Family: A social unit where the father is concerned with parking space, the children with outer space, and the mother with closet space.

Evan Esar (1899–1995) was an American humorist and compiler of aphorisms, best known for publishing collections of witty definitions and observations about everyday life. This line is characteristic of mid‑20th‑century U.S. domestic humor: it frames “family” through the competing, mundane “space” concerns of each household role—dad’s practical logistics (parking), kids’ imaginative or aspirational interests (outer space, echoing the Space Age), and mom’s management of household storage (closet space). Esar’s work often appeared in quotation anthologies and humor collections rather than as a single speech or essay tied to a specific event.

The joke turns on the repeated word “space,” shifting its meaning from the ordinary to the cosmic and back to the domestic. By assigning each family member a different “space” obsession, Esar compresses a familiar portrait of household life into a single sentence: adults preoccupied with practical constraints, children drawn to wonder and novelty, and mothers tasked with organizing the material overflow of home. The definition is less a sociological claim than a comic snapshot of competing priorities under one roof, suggesting that family life is a continual negotiation of limited resources—time, attention, and literal space—refracted through generational and gendered expectations.