Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: cooking rosters

[Rebecca Dawn Kaplan (rebecca]

I likes Graham's point about how a system which attempts
to be rigidly "equal" might not be "equitable". It is true,
some people like cooking more than others. However, my inclination
would be to have a system which required everyone to contribute.
Perhaps people could choose cleaning up instead of cooking
if they really hate cooking, or if they don't feel competent
as cooks. But, in my group house which I have been living
in for 4 years, I have found that people who claim to be
just "unable" to cook suddenly find that, in fact, 
they can cook perfectly well once they have
been required to do so weekly for a while.  I also 
think that because people are brought up with 
OBdifferent expectations about their household 
responsibilities that vary in non-random ways, it is
important to question the idea that some people "just happen"
not to like cookng, cleaning etc. Especially if
such preferences "just happen" to fall along gender lines.
Cooking is not very mysterious once you start doing it, 
especially if you are doing it in pairs or groups.
I also think it may be a useful approach to require everyone
to contribute the same amount of time to cooking the 
common meals (or doing clean-up, etc) regardless
of how often they eat. This way, everyone will
feel committted to them, and will be more likely
to attend. If someone knows that skipping group meals
will reduce thier responsibilities to the group, that might
create an incentive to skip common meals, thereby
reducing group cohesion & making the workload
heavier for those who continue to cook. (And yes 
the workload is heavier because cooking dinner for
5 twice a week is far more work than cooking for
10 once a week).
One problem with this approach would be how to accomodate
people who for some reason are simply unable to attend
most of the common meals, should they still have to do 
the same amount of work?
Actually, this is A question for all common chores & 
responsibilities, how do various communities deal
with the fact that members have different amounts of
free time, and different amounts of other obligations?

By the way, one other unrelated comment. I realize that 
finding peopel peeking in one's windows is very disconcerting, 
but I think we should resist the urge to call the police or
yell at them. These people may have behaved rudely,
but they were probably genuinely curiosu and interested, and
potentially interested in living in cohoising themselves, 
and I think it is prefereable not to scare them away 
from the whole idea.

-rebecca