Cohousing-L Mailing List: Locking Doors in the CH

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

1. I don't believe this is a cohousing problem. 

I've posted this issue on the Cohousing-L list in the past and not received any 
confirmations that this is a problem elsewhere. The  only problem I remember 
being reported was the adults objecting to children playing war games on the 
television. Their screen was visible from a hallway, and other adults objected 
- not the parents. 

Most of the responses were clarifying questions and no confirmation that it was 
a problem in their CH or that they locked the room. 

I've posted it again and asked people to please respond since we have repeated 
problems with it. Perhaps things have changed. I will forward responses I 
receive.

2. If we just lock the door the conflict will continue.

The last time Bill wanted the door locked and unilaterally started locking it, 
we had a membership meeting discussion and it was agreed (sort of) that the 
room would be locked "for now," and it was delegated to CT to put together a 
group including parents and non-parents to resolve issues related to CH usage 
-- this one and others.

Despite repeated requests from the Board to CT to follow through on this, CT 
decided they didn't want to and it wasn't a problem -- this was the reasoning 
that came back to the Board.

Since there was no move to resolve the issue, the room was unlocked and has 
remained unlocked for many months.

I'm not willing to go through the same thing again -- lock it in hopes that CT 
or anyone else will follow through on working out agreements because as soon as 
the door is locked, nothing will happen. We've been through this twice.

3. All generations of parenting have challenges. Parents have to meet them. 

Remember when every drugstore and grocery store had Playboy and Stud magazines 
(and worse) right out on the shelves for anyone to see. One gross one was big 
boobs. Kids had to be supervised every minute because you had to go in those 
stores and you had to take your kids. 

There was _no_ daycare 40 years ago. Lots of latchkey children. Once they were 
11 or so, they could go anywhere and you were at work.

And half the world smoked, everywhere. Smoking was rarely banned anywhere.

3. If we agree to lock the room, it should be done with some agreements in 
place. Some people want smoking banned even on our grounds for fear their 
children will _see_ someone smoking. Do we just do that?

How do we make these decisions? I don't think a good way to make them is one 
person saying or even a majority saying we should should not do this or we 
should do that. We don't make other decisions that way; why this one?

There are a lot of questions about this: Is this locking forever? Until Tony 
and Bryan go to college? Even if they are not in town? On school days when they 
are not around? They are gone from 8:30 until after 6:00. After they go to bed?

Do all kids have to be supervised in the living room? Tony and Bryan are 
certainly not the only ones who go in there and certainly not the only ones who 
eat in there. 

If parents open the door but don't stay to supervise, what is the guarantee 
that the kids still won't eat in there or that the parents will clean up after 
them? The kids might just go home and the parents not even check. What if it is 
a group of children--which parent is responsible?

We need a pod to work out agreements on this. Like every other decision in 
which there are opposing needs and points of view, we need a proposal and a 
community agreement. We've needed to address this since the agreement that 
children under 12 were not supposed to be in the CH unsupervised was no longer 
observed. And our bumper crop reached the free-range age.

Sharon.