In Defense of Toll Brothers
by Julie
Compton
You move into that type of housing development because you’re new in town
and you know there will be other families in the same situation, eager
to make new friends.
From experience you know
that the natives, despite their best intentions, already have a life
and don’t have much time or need for you after the initial plate of
Toll House cookies.
You move into that type
of housing development because you want your kids to have the chance
to find a best friend in the neighborhood, or even better, right next
door.
You buy a large house
with 4 bedrooms and 2-½ baths not to impress your visiting relatives
and friends, but to provide a comfortable place for them in the hope
that they will stay a little longer.
You put up an obnoxious
amount of Christmas lights not to impress your neighbors, but to
impress your kids.
You drive a seven
passenger SUV not to deplete the world's resources, plow people off
the road, or better express your “road rage,” but because it’s the
most feasible way for one mom to chauffeur five or six children to
their destinations.
This isn’t how you
planned it. Not by a long shot.
Not by a long shot.
Your dream home was an apartment in the city where you would never
even need a car, much less an SUV.
Or a small cottage in the
country with a few acres for your dogs and cats to roam free.
No, this isn’t how you
planned it.
But children change
everything.
You’ll see.
Children change everything.
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Julie Compton spent the
first 32 years of her life in both the suburbs and the city of St. Louis, Missouri,
but she's since worn the "suburban mom" hat in Boston,
Philadelphia and Orlando,
too. Although a lawyer by profession, she is currently a stay-at-home
mom in Longwood Florida, where she lives and writes with her husband, two daughters and a myriad
of pets. Her first novel, Best
Intentions, will be published this July by Port Town
Publishing.
Please visit her at
www.julie-compton.com.
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