Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Request for meals info offline

[Kay Argyle (kay.argyle]

Apologies - I've shortened this, but it's still too long.

In the first years after move-in, we had two to three common meals a week.
Each summer, meal participation dropped precipitously. One year it never
really picked back up in the fall.

A few households said potlucks worked better for them. Common meals are
still sparse, but a weekly Sunday potluck is an institution. People object
when anyone tries to schedule a conflicting event in the common house.

While there were always minor sticking points, I think our lack of a
comprehensive work system was a not inconsiderable factor in the common meal
system's eventual demise - although I'm sure if you asked three different
people in the community, you'd get three different accounts.

First move-ins late 1998, so we aren't quite 10 years old (some members
calculate our age from the first organizational meeting, hence the age of 12
- which should be 13 - quoted in the Daily Herald article about the forming
Utah Valley group).  Our present community composition is 24 households, 36
adults, about 5 teens and 12 kids toddler thru grad school (counting adult
children as teens and adding together part-time shared-custody kids to total
a full child).  

> 2) Several attempts to integrate meals into our work system have been
> unsuccessful. ... I am convinced that this isn't the direction for us to
go, 
> but it's a huge barrier.

Do you mean that you think meals should NOT be included in the work system?
Why not?

We set up parallel work systems - meals, cleaning, grounds, building
maintenance.  Based on our results, I don't recommend it.  "Separate but
equal" never is.

> Many people don't want to do the extra work that doesn't count towards
community hours. 

Furthermore, people to whom that work is important get unhappy. They are
required to work on other people's priorities, but other people aren't
expected to work on theirs. By offering credit, the community upholds other
people's desires, but not theirs. Assurances that the slighted work and
those uncounted hours are indeed valued get to sounding a little hollow.

For a while we had a two-tier system where you paid less for meals if you
cooked or cleaned each month. This motivated more people to cook and clean,
and most of the community seemed fine with it.  A few of us weren't. Time
cooking or cleaning was time not laying sod, installing sprinklers, or
supervising contractors, and the community was pressing the landscaping
committee to get projects done. Because we were working like dogs on what
the community said it wanted, we were rewarded by - paying more than other
people for meals.  Excuse me?

Yet, when the dining club dropped the two-tier system, all they had the
power to do was remove the requirement to cook or clean, not to give credit
for other work. The gardeners felt less snubbed, but people weren't as
motivated to sign up for cooking and cleaning.

Some problematic factors besides the work system (or lack thereof):

Households with kids wanted 6 o'clock. For others that was too early even to
get home to eat, let alone cook. We tried having one meal a week later, but
people said it was too confusing. 6:30 was a compromise.

Most meals had separate cooking and cleanup crews. One cook was notorious
for dirtying every pot, bowl, and utensil in the kitchen. Once he started
doing his own cleanup, he was motivated to wash up as he went along.

The community willingly agreed to a ban on peanuts and tree nuts, although
once or twice someone has forgotten and brought waldorf salad or banana nut
bread to a potluck. On the other hand, to protect their sensitive
three-year-old (they said), a vegan household repeatedly objected to the
presence of meat dishes at community events.  When the community offered
compromises (like tucking a roast pig behind a screen for a big neighborhood
party), but wouldn't cater to them (like telling the neighbor who cooked the
pig we didn't want it), they quit attending potlucks and parties, and (due
to a disinclination towards flexibility in other areas as well) after a
while dropped out of nearly all other community activities. 

> 5. Noise, noise, noise. I don't understand why kids are allowed to run
> and yell during meals. 

Or thunk on the piano.  

> And the parents are oblivious.

!!!  

People who don't have parental deafness will be far more willing to "let
kids be kids" if the dining room walls & ceiling absorb noise instead of
bouncing it.  I cannot emphasize too strongly to groups in the planning
stages:  ACCOUSTICALLY DAMPEN THE DINING ROOM.

A major tool cohousing uses to create community is to have facilities
(whether built or retrofitted) that encourage instead of discourage
interaction - a noisy dining room isn't helpful.  Whoever wins the argument
about whether parents should repress the kids' noise, either way the
community loses.

> 8. Too formal. Having tables set ...
> 9. No real conversations. Between the kids, the passing food, the
> random assortments of people, I can't really discuss anything.
> 10. Serving "family style." 

During planning, some people were loudly enthusiastic about serving family
style.  The people who preferred buffet were quieter, but once we actually
started having common meals it was no contest.  Buffet was enormously
easier. 

Kay 
Wasatch Commons
SLC