As Jeff Goldblum’s character in Jurassic Park reminded us, Just because we can [in this case, work around the clock], doesn’t meant that we should. And arguably, we can’t — see my humanness argument above.

These rules and realizations extend to teachers and parents too. They deserve a manageable slate of tasks and expectations so that they aren’t consistently set up to fail, and/or internalize the sense that they’re always falling short. In her article, Nora explained “Mr. Vodicka [Superintendent of Vista, CA] started a Twitter account and began making the rounds to schools, with the goal of reaching every classroom in the district and tweeting his experiences at each to his Twitter followers. Other administrators in the district have followed Mr. Vodicka’s lead—now, 60 administrators have school-related Twitter and Facebook accounts, and around three-quarters of the schools now have some kind of social-media presence” (Fleming, 2012, para 18).

I applaud this administrator’s transparency and accessibility. But I worry about the implicit — or explicit — demands this introduces for his staff and the parents in his district. Avoiding Twitter could frame teachers and parents as less conscientious, less communicative, and/or less contemporary than they should be. This is unfair since attending to Twitter and other social media accounts doesn’t come from a vast wasteland of time — teachers and parents aren’t thumb-twiddling, they’re phenomenally busy. So how does introducing accountability to social media add more (unpaid) labor to already teeming job descriptions ? And how does this detract, if at all, from quality of life and family time?

3. Commercial

In terms of commercial impacts, I’m wary of private enterprises’ encroachment into public domains. I studied commercialism in schools when I was working towards my Master’s degree in Child Development, and I worry about the growing prevalence of commercial messages in taxpayer-funded spaces, especially those frequented by youths. Some people say that these partnerships are win-win; for example, when as a kid I participated in Book It!, I was encouraged to read and rewarded with free personal pan pizza. But was this less of a win for reading, which arguably should be intrinsically motivated in order to sustain lifelong engagement, and more of a win for Pizza Hut (since only my meal was comped, not my brother’s, sister’s, mom’s, or dad’s)?

Nora wrote, “With donations from the Microsoft Corp. as well as $25,000 from the local school endowment, the district created “parent super centers” on five school campuses” in Houston. I appreciate this, but I can’t help but notice the business opportunity in this “philanthropy” which brands it as much, if not more, of a PR endeavor and chance to establish a brand relationship with a new market of consumers. Computers for Youth facilitates the receipt of a refurbished, personal computer by parent enrollees of computer training workshops; they also guide parents in how to get broadband Internet in their homes, which they can typically access at highly discounted rates (Fleming, 2012). Again, I appreciate this assistance, especially in terms of negotiating the complicated processes of subscribing for services and obtaining low-income discounts. But which company’s computers are they distributing? Which internet service providers are they promoting? How, if at all, do non-profit and public institutions operate as middlemen for multinational corporations, and what is the net benefit for citizens?

4. Environmental

In terms of environmental impact, let me back up and say, I had the good fortune of studying political economy with Dr. Ellen Seiter. In her course, we read Vincent Mosco’s The Digital Sublime, an eye-opening look at how increased digital consumption via personal devices contributes to inhumane labor conditions, massive amounts of e-waste, and dangerous scavenging through these mountains of chemical-dripping refuse by folks desperate for income.

Some research also identifies how increased demand for tin, tungsten, and tantalum — the elements that power our digital devices — has transformed them into “conflict minerals.” Like “conflict diamonds” (made famous by the 2006 film Blood Diamond), pursuit of these minerals has inspired brutal conflicts between rival militias in eastern Africa, resulting in widespread slaughter and rape (for a dramatized explanation of this situation, see Law & Order: SVU’s 2010 episode “Witness,” written by Dawn DeNoon; an analysis of this episode’s impact, written by Sheila Murphy, Heather J. Heather, Sandra de Castro Buffington, and myself will be published in a forthcoming edition of The American Journal of Media Psychology).

Mosco also challenges us to consider how, if at all, this increased access to information (some of it credible, some of it spurious, and few of us able to distinguish the difference), and increased access to communication (some of it useful, some of it banal, and few of us able to control our predominant engagement with the former), actually makes our lives better. It undoubtedly does sometimes, but not always. So should our goal be to increase round-the-clock access universally, or to identify the qualities of and conditions under which more information and communication delivers benefit?

