Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Fifty Plus Cohousing + ?

[Forbes Jan (jan.forbes]

Good to hear this common sense response Kay.  

We've been living in an era of the cult of the child.  Over-indulgence that
is a subsitute for genuine care and time, is harmful.  It creates demanding
and self centred people who don't know how to love, perhaps contributing to
reported rises in depression.   

In such an environment it's no surprise that, despite all our education and
good intentions, achieving community can be a struggle.

Jan 

-----Original Message-----
From: Kay Argyle [mailto:argyle [at] mines.utah.edu]
Sent: Friday, 21 February 2003 11:27 AM
To: cohousing-L
Subject: Re: [C-L]_Fifty Plus Cohousing + ?



>  I don't think it's healthy for kids to encounter such hostility ...

Whoa!  It is not "hostility" to feel that, occasionally, it would be nice
for the children's wants and needs not to be the _foremost_ consideration,
especially when they aren't even your kids.

Part of growing up is learning to be polite about being bored, to expect to
have to earn certain privileges, to realize other people have interests you
don't share and vice versa, to grasp that some rules are enforced by reality
instead of by parents, and to accept that you have to behave in certain ways
in certain places or you won't be welcome.

For that reason, it's actually good for kids to have some adults around who
don't indiscriminately love children -- who choose to associate with them,
or not, on the same standards they would an adult.

A child-centered environment doesn't teach those necessary life lessons.
Children need one or two adults to whom they are the center of the
universe -- and adults who put up with them as long as they're good, and
send them home when they aren't.  Children need safety locks on the chemical
closets -- and cats who scratch when their tails are pulled.  Children need
activities designed especially for them -- and activities that are too
challenging or where they get left home watching reruns with a babysitter
while the older folks have fun.

Children who don't have those experiences grow up to be adults who hold loud
cell  phone conversations in libraries, step over the fence to get a
close-up photo of the alligator, and sulk if their partner asks, "Why do we
always have to go there?"

"You can't always get what you want" is something you accept with equanimity
if you learn it early, but treat with denial or outrage if first encountered
at a later age.

Kay

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