Why Don't ALL Houses Have Large Windows?

As I sit at my double-height dining room, gazing out the south-side wall which is all windows, I am watching a squirrel sit in a tree in my backyard, way up high. I wonder, "How high up is he?" I start to imagine myself standing next to the tree's base and pick where the 5ft mark would likely be. Then I move my eyes up, in increments of five. He appears to be about 50 ft up, just sitting there on a part of a tree limb that jets out and is very narrow. As I sit and eat my cereal, he is eating, too. The sky is brightening, with a streak of pink next to shades of light blue. And then he leaps to another branch and another and another and scurries out of my view.

Just beyond that tree are the backs on the houses on the next block over. All have that typical, double-hung standard house window which allows light in but is too small to see much out of it. I wonder why? Why did the windows my husband designed to be in our new dining room not become the norm? Why don't all houses have really large windows to observe the outside?

My mind starts to wander more and I start to think of Laura from Little House on the Prairie and the house Pa built on the prairie. It also had small windows. But then, Laura and her family spent all day outside, easily seeing episodes like the one I am viewing. Then she headed inside her prairie house to sleep. So big picture windows weren't really needed, not to mention cost-effective or energy-efficient. A house's purpose then was more for shelter than a place for sitting and making observations.

But as I sit here this morning, eating my cereal in my warm home, looking out my energy-efficient windows watching this squirrel, it seems to me that windows could evolve. I am very grateful that my new house has windows that bring the outside in! Maybe soon, all houses will have windows like my house does!