Re: Cohousing and "career-dislocated isolation"
From: Fred H. Olson (fholsoncohousing.org)
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 09:04:15 -0500
Roger Ruhle   SF Bay area   fertilezone [at] ebox.oo.net
is the author of the message below but due to a problem it was posted
by the Fred the list manager: owner-cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

"Morrison, Robert" <romorris [at] cabletron.com> Wrote: 

> You have raised an important point, ..many careers 
> require people to live in an alienated environment, 
> unless they pursue ..cohousing.  ..jobs are 
> concentrated in (far-away) places where ..housing 
> ..is within reasonable commuting distance ..Is this 
> what you meant to say?  

Yes.  I was also considering dual-income families and the resulting 
latch-key kid that was unheard of in the US just 40 years ago.  
Intentional communities like Cohousing may be one adaptation 
parents are appealing to, for the sake of their kids.  

The last 40 years brought an unprecedented scale of career 
mobility that placed geographic divides between grand children and 
extended-family; separating by critical distance the most inherent 
advocates for assisting with child care, with mentoring, or family 
arbitration.   

There is evidence for cultural changes in the US having broad 
degenerative effects.

In one 4th quarter 98 segment, NPR radio hosted a Dr. William 
Vega, who's study shows that US immigrants are in overall better 
psychiatric shape than native US citizens. Vega claimed to control 
for financial means with this study, on Latino immigrant protective 
culture, which wares off over time and shows degenerative 
psychiatric effects adapting to US culture.  

Roving careers may be one culture shock responsible for losing the 
protective extended-family bonds that can make adapting to 
change most successful.

Perhaps, when a culture adopts roving careers to support more 
luxury debt the proximity of family-care imperatives are lost for 
preferences to apply the dual-incomes to convalescent care, day 
care, and other economies of scale.  

Raising kids without the help of relatives has become an epidemic 
in the US.  And perhaps by forcing this baby-sitting imperative on 
public schools, US schools have become a contagious 
environment for an epidemic of latch key, dislocated, and 
disconnected personalities that are transforming these schools into 
the most violent day care in America.

Whether or not intentional communities have become one 
adaptation for roving-career parents or surrogate for the absence of 
grandparents, it is profoundly interesting how these expanding 
developments are independently re-invented across geographic and 
demographic boundaries and all share similar structures of 
community and security, which are missing from the culture at 
large. 

Roger Ruhle
SF Bay area. 


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