Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Teens

[Joani Blank (jeblank]

Some folks here seem to have never been the parents of a teen or never have
even BEEN a teen. (Well, maybe a few of you/us were teens in quite a
far-gone era when......)  Teens in cohousing are apparently just like most
teens who don't live in cohousing.  Many of them would rather be anywhere
at all than with their family or their cohousing group, whichever they are
hypothetically in residence with.

Rob, as the mother of a 22-year-old who not long ago fit the description
(except that she's a girl) of the young man in your community who doesn't
relate at all, I can all but guarantee that the person REALLY benefitting
hugely from living in cohousing is his mother! 

Parents of teens know intellectually how important it is to let go of an
acting-out teen no matter how extreme his or her behavior may be. But doing
so gracefully and minimizing the pain can only be done, I'd contend, by a
parent who knows how to get support from other adults.  And we in cohousing
are likely to have a sufficient amount of that readily available. Even a
married parent can benefit from that kind of support, especially if his or
her spouse does not see eye-to-eye with him or her as to how to deal with
the teen.  Also, it's likely that one parent wants to talk about the
situation to other adults more than the other.  And who better than a
cohousing neighbor?

Those lucky enough to have lived in cohousing long enough to see some our
kids or pre-teens grow into teens in cohousing are noticing that these
teens show signs of being somewhat more community-minded than the those who
moved in as teens.  I'm stating this as gently as I can because I don't
know that we have a big enough sample to generalize from, but this is one
of those fascinating topics about which some of us look forward to some
research on.  I do believe that my daughter's life would have followed
quite a different course, had she had the privilege of growing up in
cohousing. She's doing really great now, but I think being cohousing would
have prevented some of the roughest spots in her early teens, both for her
and for her parents.

Joani Blank
Old Oakland Cohousing as of January, 2000!  (That's Oakland, California.
There is a there here, Mayor Jerry Brown notwithstanding.  If you think
that Jerry might be the most best, most compassionate mayor in the land,
check out http://www.jerrywatch.org)