Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Parental boundaries and expectations

[Rob Sandelin (Exchange) (Robsan]

Nobody agreed to not spank their kids, in our parent group discussion we
all found out that none of us did. Its not a rule we have, just a
discussion and point of information, or in this case, a boundary - Its
not ok to hit my (our) kids. Any one who joins could spank their kids,
but not MY kids. Although boy would they get some interesting enounters
if they regularily spanked their kids, since it is a real issue for some
folks, including one who is a family counselor by profession.

We TALK about lots and lots of stuff, we don't have agreements about
everything. For instance, it is absolutely unanimously agreed to by
everyone that the commonhouse is a no-smoking building, but we have
never actually all sat down and agreed to that and put it in writing.
Never felt the need to. Sometimes however, one or two people read things
one way, and assume agreement when there is none, a common problem: a
few folks discuss something and an agreement is assumed.  

Rob

>-----Original Message-----
Sent:           Monday, July 22, 1996 1:36 PM
Subject:        Re: Parental boundaries and expectations
In a message dated 96-07-22 12:48:53 EDT, Rob writes:

>>Sharingwood
>>(Where I KNOW nobody spanks their kids cause we talked about it)

Wow! I am amazed. We come no where near that level of agreement. Did
people
have to agree to that to join? Sometimes these discussions  make me very
aware of how different we are from each other. Wedo have folks who eat
junk
food and watch lots of TV . And kids do get spanked - some kids, some
times,
while other kids apparently get to make up their own rules as they go. 

Mela Silva
Southside Park
Sacramento CA