My belief: the latter. Let’s identify the qualities of and conditions under which more information and communication delivers benefit. This will help us to recognize when it better serves us to disconnect from the screen and plug in to each other. And this will imply a less drastic product-fix: not a portal in every bedroom, necessarily, or always-on internet, but household access, peak hour availability.

As we struggle for equity, we must simultaneously fight for humanity.

Eulogies

By laurelfelt | February 2, 2012 - 3:13 pm | Asset appreciation, Blog, Family dynamics, Narrative, New media literacies, Social and emotional learning

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Ray & Ruth Marcus at the Felt home | Approximately 1983, celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary

These eulogies were given by my uncle, mother, and father at the May 10, 2010, memorial service for my grandfather, Raymond Marcus; he had died three days prior, just two weeks shy of his 89th birthday. It was unseasonably, bitterly cold that day — all the more reason for my siblings and cousins and me, gathered at the graveside, to huddle together. These stories were shared before we visited the cemetery, when first we gathered at Weinstein Funeral Home in Wilmette, IL.

Richard Marcus

Over the last week and a half I wrote, first one, and then a second eulogy, word for word. A day or so after I wrote each of them, I threw each one out. Those efforts just didn’t tell the story that I wanted to share. My dad, I have come to realize, was a complex man. I don’t know if I have the ability or the words to do him justice. I stayed up way late last night preparing this, and then couldn’t sleep knowing I still didn’t get it right. So even before I begin, I ask you, my family, my friends, to help me with this job, to speak about my dad with your stories and reminiscences, to fill in the gaps that I know I am leaving out.

I best get started with the easy part. My father wasn’t an especially large man. He stood no taller than me. But his frame was bigger. He had wide shoulders, a barrel chest, thick, hard arms, and remarkably strong hands. Dad’s typical day at Marcus Brush Company entailed both office chores and strenuous physical labor. After retirement, he became a gym rat. He and my mom took exercise classes for years. Dad lifted weights in the gym until he was 80 and walked three miles a day until he was 85. And in his last year, and actually until the final few days of his life, Dad insisted on taking a walk each morning through the long corridors of the Care Center — exercise and exertion were a part of Dad’s make-up that even his dementia couldn’t take away. As a result, for my entire life, I knew that Dad was strong and hard as nails.

But despite his own personal traits, Dad didn’t judge other men by their size, strength or toughness. My father taught me that “you don’t take the measure of a man by the size of his shoulders but by how he accepts and carries out responsibilities.” That was my dad’s code. That was how he lived his life and interpreted the world.

For seven summers, during my high school and college years, I worked alongside my father and grandfather, my uncle and my cousins Ken and Roger, at the Marcus Brush Company, the family business. To this day, I am grateful for those summers and for the opportunity to see the world that my dad operated in five or six times a week, a world that he would go to every week for 40 years. I saw how he interacted with his employees, his customers, his suppliers and all the characters in the neighborhood of 23rd and Canal.

I saw that Dad, while expecting his employees to put in a day’s work for a day’s pay, also believed in paying a fair day’s wage for that day’s work. I saw that my dad was a straight shooter. He said what he meant and meant what he said. If he made a commitment, he made every effort to fulfill it, and if he couldn’t, he didn’t make up excuses as to why.

But most of all, I came to understand just how hard my dad worked for the salary he earned. I came to understand the challenges and tensions, the set-backs and aggravations that a typical day in my father’s working life could hold.

And what was the motivation for the efforts I saw? My dad had few indulgences beyond a gym membership and a weekly massage. No, he worked for us. For Mom and Barb and I. He worked to provide a solid middle class life for his family. Barb and I were far from being spoiled, but we never lacked for any essentials and Dad never hesitated to pay for any reasonable extras. We may not have taken many fancy vacations but both my sister and I graduated from college with no debts — Dad paid our ways, my sister to Northwestern, me to the U of I and then on to law school. So, our family was blessed with a sense of financial security, but there was more to it than that. Dad didn’t work so hard to make his life easier; rather, to make our lives better.

