Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Child Custody Cases in Cohousing

[Diana Carroll (dianaecarroll]

Sharon notes: "I’ve heard many ecstatic comments from case workers who were
not only impressed with the child-friendly environment but also with the
number of adults aside from the parents who were interacting with the
children both in play and caretaking. "

This does not surprise me. During my brief tenure as a social worker, I did
a briefer stint working at Child Protective Services. There's a bunch of
standard things you need to look at when assessing whether a child is at
risk for abuse, and one key factor is how much contact the child and the
family have with outsiders. The more isolated, the easier it would be for a
child's bad situation to go unnoticed and unreported. While I'm sure it is
possible for abuse to occur in cohousing, it would harder for the abuse to
stay under wraps. Neighbors would notice bruises, abrupt changes in
behavior, children left home alone for long periods, signs of hunger or
unmet medical needs, or simply the absence of a child they are used to
seeing regularly. And it would be way more likely that an older child would
have a trusted adult outside the home that they could turn to.

Abuse and neglect thrive in social isolation, and deliberate isolation is a
"101" tactic of abusers everywhere. I'm not naive enough to think no child
has ever been abused in cohousing but I can't think of any environment that
would be safer.

(Not to mention that one of the major causes of abuse is parents who feel
overwhelmed and lack support, so there's that too.)

Diana
Mosaic commons in central MA

On Sun, Aug 3, 2025 at 4:24 PM Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <
cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:

> > On Aug 2, 2025, at 5:30 PM, Claire Richards <clairerichardsrn [at] 
> > gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > I am a witness in a child custody case where one party is trying to take
> > the children by arguing that cohousing is unsafe for children because we
> > allow them to run around "unsupervised", even though parental practices
> in
> > the community are not at all uniform.
>
> There is no “official” statement on how children should be or not be
> supervised in cohousing. So there is no evidence to support this in any
> court.
>
> There are accounts of children being able to be more free because more
> adults are watching and because the community is designed for children. No
> poisonous plants or berries, or thorns. Or roads with cars. Etc.
>
> I’ve never seen any mention of a connection between the “free range”
> movement and cohousing.
>
> There are many people in cohousing who have adopted children. Each one had
> to have approval from a human welfare department and was overseen by a
> caseworker. I’ve heard many ecstatic comments from case workers who were
> not only impressed with the child-friendly environment but also with the
> number of adults aside from the parents who were interacting with the
> children both in play and caretaking. You should be able to get supportive
> statements from caseworkers in many locations.
>
> I think this is an easy one. There is too much in writing that would
> contradict “unsupervised.”
>
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Riderwood Village, Silver Spring MD
>
> Formerly of Takoma Village, Washington DC
>
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