Cohousing-L Mailing List: Families w children later?

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

>So, all this leads me to say that families tend to come
>
>later in the project cycle, after the location is
>
>selected, and closer to construction, when the risk is
>
>lower.

At RoseWind, it's been a three-stage process: kids-no kids- kids.

Of the first 5 families, 4 had young children. We met rather intensively, 
almost every Saturday for quite a long time. The children were handled by 
spouses in three of the 4 families, and as a single mom I often traded 
childcare, in effect giving up both my Saturday (for the meeting) and my 
Sunday (for return childcare swap). We were motivated in part by a desire 
to create a good community for our children to grow up in. The most 
intensive development work was done when we had about 6 families, 
hammering out a Planned Unit Development with the City. We were doing the 
work of a development corporation as a handful of amateurs in our "spare" 
time, while working (all of us) and raising kids.

Of families number 6-20, only one had a child living at home. Many were 
retired or about to.

Of our final families (of those who bought original lots, from RoseWind, 
before any resales) numbers 21-24: in those 4 households we gained 5 
young children. 
Which is good, since the children of stage one are mostly grown and gone 
or about to be. My daughter was 4 when I joined as family #5, and just 
turned 16, in her second year of boarding school. Another two have gone 
to college. 

I did this "for my child", but in effect I have done it for a later 
generation of children. 
When we have visitors with young children who are interested in starting 
a low-budget do-it-yourself cohousing like ours, without the capital for 
a faster development, I always suggest that if their priority is their 
young children they should join a community that's already up and 
running. 

My guess is that we will continue to gain a few more children, via 
resales. The good news is that Port Townsend is a fabulous place for 
young children, and we are very integrated in the surrounding town, where 
there are lots of children and children's activities, and so we are less 
dependent on having large numbers of children on site: children at 
RoseWind, whether 6 or 26 of them, have easy access to all sorts of good 
kid stuff.  


Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing
Port Townsend Washington (Victorian seaport, music, art, nature)
http://www.olypen.com/sstowell/rosewind
http://www.ptguide.com

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