Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Older cohousers

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

At dinner last night I asked Shirley (age 82)  Mel (age 88) and later 
talked with RoseMary (age 72) about what advantages and drawbacks they 
saw in living in cohousing as elders.  Summary of some very long conversations:

Benefits:
* Task support.  Help doing chores, other difficult tasks is easy to find.
* Health.  Support during health problems. This is a more healthy lifestyle.
* Stay in own home.  All of them see themselves being able to keep 
their homes with the support of the community rather than being shipped 
off to nursing homes.
* Access to little kids (no available grandkids for 2 of them)
* Stimulating dinner environment.  Conversations at least at dinner. 
Don't have to be lonely when living alone.
* Security.  Knows people will help them, don't have to be afraid.

Drawbacks:
* Long ways to the closest store and entertainment. Have to drive.
* Meetings are hard to hear. (Mel wears a hearing aid)
* Dinner is too noisey to hear conversations
* Not enough cute girls (Mel demanded I add this to the list. Apologies....)
* Would like to spend more time with kids than I get to

I would also add that as a parent I have watched my children get lots 
of great opportunities for enrichment from our elders.  The kids get 
chess lessons, cooking lessons, other mentoring from our elders.  They 
have also learned about death - as two elder males in our group both 
passed away in the past year.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood