To want to live with women platonically in a sort of shared house/ estate and raise kids?

[cultkid]

See partners on weekend?

Live with the women otherwise share childcare etc
Always have female companions around to hang out with?

The place would be sooo tidy and smell so good

@CaptainMonkey yes! i should have said ''prefer to sit on their arses and TALK about what needs doing''

Although I'd love for there to be more options of how to live, it wouldn't be for me. I don't enjoy being in big groups, I bloody love my own little family. Also, my dp pulls his weight with housework and childcare. And I think I'd struggle to find enough other families who have similar enough views on parenting to us.

Most people (myself included) wouldn’t want to live with someone else’s children though, so it’s a bit of a non starter

Yeah I would hate that. Remove the children from the equation and I'm in. I think I am picturing it like a Sandals resort though...is that what you have in mind?

Oh and I have to agree with PPs. I am a messy slob. Male partner is the cleaner/cook in our house.

I can't think of anything worst either. There is something seriously wrong in a relationship if you willingly decide to see each other at weekends only, and prefer to live with someone else the rest of the week.

Some people live community life, sounds like hell to me, just read AIBU to imagine the constant bickering.

@shesaidshesleavingonasunday

I am definitely designed to live like this. We have had a ‘street bubble’ here since the tail end of lockdown. We eat together outside every night, everybody joins in, weekends we have bbqs. The kids are all in and out all the time. We’ve had a communal swimming pool, bouncy castle, and football matches on the field. There’s only four of us who work outside of the bubble so pretty low risk. One of us is a barber so has done everyone’s hair. We grow our own veg and DH is a chef so most of the cooking is done by us. During proper lockdown we all shopped for each other. There’s a few toddlers and babies in the mix and we all keep an eye on them so mum can chill a bit. We live in a normal semi rural culdesac on the edge of a market town. I will be devastated when winter is here and we have to retreat indoors.

That literally sounds like my worst nightmare.

And yet I would love this!!

Sometimes this type of view exists around lesbian relationships and it can be offensive and reinforce sexist/homophobic views.

As if we have some sort of "other" type of relationship, where we are just gal pals doing each others hair rather than a real couple with the nitty gritty of a real couple. "I wish i was a lesbian, so i didnt have to put up with a smelly man" type thing. It feels a bit dismissive

I appreciate that wasnt op's question but its amazing how prevalent it can be and is worth watching out for

I mostly prefer other people's children anyway so would be great for me. The relationship is always so much less fraught and complicated

I had to do a placement in a women's refuge back in my student days. It gave me flashbacks to the days I spent visiting my grandmother in a nursing home - the smell was often very similar. The women had jobs to do but very often just sat around a table drinking coffee in their pyjamas for the whole day, whilst their dc were left to their own devices. Very few took pride in cleanliness and the ones that did very much kept themselves to themselves. There was absolutely no shared parenting, the children often fended for themselves. So no, it isn't necessarily the panacea you are describing.

Plenty of retirement developments exist; smallish flats ( 1or 2 bedrroms, bath,kitchen, living room) plus large communal areas indoors and communal gardens. No kids; there's usually an age barrier of 55+

Move to Utah. You could do this. You would all have to share the husband though .

This would be my kind of nightmare as I like friends sure but not to live with. I’ll stick with dh and my dc but sometimes I could banish dh from the house I must admit lol

I know my first thought when I ready the title of this thread was a program I watched on polygamy and it was awful; some of these woman were very unhappy sharing one husband and having dozens of dc.

No way. It's hard enough to find one sufficiently like-minded and compatible adult (of any sex) to live with, never mind lots of them! And having taught other people's children for years, I definitely wouldn't want to live with them. Also, out of me and dh he's definitely the tidier. I've never really had a bunch of close women friends, so I think maybe I wouldn't like that set-up.

I think only a very small minority of people are suited to communal living.
You only have to spend a few weeks reading MN to know the vast majority Want privacy.
1 people who won’t answer their own front door unless they are expecting the caller
2 the sheer number of parking threads so people can’t even share the roads,on their estates without conflict.
3 people who are obsessed about the possibility that their neighbors are looking at them in their garden
4 smells of cigarettes, weed or cooking seeping in from next door.
5 neibours kids looking in, playing outside their house, noise

The list could go on and on As the vast majority of people don’t want others in their space.

I think for single parents, house sharing with another single parent would be ideal so long as they share the same Life and parenting values it’s a winner

when you see that most people are unable to spend a week holiday happily with friends, communal living really is not natural for most people.

It sounds horrific. Damn right some of us prefer our privacy above everything else! We have to act a certain way most of our life, school/work/in public, we do need at least ONE tiny bit of space to breath and be ourselves!

(and I have no weird habit, I just want freedom and privacy)

www.dol-llys.co.uk/for-sale/

There's loads of communes in the UK - plenty looking for new members too.

Sounds awful. Together with your sexist stereotype of women keeping the place clean and smelling nice, I raise you backbiting, gossiping, judgemental comments, constant complaints about some people not pulling their weight, excessive interest in your daily routine, and the deliberate exclusion/blanking of some members of the community.

There are women’s communes. You could always start one of your own.

@Walkaround

Sounds awful. Together with your sexist stereotype of women keeping the place clean and smelling nice, I raise you backbiting, gossiping, judgemental comments, constant complaints about some people not pulling their weight, excessive interest in your daily routine, and the deliberate exclusion/blanking of some members of the community.

Ime women who see other women like this - is because they’re gossipy, judgmental, backbiting themselves.

Ime women who see other women like this - is because they’re gossipy, judgmental, backbiting themselves.

you've clearly never worked in a female environment have you

or simply read a female social media like MN or your local woman's group...

I am female, straight, an improving hoarder, untidy and try and get out of housework as much as possible- I don't get the 'woman are better than men' line

It's hard enough to find one sufficiently like-minded and compatible adult (of any sex) to live with, never mind lots of them!

I think sums it up for me.

@SantaClaritaDiet

Ime women who see other women like this - is because they’re gossipy, judgmental, backbiting themselves.

you've clearly never worked in a female environment have you

or simply read a female social media like MN or your local woman's group...

Of course I have, and I went to a girls’ school until 6th form.

Having also worked in a male-dominated environments I know men behave exactly the same if not worse than women.

Social media is a vipers’s nest as much male as female. The male dominated forums I’ve posted on make MN look like cupcakes.