Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Giving or Taking-childcare

[Elizabeth Stevenson (tamgoddess]

I'm curious. How many other built coousing groups are out there that pay for
childcare as a whole? It seems to me that this is a growing pain thing,
since it's really not a big expense-a few bucks/month. It's a small price to
pay for peace at meetings and attracting new members. It seems hypocritical
to pay before, but not after, move-in.

There are lots of issues right when people move in, and this is one of many
that push peoples' buttons. It involves money and other peoples' kids. There
is also an adjustment for almost everyone who moves into cohousing around
having to share. All of a sudden, you have to pay for lots of things you
don't necessarily want, have to share space, have to make decisions as a
group that affect you directly. People get really uptight about things like
this that they will later look back on and laugh. Hell, we didn't have grass
for months because we couldn't agree on what variety to buy. Parents like me
had special mud clothes for the kids to wear on rainy days. What a bunch of
idiots we were! 

But we got through that. And I think that the resentments melt away when the
benefits start coming through. Think of all the things that parents pay for,
and rarely use. Think of all the things that only a minority of people use,
but the whole group pays for. Why is childcare any different? It actually
benefits the whole group, unlike a workshop or hot tub that only some people
use.

Giving and taking will get much easier, I promise.

-- 
Liz Stevenson
Southside Park Cohousing
Sacramento California

http://members.home.net/southsideparkcohousing/
tamgoddess [at] home.com
> From: Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
> Reply-To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
> Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 10:03:51 -0400
> To: <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_Giving or Taking
> 
>> At the meeting they would pass around a donation box and anyone who
>> voluntarily wanted to contribute to the child care could.  The parents of
>> the kids would split the balance owed after the donations.
> 
> As a parent, I would feel very odd having to split the leavings. And as a
> contributor, I'm one of those people who feels obligated to contribute so I
> prefer some standardized way of dealing with this.
> 
> Paying a sitter before move in is important because you want everyone to be
> able to focus on the orientation/meeting and there will be new people there
> who would feel more welcomed if they knew that child care was available.
> 
> After move-in, there are more alternatives and a permanent solution can be
> set up. We have a room with a window that is visible from the dining room
> and we face it as we are meeting. This way we don't need child care, at
> least until we have babies. But for the most part the children play well
> together and everyone can focus on the meeting and tend children as well.
> 
> To have childcare as a permanent part of the budget would be resented by
> some of our members who feel that they have raised their children with no
> help from anyone so now do not want the responsibility. Childcare for a
> special event, would be used differently.
> 
> We also at one point had voluteers for child care who each did an hour
> rather than the whole time. Then they could choose which part of the meeting
> they were interested in attending.
> 
> Sharon
> -- 
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org
> 
> 
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