Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: giving and taking

[Diane R. Margolis (diane]

 >However, what you have also done is to change the subject.  Of
>course you have every right to do that.  But when you do so, please change
>the subject line.

No Becky, I beg to respectifully differ.  I did not change the subject.   In
your original post you asked "whether the community should be
> paying for child care.  What I'm asking for is people's advice or
experience
> in being willing to give someone something until they demand that you give
> that same thing to them."

My answer, is that it all depends on how you view child care.  If you view
it as a gift to parents, then you would expect the parents to show
appreciation and you would get quite justifyably irked if they demanded the
gift.

If, on the other hand, you view the parents' participation at meetings as
essential to the community, then child care becomes something else -- not a
gift to the parents, but a necessary condition of having the meeting, not
much different from the common house room in which the meeting is held.  In
this case the child care is no more a gift to the parents than it is to the
non-parents and it would be as inappropriate for the parents to express
gratitude as it would be for people who like to sit at meetings to express
gratitude for the chair they sit on.  Like the provision of chairs, the
provision of child-care becomes a community responsibility.

Child care can be viewed and treated in any number of ways -- as an
entitlement, as a gift to the child, as a gift to the parent, as a duty, as
a commodity, etc.

What I've been trying to say is that once you agree on what kind of thing
child care is, you will have no trouble agreeing on the proper attitudes
toward it.

You ask me "Do you see the difference?"  Now I ask you:  "Do you see the
difference between viewing child-care as a gift to the parent or as
something that must be pooled as a necessary condition in a community that
wants children?"

You conclude by saying: "It is true that you are not the only one who
.chose not to respond to the question I had asked or the question which
Molly
was responding to.  That's your right.  It would be helpful if you were
clear about that."

I hope Becky that I have been clear that and that you can see that I am
addressing your question.  You apparently feel that child care should be
treated as a gift to parents. IMO child-care during meetings should be
pooled.  I have given my reasons and will not repeat them here because there
have been complaints about long emails.

Diane

>  Our discussion is about which goods and services are best
> exchanged in markets as commodities, which are best exchanged as gifts,
and
> which are best pooled.  IMO education works best when it is pooled.
>
> Again, I am sorry my last message seemed like an attack.  I hope this one
> does not.  But, if I have once more transgressed, please let me know and I
> will try to express my feelings and thoughts in less offensive ways.
> Diane.

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