Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Parenting in Cohousing

[Diana Carroll (dianaecarroll]

On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Naomi Anderegg <naomi_anderegg [at] 
yahoo.com>wrote:

> People
> have "an eye out" for your kid, but aren't pushing their values / standards
> on
> them.
>

I see a big difference between other individuals in cohousing doing the "it
takes a village thing" by helping keep an eye out on kids...and the group as
a *whole* deciding on policies about how to handle this.

e.g.
Little Joey can't keep his hand out of the community cookie jar, but his mom
thinks he eats too much sugar.
There's a big difference between adults who are comfortable doing so seeing
a cookie-taking in progress and saying "Hey Joey, why don't you go check
with your mom first" and the group coming to consensus on a policy to not
*have* a cookie jar because it makes Joey's mom's life more difficult.

It is the latter that I find the more challenging issue.  I'm pretty
laissez-faire with my kids...but I'm fine if they are causing an issue for
someone for that person to tell them to knock it off (or come see me, of
course.)  That seems to work out mostly ok, although not perfectly, here at
Mosaic Commons.  But when a parent approaches the group about the community
cookie jar (a hypothetical example, we don't actually have one), or about
whether PG-13+ movies are allowed to be played in the CH (a real example),
or whether there should be limits on kids video gaming in the CH (another
real example)...that's where the cohousing rubber hits the road.

-Diana