Re: KIds/work/etc.
From: Albert Harum-Alvarez (AlbertSmallCo.Miami.FL.us)
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 1996 13:45:38 -0600
Mela wrote:

>Parents are working 40 hours a week, coming home and
>doing the raking and mowing and dishes while their kids play Nintendo or
>soccer.

Is this typical of cohousing communities? I have two children, and would 
hate to bring them up in a place where being responsible was a matter of 
personal preference.

On the contrary, I imagine a place where any adult would feel free (even 
compelled) to scold my child for misbehaving. This is how I grew up in 
Miami, and I am glad for it. Are there cohousing communities that expect 
that children pull their weight?

This reminds me of a story told by my cousin. She was visiting a little 
village in Calabria, Italy, where our family is from. There was a little 
boy walking along the retaining wall of a bridge that spanned a gorge 
with a rocky stream far below.

An old man hurried over to the boy, grabbed him by the arm and gave him a 
good swat on the bottom, which sent him away crying. Angela asked him, 
"Are you that boy's grandfather?"

He replied, "No, I don't know the boy."

My cousin told him that in the United States we would never do that if we 
didn't know the child, whereupon the old man asked, "In the United 
States, don't you love your children?"

I have hoped that cohousing might be more like that village in Italy...

Albert

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