Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Preventing cohousing neighborly awareness from becoming surveillance

[Kathryn Lowry (katlowry]

Thank you, Sharon, for raising these questions — I think they point to
something very real and important: children *are* missing from this
conversation, and their voices and perspectives are too often left out of
discussions that directly affect them.

>From my own experience as a parent here, I can tell you that the children
are not trying to “go places they’re not supposed to be.” They’re trying to
exist, learn, and participate in a community that is sometimes welcoming
and sometimes confusing. For example, when my child looks forward all day
to media time in the Common House only to be told when he arrives that he
is not allowed inside and must leave. It’s hard to overstate how
bewildering that is for a young person. They internalize that
inconsistency, and it teaches them less about “rules” and more about how
arbitrary and contradictory adult expectations can be.

I also want to address the question about whether my child is learning that
“adults are wrong.” I *hope* so — at least to the extent that he learns
adults, like anyone else, are fallible and that authority should not be
accepted blindly. When my child expresses anxiety that he might be breaking
a rule, I reassure him that questioning those rules — especially when they
shift without explanation — is a sign of thoughtfulness, not defiance.
That’s a value I want to instill.

It’s worth asking, too, about consequences — not only for children, but for
adults. My children have been scolded and even reported to authorities over
subjective interpretations of “behavior” or “rules,” while I have seen
little accountability for adults who create unsafe situations (such as
leaving hazardous cleaning products where young children can easily access
them) or who attempt to shame children for acting like children. The power
imbalance here is stark: children are expected to obey perfectly, while
adults often operate without reflection or consequence.

I absolutely agree that shared spaces are different from private homes and
that negotiation is needed. But negotiation is a two-way process. It
requires adults to be willing to examine our own actions and assumptions,
not just children’s. It also requires us to recognize that children are
members of this community — not just guests in it — and their learning,
growth, and sense of belonging depend on how we treat them and whose voices
we include.

I hope I have followed all formatting rules appropriately here.  Using
Sharon's message as exampled, I see that the act of altering the subject
lines, as instructed in the listserv digest email, is less valuable than
deleting all previous comments but leaving the subject easily stackable
through the links.  But I really have no idea if I've taken the actions
necessary to follow Sharon's model.

Kathryn