Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: What happens when kids who grew up in cohousing move to...

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Oct 14, 2014, at 8:12 AM, Bob Morrison via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
cohousing.org> wrote:

> The chances are slim that young people in this situation would be able to 
> live in another coho. I would think that adjusting to living in a home in the 
> outside world would be a hard adjustment, on top of the adjustment that 
> someone who grew up in conventional housing would need to make. Is this true?

My guess is that this is not true. We've only had one child grow up here and 
move on. She is in college and loves it. Although college is rather like 
cohousing! But no one lives exclusively in cohousing.

My response comes from observing 20-30 year olds and studies in adult 
development. And several people in this age group who have lived here as 
roommates. Only one has really participated in the community.

There are socio-economic differences, but this is an age of self-testing and 
spreading wings. Even if it is just across town. Failure to do this has an 
effect on maturity in some cases.

There are the economic issues of not being able to buy a house or wanting the 
responsibility of a house. And cohousing being a lot more responsibility than 
they can or want to handle.

And they want to be with peers and fully express their what they see as their 
adultness, and adults would call their youngness. Loud music and parties being 
one of them.

And many parents are quite pleased to be free of the responsibility. Even 
cohousing parents.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org