Cohousing-L Mailing List: Paying for meals. . .and cooking them

[Dan Suchman (71756.2661]

This message is in response to that of David Mandel, dated 3/7/95, who writes,
in part:

> . . . it makes me nervous to hear about policies that say the more you eat the
more you cook. >Founders of a cohousing community may be highly motivated
enough, for the most part, that this >doesn't have a serious negative effect on
the numbers of folks cooking and eating (though it sounds 
>like it has deterred singles at Winslow and perhaps elsewhere). . . I'm worried
that in some coho sites >at least, the acceptability of opting out of cooking by
not eating common meals could accelerate a >tendency to revert to being a more
standard condo development. Might it then lease the common house >to a
restaurant owner? 
>        If common dining at least a couple times a week is such a central
feature of the cohousing >concept, then shouldn't we at least exert major peer
pressure to have all participate in the work (eating >any given meal is still
optional, of course)? I know that with us the issue never arose (not yet, 
>anyway). If you live here, you're expected to be on a cooking team, and each
cooking team is >expected to do its thing once a month. Perhaps making the
schedule less onerous than it seems to be >elsewhere keeps anyone from feeling
too oppressed by it.

David, your comments open up for discussion some HUGE issues, such as:
community expectations of participation - mandatory vs. voluntary (in all
aspects of the community, not just meals), equitable division of labor and
expenses,  contributions of money in lieu of labor (and vice-versa), work credit
systems, accountability, acknowledgement, whether community necessarily implies
economic socialism (I contend that it does not) and more.  I hardly know where
to begin.  And I'll leave for another message my response to your
characterization of the parent v. parentless economic issues as "petty".

I can tell you that I see issues around meals to be just the tip of the iceberg.
Because I believe this to be true, I am currently developing and leading in my
community a multipart workshop on  "Self-management and Participation" that I
hope will lead to some substantial improvements in these areas at Winslow.

I do want all readers of Cohousing-L to know that I consider Winslow to be a
wonderful place to live, I like my neighbors, and that I am very happy that I
live here.  The issues that I've discussed in Cohousing-L and attempted to
resolve here at Winslow are simply steps toward my commitment to creating at
Winslow an exemplary cohousing community, and toward my larger commitment of
making cohousing a mainstream housing alternative (rather than "alternative
housing") in the US.   I see all of us living in cohousing as pioneers, living
in a social experiment, paving the way for those to come.

I recognize that many of us living in cohousing have worked hard to get here and
are very proud of our communities.  Naturally, we would want to show only our
best sides, and do our "dirty laundry" in private.  However, I hope that we are
not too often hiding from others in cohousing-l and the world the parts of our
communities that could use improvement.  Doing so deprives other of the chance
to avoid the mistakes we've made and to learn from our experiences.  It also
deprive those that have resolved some of the problematic issues of the
opportunity to contribute to others (I assume this is something that most of us
like to do).

I look forward to sharing with others the things (both good and bad) that come
out of our Self-management and Participation Workshop.

Dan Suchman
Winslow Cohousing Group
Bainbridge Island, WA