[yiwahikanak]

If you were to right now devise a way to live your life more communally, how would you go about doing it? I'm particularly interested in how urban dwellers would effect this as I'm much more familiar with 'helping out' in rural areas.

I think about things that people could use help with, including child-rearing, general maintenance, household things like cooking, cleaning and so forth. Small scale issues that are nonetheless immediately important to most people.

I often daydream about having individual living spaces interspersed with communal ones. The most obvious communal aspects would be sharing kitchens (and duties) and having space for socialisation that would allow adults to share their time with children instead of having this strange divorced existence from one or the other (adults or children).

My neighbourhood does do things like close the streets down once in a while to have social events, which are fantastic. A number of Montreal neighbourhoods do this throughout the warm months. However, during the winter we all tend to retreat into our individual homes and rarely socialise in the same way.

So...what kinds of things would you like to see, assuming you're not a total misanthrope?

[Oxymoron]

1. Start common labor projects, nothing brings people together like hard work. Perhaps developing a parcel of land into a park, or building a a rec center.

2. Shared food production if applicable, (Perhaps roof gardens etc)

[yiwahikanak]

1. Start common labor projects, nothing brings people together like hard work. Perhaps developing a parcel of land into a park, or building a a rec centre.

2. Shared food production if applicable, (Perhaps roof gardens etc)

Cool...lasting projects that benefit the community beyond the mere 'doing' of them.

I like the idea of a sort of 'rotating' childcare within the community too. Parents that can contribute their time and attention sharing schedules and thus spreading the work out. Clothing swaps and such. More bartering of skills!

[The Clockwork Rat]

Since my halls of residence I have somewhat longed for communal living again. Unlike most halls, there were only about 40 people and almost all of us shared three kitchens, three dining rooms, and one living room. This meant that there was no difficulty in finding someone to talk to, but we also had our own bedrooms so if we got sick of people we could hide away.

Communal gardening and shared recreational areas would be great in my opinion as well. I mean, of course I would like communal everything, I'm a fecking communist

Of course, we have this weirdly ingrained notion of privacy which does little but spawn distrust of others, so I also have my pessimistic moments.

[Oxymoron]

I like the idea of a sort of 'rotating' childcare within the community too. Parents that can contribute their time and attention sharing schedules and thus spreading the work out. Clothing swaps and such. More bartering of skills!

Yiw you lost me there, but I think our ideas about parenting are light years apart. In any case, I think we must building real communities again, because technology is making us robotic and distant from each other.

[yiwahikanak]

Yiw you lost me there, but I think our ideas about parenting are light years apart. In any case, I think we must building real communities again, because technology is making us robotic and distant from each other.

Let me put it this way...if I assume that you believe one parent (another assumption is that it would be the mother) should be the primary care-giver of any children, would that mean that the mother should remain in the house alone with the children? Or would your ideas of parenting including socialising with other parents and children?

My idea of community parenting means integrating children into daily life, rather than relegating them to single-parent care in a restricted environment. Thus, primary care-givers would 'spread the work out' by helping with the food preparation for example...organising social activities where all the kids could participate, taking turns 'teaching' the children different skills based on their own expertise. I have always found it easier to have more children than fewer, because they interact with one another rather than demanding all your attention. It seems healthier for them too, because parents just don't play or learn the way children do.

I think a 'rotating' system of childcare would allow parents (and not just a single parents but both parents) be more involved in child-rearing, less stressed out, have more community support for the various aspects related to raising children AND would be able to continue to pursue work out of the home when necessary. It would help remove the cost of child-care, or at least spread it out among parents. There are a lot of ways this kind of community based approach to family life could be made flexible while at the same time accessing the talent and skills of community members.

To me, family life is central to community and I'm not sure how you could engage in community development without addressing that central fact.

[Oxymoron]

No actually that seems like a good idea, I thought you meant like swapping kids or something.

[yiwahikanak]

No actually that seems like a good idea, I thought you meant like swapping kids or something.

I think it'd be good even for parents who don't work outside of the home to get a 'break' from time to time...so if you rotated the childcare, conceivably everyone could have 'time off' here and there.

On a smaller scale, it's been massively useful for me to arrange with another mom to 'take turns' babysitting once in a while. So she'll take my girls for a sleepover and vice versa...that way we don't have to pay for babysitting (which can be quite expensive) AND our kids maintain a really strong friendship.

[Average Voter]

LAN parties are an effective social gathering event for the community which occur in many places around the world. There does not need to be a "special occasion" to do them either, which makes is repeatable and fun too!