Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing is a state of mind. by Russell Mawby

[areinert (areinert]

> 
> Russell Mawby writes:
> 
> A few weeks ago, I posted a presentation I was
> working on that included a comment suggesting
> that, in my opinion, cohousers seem to be of two
> types - those who see cohousing as a radically
> new way of living, or those who see it as plain old
> common sense.  

> The second, and related issue is, "what is so bad
> about the single family home that cohousing is
> going to magically fix?"  

> someone else said, once you strip away the
> cohousing, you've basically got a housing
> development.  

> Cohousing can
> (should?) begin right now, wherever we happen to
> be - we already have neighbours, after all.  What
> would it really take to get involved with them, to
> start sharing something of ourselves and of our
> lives, to take cohousing "out there".  I know it can
> happen, because I've lived in places, and seen
> others, where cohousing already exists - no formal
> agreements, no convoluted constitutions, just a
> bunch of people getting along, helping each other
> live their day to day lives.  

SUMMARY.  
We like cohousing because:

> Kids have other kids and a secure place to play;
> Freedom from the tyranny of cooking, or alternative, industrial food
> A community structure that encourages (requires) community interaction 
  for those of us who, for whatever reasons, found we were isolated in our 
  previous communities.
> My (nearly only) ideological twist is I feel I am no longer contributing
  to hideous rape of US countryside of suburban sprawl


Yes.  I live in cohousing because it seems a more sensible and practical 
way to live, NOT because it's utopian ideal.  I feel with some chagrin 
that it's a deliberately contrived recreation of a village that used to 
be exist without contrivance, and in many places, neighborhoods, 
communities, still does.   But it wasn't happening where we lived.

>What's wrong with the single family home?

1. Home + yard; colossal and obscene waste of resources.  One thing that
really offends me is suburban sprawl waste of land.  We lived in a single
family house with a yard; too small to really use for playing in, but the
collective too small yards on our street, if continguous, would have been
usable; and maybe we'd meet get to know our neighbors better if we were
working on our collective yard together instead of our private yards
individually.  Kids meet each other playing. 

2. Tyranny of cooking.  I'd come home and cook dinner, everyday.  Tyrrany
of cooking dinners stretched before me, forever.  Cook, 1/2 - 1 hour, eat,
1/2 hour, nag kids about homework, then it's bedtime.  Cooking steals a
major chunk of potential my play or family time.  Alternatives, fast food
(take out or microwave) are repugnant.  Besides, I like cooking, just not
all the time everyday.  The common house meal; that I could come home,
relax, and wait for the dinner bell, was immediately and profoundly
attractive. THis is one of the mundane routine details that collectively
make cohousing a better way to live. All that time, when I'm tired and the
kids have just come home, are now available.  When I cook or wash up, it's
with people; communal activity; not grumbling by myself in the kitchen. I
have an audience to cook for (my kids don't appreciate fancy cooking). 

3. Kids have immediate playmates and places to play.  
Growing up in baby boom suburbia, it seemed there were lots of kids 
around.  Where we lived as adults, there were very few kids around, and 
they were in (different) day cares.  If the one pair of kids on our 
street weren't around, the alternative was making dates with other 
parents, days, weeks ahead.  Often the sad scene of going through phone 
lists on a saturday or sunday trying to find another kid to play with.  
That was awful.  Now they just wander out, someone wanders over, 
whatever.  They watch almost no TV, where it used to be a constant siege 
to provide alternative to the siren call of boob tube.

This part, I know, some neigborhoods do without being formally cohousing, 
but *we weren't*.  We're just not the naturally gregarious types that 
can strike of "Hi Harry" friendships with all the strangers in our 
neighborhood. It may be contrivance, but now it happens.

All these reasons are more eloquently discussed in Durrett's book, but 
they are the real, ordinary, non-ideological reasons we chucked the giant 
home with a view to move here.

Arne Reinert
areinert [at] linknet.kitsap.lib.wa.us
Winslow Co-Housing group.