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

I can sort of see the appeal. My children are older now, so I get more peace, which I enjoy. But it might have been nice for whiling away the hours when they were small.
I love motherhood really!

I’m a lesbian and I’m laughing at this.

I do prefer to be around women though, but then I would I suppose. Get’s a bit complicated when the dyke drama starts though.

MirrorMouse

"I know this happens in straight households too. But I think when you are both women, socialised to expect to do domestic tasks and not socialised to expect anyone to look after your domestic needs, there might be a better chance of this working out."

Yep. My sister is gay and married (without children) and they seem to have a very harmonious, egalitarian and organised setup.

I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work in a platonic domestic set-up. In some ways it might be easier without the expectation that you will function better as a household because you are having sex or share children, and easier to be clear-headed about division of spoils when that needs to happen.

Sounds like my worst nightmare tbh.
And I’ve met many messy women in my life being female doesn’t make you more apt to be clean and tidy. I had a female university flat mate who was worse than any man I have ever lived with. I’m talking shaves and doesn’t rinse the tub. Dripped blood on the toilet seat and floor when it’s AF time and just left it for me to deal with. Sometimes couldn’t even be bothered to flush. Made her food and left leftovers in the pot on the hob for...well until I clean it up, longest was two weeks I let it go and it was furry with mould. I could go on...spilled drinks on the sofa often, left vomit on the lounge rug, slid used pizza boxes with pizza under the sofa for me to find by decomposing smell weeks later....

I would like that! In fact my friends and I talk about it a lot.

No chance...there was a reason I only had 1 DC.

PlanDeRaccordement

"And I’ve met many messy women in my life being female doesn’t make you more apt to be clean and tidy. I had a female university flat mate who was worse than any man I have ever lived with. I’m talking shaves and doesn’t rinse the tub."

It's not only about relative levels of messiness and who cleans the bath or takes out the bins. It's about entitlement and the sense men tend to have that they have a right to be "looked after" in a relationship.

Often the output of that is men not doing enough tidying but its just a general sense of not having to try that hard on that front. It can also mean things like never knowing the name of your child's teacher. Never knowing what time breakfast club starts. Not thinking about the fact that you might not have had time to hoover the stairs because you have a deadline too. Never thinking to check that it might not be ideal to go to the pub after work. It's the whole picture of men's and women's roles in the domestic set-up and whose job it is to hold the whole thing together.

Yes women can be pretty slapdash and messy (certainly before they have kids). But in my experience they take on far more of this than men do and men have to be constantly reminded about the impact of their behaviour as individuals on the home.

@thepeopleversuswork

I appreciate that your personal experience has been that men are messier than women, but my personal experience has been that this generalisation or stereotype about the sexes is not entirely true.

There are many women with Princess attitudes who do not clean and share that sense of entitlement
There are many women who refuse to clean on what they say is a feminist principle and instead hire a cleaner.
There are many women with very very low standards of cleanliness, who think they are tidy but are far from it.

I think in an all female community, there’d be these few diva women who’d be messy and the rest of us who like it clean would end up cleaning their mess. I’m just saying an all female community won’t be the tidy and clean utopia that the thread is envisioning. There may be more men than women who are messy, but it only takes living with one messy person to ruin it for everyone else.

PlanDeRaccordement

"I think in an all female community, there’d be these few diva women who’d be messy and the rest of us who like it clean would end up cleaning their mess. I’m just saying an all female community won’t be the tidy and clean utopia that the thread is envisioning. There may be more men than women who are messy, but it only takes living with one messy person to ruin it for everyone else."

You might well be right. Would be interesting to see if in an all female community some take on more "male" roles and others more "female" roles. I'm certainly under no illusions that all women are domestic goddesses.

I still think, though, that a lot of men have some internal wiring that dictates that quite a lot of the domestic sphere gets filed under "not my problem" or "can be dealt with when she gets pissed off". There may be quite a few women who were socialised to think like that and it may be that in a female community there would be more. But in most heterosexual couples its remarkably consistent that the man tends to be guiltier of this.

I still think, though, that a lot of men have some internal wiring that dictates that quite a lot of the domestic sphere gets filed under "not my problem" or "can be dealt with when she gets pissed off"

Yes, I agree many men are socialised to internalise this thinking. It may be due to bad role modelling in parents....a father that doesn’t lift a finger and a mother run ragged doing everything was common only a few generations ago and still lingers on in many heterosexual couples.

Just start a thread about female lodgers stories..

or the state of soft play/cafes tables after a few "mums" meet up with toddler.

@MirrorMouse

See this is what I mean I would just love this

Sounds like a care home. Or student halls!

That’s what I was thinking, Thursday.

Actually, husband and I (sorry, women ) are considering this sort of set up with our friends, and their wine cellars, in a rambling pile somewhere in the wild when we are past it. We’d want staff though and a ban on grandchildren visiting. Love ours endlessly, but in their own house 😁

@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

Ugh this is my idea of hell, I'd hate it. Love my female friends but I wouldn't want to live with them!

I can't believe you think all women are tidy and would make the place smell nice? That's so sexist.

Interestingly enough, there was a programme on a couple of weeks ago on the BBC (it's being repeated again in two hours time on the Sign Zone, but will doubtless also be on iPlayer) called Inside The Bruderhof. Obviously the faith aspect wouldn't be relevant to most people, but it's fascinating to see how this group of people live as a community - men, women and children, old and young.

They each have their own family flats/units to live in, but nobody is paid for their work, neither do they have to pay to be there (except with their unpaid labour, as they're able/assigned) - all of the finances are handled centrally and, if you need a new bed, new clothes or anything like that, you request them from central supplies and are given them. I'm presuming you aren't allowed luxuries or items in excess of what you're deemed to need.

They're a bit like the Amish, and all dress 'modestly' in similar plai clothes (especially the women and girls) but they happily embrace modern technology and welcome visitors.

It wouldn't be something that I'd want at all, but there are a few of the smaller community elements to it that I could potentially warm to.

Can we do a version of this except instead of excluding the men, it's those with children who are excluded?

I find families with children to be far, far, far more obtrusive than men.

I dream of living somewhere where I'm not expected to suck up the noise of the neighbours kids screaming (actually screaming) all day every day because "kids will be kids".

Omg yes @CottonEyeJo I’ve loved the rain here as it means annoying neighbours aren’t out in the garden with (and egging in) screaming child (actually sounds like someone being murdered)

Me & my friends plan to do this as we get older - like 70 plus!

All move into one place together! No consideration has been given to any husbands who are still around at the time! - we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!

@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.

Same here. VE Day and everyone clapping for the NHS was bad enough 😳😁

My mum suggested something similar but for single mums. She said it would solve the "I cant work because of childcare" issue and therefore reduce the benefit bill. Apparently they could job share, and when it's your day off you look after the dc whose mum is working. Or work nights whilst another Mum looks after your dc, then look after theirs while they work.
I did point out it sounded more than a little like a work house

Anyway. I would hate to live communally like that. And most people would hate to live with me. I'm super messy!

A society set up in which women do 100% of the childcare?! No thanks, living with a man and equally sharing paid work and childcare 50:50 is working just fine for me!

Plus, as someone said upthread - being around other people’s children all the time like some never ending playgroup sounds like my worst nightmare.

@Clytemnestra2 - it’s even worse than that. The OP appears to hanker after a society where men only exist for sex. Sounds vile to me.

Yes! I want a celibate lesbian wife!

My "man" was crap!