Listen. Dad wasn’t a warm, Father Knows Best, “daddy” kind of guy -– far from that. Yet Barb and I grew up having no doubts that our father was devoted to us. He wanted us to be strong and happy and successful in whatever we attempted. And if he could help us somehow along the way, we knew Dad would try even without our asking. All our lives we knew this. And in a world that could be very mean, we knew we had our dad, and come hell or high water, we never had to stand alone. That knowledge, that feeling, has been a comfort. It has been empowering. What greater gift can a father give his family?

I know that I could exercise from now until doomsday and never have shoulders as broad as my dad’s. And I know that I’ll never be as tough as my father. But I also know this: If I always strive to be there for my family, for my wife and my children, if I endeavor to be honest and fair in all my dealings, if I accept and don’t hide from responsibilities, I will be honoring my father’s memory.

I should stop here, but I need to talk about a more difficult side of my dad. Bear with me though, and know there is a happy ending.

Dad was not easy-going. To be sure, Dad could be kind and insightful, funny and creative. But more typically, he was dark and blunt and grumpy. It seemed to me that Dad struggled to keep an anger that resided deep within him from bubbling to the surface. Most of the time, Dad was successful in that struggle. But not always. Bullying-types saw that Dad was not the sort of guy to try to snow or push around, they left him alone, and searched for softer targets. But some good people could be put off, and Dad sensed this and very much regretted it.

It follows that Dad was not a touchy-feely kind of guy. Giving hugs and kisses — even pats on the back — were not a part of his natural repertoire. When the situation called for such a sign of affection, Dad gave and received the requisite kiss or hug awkwardly, almost self-consciously.

I don’t know the basis for all this. I don’t know why Dad may have carried such anger. But I have my suspicions.

My dad actually had three brothers. Art and Bernie we all remember. But there was a third. Dad’s younger brother Leonard. When my dad was about four, Dad contracted whooping cough. And one day, while he was sick, Dad reached into the crib where his infant brother was laying and started to play with him. Dad was kissing one of Leonard’s hands when my grandmother walked into the room. Frightened by what she was seeing, Grandma screamed at Dad to keep away, yelling that he was going to kill the baby. Eventually Leonard did catch whooping cough. He choked to death one dreadful night. For years after, my grandmother explained that her infant son died because “Raymond loved him too much.”

My grandmother, who had not yet recovered from Leonard’s death, endured another tragedy — the death in an awful house fire of her mother and father and two younger brothers. So gruesome was the scene that after my grandfather went to identify the bodies, he actually suffered a breakdown and was unable to walk or to work for nearly a year. As for my grandmother, her strength was broken. She’d suffer from aches and illnesses the rest of her life. There was little energy available to tend to the emotional needs and concerns of Art and Ray, who were shocked and scared by the lives lost and by their parents’ sufferings.*

There were other instances that I just don’t have time to go into: my dad, a lefty, being forced at school to write and work right-handed; the problems with my grandparents’ marriage; my dad’s experiences in the war, to name a few. All — or none — may have colored my dad’s personality and stoked his anger.

But let me tell you about the last few weeks of my dad’s life. By then he had forgotten how to dress himself, how to feed himself, how to wash himself. Still, he never failed to recognize my mother. And after a visit, when my mom was set to say goodbye, Dad would reach around her and give her a hug and a kiss without hesitation or awkwardness. Dad willingly held my hand and didn’t scowl when an attendant kissed the top of his head. And just last week, he gave my sister and my niece a hug, with genuine emotion. Something had changed. And I know what it was. The dementia that caused Dad to lose his strength, that robbed him of his talents and his wit, that caused him to forget even how to operate a fork and a spoon, that same awful dementia, also caused him to forget what he had been angry about all his life. In the end, Dad’s bitterness vanished like so much smoke.

Later today, we are going to read the 23rd Psalm. There is that famous line about walking in the valley of the shadow of death. When we recite that, I want you to picture my dad traveling on that last leg of his journey, not only as a good man, not only as a man of duty and honor, but also as a happy man — walking with his back straight, his head held high, and feeling, finally, light as a feather.

