Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: What's wrong with communes?

[Sharon Villines (sharonvillines]

>> In all of the above, there is a negation of personhood, role confusion, and
>> enormous emotional negativity.
> 
> It seems to me that all of the above occurs often enough in families.
> Yet, we don't claim that all families are bad, or that we should
> avoid using the word 'family'.

Actually, there are people who avoid the use of the word in any context
except purely descriptive, and even then it is becoming a harder and harder
word to use. It used to apply to a unit that was multi-generational  with
many different parts and relationships --- couples, singles, children,
adults, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, widowers, etc. A family was a large
multi-faceted thing in which people with a variety of lifestyles were
manifest and included (if not always openly cherished).

Then came the advent of the nuclear family -- two parents of opposite sex
with 2.4 children (and a dog and a car).

Suddenly, a single person is not family. If your children are not visible,
you are not family. If you are a same sex couple, you are not family. If you
are a single parent, you are not "really" family.

How often do we hear in cohousing discussions, we need more families. How do
we attract families?

Do we mean children when we say this? Or do we mean two parents of  opposite
sex with 2.4 children, a dog and a car.

There are also  management consultants who advise against using the word
"family" to describe business environments or groups of businesses. Families
are hierarchical organizations in which there is a given order -- children
do not (and should not) have the same responsibilities of parents.


Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org


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