Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Balancing Children and Creating Cohousing

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

Its not necessarily an either/ or situation. You can contribute a great deal
to the group AND spend quality time with your kids, especially when you find
ways to be with your kids while you are doing community stuff. For example,
for a community work party,instead of doing the adult only work stuff, you
could work with your kids to make iced tea for everyone, or lunch, or you
could go together to the hardware store to pick up supplies. In my
experience, support work for work parties is greatly needed. Offer to take a
couple of kids off for an adventure while their parents are working or
meeting. Offer to do other kinds of support work rather than decision
meetings if those are long and unproductive.

Another idea is to set reasonable limits and then stick to them. Tell people
about your concerns and let them know you will only be available for X
amount of time.  Remember too that the future playmates of your children
will also be involved. Time the kids spent together is a good thing for the
kids, it helps set up their future relationships.

I know of one couple who decided their best contribution to the group would
be through the groups children, and so they spent their energy doing kids
program stuff. This is very different than just babysitting, it involves
planning and materials. For example, I like to do childcare for my community
cause we (the kids and I) do fun stuff together.

I know of a community that swaps nights out, the parents rotate taking care
of a extra kid or two for an evening freeing up some couples time for the
parents. In another community, once a month during the summer there is a
large slumber party, which frees up several parents for some alone time.
This too is valuable community work, perhaps just as valuable than dealing
with the water district issues, or deciding on how many windows go in the
commonhouse. Too many groups seem to think that they will do "community
building" once the bricks and sticks are all in place.

I know a young father who organized the communities kids to design a
playhouse made out of scraps of wood from the construction project. He got
the kids picking up nails, scavenging wood, etc. Then the older kids put
some energy into the playhouse construction, with his supervision, while the
little kids made tables and created a whole little fantasy scene nearby.

Choose how you want to spend your time. As Randy Newman sings in the movie,
A Bugs life: It's the time of your life, use it well.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood, where there are 34 kids