*In fact, Ray’s beloved older brother, Art, narrowly escaped death by that same fire. That evening, he had gone to sleep over at his grandparents’ house but, seized by homesickness, decided that he didn’t wanted to stay the night. He called home and his father fetched him just hours before the fatal blaze. –Text added by Laurel Felt from recollection, written February 2, 2012

Barbara Marcus Felt

With gratitude to my children, who encouraged me…
The most outstanding feature that I remember about my dad is his hands. Even as his body diminished, his hands remained strong. He was ambidextrous and could equally use his right and left hand; his handiness was what helped him make sense of the world. When words failed him, he expressed his emotions with his hands.

When my brother was born, my dad – by himself – remodeled and refinished a room, basically making a nest for my brother. And when we moved into our house in Skokie, he created a home for us by building – by himself – this tool shed out back that actually looked like a little house, with windows and a window box. And when his words failed to communicate with my mom, he studied her and he sculpted her and he recreated her with his hands, carving a likeness of her out of driftwood.

My dad wasn’t handy in the sense that I’ve come to love about the Felts, and he wasn’t a hands-on dad. But he sculpted us into the family we are today. He was handy in the three-dimensional, way-of-knowing-about-the-world sense. And in the end, when there were no more words, I held his hands, and he was with me.

Richard Felt

Hello everyone. For those who may not know, I’m Rick, Ray’s son-in-law for almost 39 years.

I first met Ray Marcus about 40 years ago when his daughter Barbara, whom I was dating, decided it was time for her parents to meet “the dentist.” Ray liked to call me “the dentist” even though in those days I was still a dental student and not yet a real dentist. He used the term a little jokingly because he had just written the last of several large checks to the Marcus family dentist for goldwork on Barbara, and Ray was not too happy about the timing of “the dentist” arriving on the scene too late to have saved him a lot of money.

In the early years, Ray and I would jog together at the J in Skokie almost every week for a while. Ray was not blessed with terrific eyesight, so he shied away from most sports. But that man could RUN. I was not a good runner, so Ray would have to tone it down in order to keep things at my pace. He never failed to do so, even though I suspected that he considered our runs together to be just an appetizer.

I liked Ray right from the start, and I know he liked me as well. He was a nice guy, pure and simple. You always knew where you stood with Ray because he didn’t put on airs—and no B.S. He called it the way he saw it. In the early years of our marriage, Barbara and I moved to Appleton, WI. I started a new general dental practice there which was growing, we bought a nice home, we made friends, we joined a supportive synagogue, and we had a son, Benjy. Nonetheless, we decided to move back to Chicago after 3 years for a number of reasons. I know Ray missed having us close when we moved away to Appleton, and especially when his grandson was born, so you would think that he would have been overjoyed to hear that we were moving back. But Ray was concerned that we had accomplished much in a short period of time in Appleton, and that we would be giving up the security of those accomplishments if we moved back. He had grown up in periods of uncertainty during the Depression and WWII, when there was almost no security at times, and he had lived through the difficulties of starting a new business: the Marcus Brush Company. He advised us to think over carefully whether we should actually leave Appleton. So Ray was willing to give up something he really wanted—our return and more time with his new grandson—in order for us to benefit by maintaining the security he felt we had there in Appleton. It was an unselfish act on Ray’s part.

When I finished my specialty training and decided to open an office in Northbrook, Ray (and Ruth) were there for us again, this time with a checkbook. He lent us some money to get things off the ground. I wanted a written contract, with specified interest and a repayment schedule, like a real business transaction. But Ray looked at it as a transaction of love. He didn’t want any schedules or anything on paper, and told us to take as long as we needed to repay the loan. In my mind, I think he didn’t really want repayment at all, because when we did repay the loan, he was reluctant to accept our check for fear of causing us financial hardship. Ray was not about money—he was about love and family. Add to that a measure each of conscientiousness, responsibility, preparation, attention to detail, modesty, and humor, and you have a recipe for the man we knew and loved. We will miss you, Ray.

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