Cohousing-L Mailing List: Division of labor (was: Cooking Roster)

[Pablo Halpern (phalpern]

From: Rebecca Dawn Kaplan <rebecca [at] psyche.mit.edu> wrote:
> 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?

I have mixed reactions to this question. If the amount of community work is 
more than a small percentage of people's free time, then the community needs 
to find ways both of reducing the total load and of distributing it 
unevenly. You may need to rely on some people voluntarily taking on more 
than their "fair" share of work.

On the other hand, if people don't have enough free time because they have 
taken on too many obligations (e.g., they are workaholics), then I don't 
think the community should have to accomodate them. Workaholism, like 
alcoholism, demands compasion, not accomodation. If you accomodate someone 
who works too hard, joins too many clubs, etc., you are saying to them, "we 
will support you in doing that."

On the other hand, I think it *is* important to accomodate people who have 
special needs. For example, single parents might need some slack. Or elderly 
people or people with disabilities. At various points in one's life, anybody 
could use some slack. If the total work load is reasonable (as per my first 
point), the community should be able to take up the slack.

So, its really a complicated question to answer. These were just a few 
issues that cropped up in my mind when I thought about it.

- Pablo

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Pablo Halpern              (508) 435-5274         phalpern [at] world.std.com

New View Neighborhood Development, Acton, MA, U.S.A.
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