Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Parenting in Cohousing

[Diana Carroll (dianaecarroll]

Darn.  Wish you were here.  I'd happily send my kids over to your house for
snacks.

I like them to eat healthy, but not as much as i like them to develop strong
positive relationships with people outside their immediate families.  If a
few grams worth of sugar and transfat helps cement a relationship with their
alter-grandma, far be it from me to intervene.

On the other hand, I'm sort of regretting bringing up the cookie jar
example, because I intended it as just one example to highlight the
difference between an individual community member responding to parenting
stuff and the community as a whole responding.  The issue of what kids are
or aren't allowed to eat, and what impact that has on their physical and
mental health, is WAY beyond the scope of this list (or at least, my desire
to participate in it)!

Food wars are so not my thing.

- Diana

On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 1:14 PM, Sharon Villines
<sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>wrote:

>
>
> On 14 Jun 2011, at 12:36 PM, Liz Ryan Cole wrote:
>
> > any Nana's who have cookie jars should still have cookie jars.  There has
> to be a happier ending to this story.
>
> I may be being too sensitive, but it does come back to me when I hand out
> cookies. The latest was "I only allow her to have cookies based on what she
> has eaten earlier in the day." Of course I was babysitting for the child in
> the evening and had no clue what she had eaten earlier in the day except
> what I had fed her for dinner. She had apparently had a birthday party at
> school and eaten a dreaded cupcake.
>
> I think parents believe that food is one thing they can control and that if
> they can do that all will be well. No other calamities will befall them.
> Since parenting is hard, focusing on food is easier (sort of). And since
> parents in cohousing are parenting in a fish bowl, it's all hard.
>
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org
>
>
>
>
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