Alternatives to marriage

[sunshineandbooks]

First of all, apologies to any married feminists who may take offence at this post. That's not my intention. I am not having at go at people's individual marriages. I think some marriages work fabulously well, including that of my own parents.

However, the more I learn about feminism, the more radical I am becoming. I realised after posting on another thread the other day that I don't ever want to live with another man. I want to date and have sex, certainly, and I like the idea of having a 'special' long-term relationship with the right man if I met him, but I definitely do not want to live with him or get married. In my RL I know one or two people who feel the same way (both single mothers like me).

I have realised that day-to-day I only see one man on a regular basis - and that's my boss (who is lovely and very feminist in outlook). All the people I see regularly are women and children (of both sexes). And I find this doesn't matter. I used to worry about the absence of a decent male role model for DS but I've got over that now because I think it is fine as long as he's seeing decent role models full stop. I will teach him that the most important thing is to be a decent person, and that is irrespective of gender. As he grows older and increases his own social circle, he will meet plenty of men and be able to see which ones are good, which ones are bad, and which ones he wants to emulate.

I don't like the idea of living in a commune because I think it only works if you set up the commune yourself with people that you already know you can live with. I'd actually be really up for this scenario but out of my little single mothers community, I am the only one with any sort of independent income, so we're a bit stuck on getting it off the ground, sadly.

I sometimes think about moving in with another single parent and sharing things economically like you would in a marriage. Except that as much as I love my friends I know I couldn't live with them like that because we all have habits that drive each other mad. I think it's an idea that works in principle though. What do others think? I often wonder if we'll see a shift in house-buying patterns anyway, with more people buying house in partnerships (i.e. economic not sexual partners) simply because these days pretty much no one can afford to buy a house on their own.

What other alternatives are there - other than living alone as I am doing now? I like living alone TBH but from a childcare perspective it makes sense if you can pool your resources. That said, if money wasn't an issue I guess I could hire a really good nanny and continue to live on my own anyway.

What do other people think?

actually-theres whole rows of houses near me that have been boarded up and left for years.
they could be put to good use-shameful isnt it.

I guess that's one reason people get into squatting, sparky . . . from what I have heard councils crack down a lot faster these days, though, at least in London.

yep Takver[nodding]-i agree.
i squatted for a while[years ago]and after we were chased out the building was left to rot.
yep-it was easier to squat then than it is now.

On the shared childcare, for us and the friends with a similar experience, we were sharing living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms. So it was very communal. I think that would be a lot easier with separate family living space on a group compound.
That wasn't what stopped us living together though, it was the 5 children in 5 years, we started bulging at the seams.

Price of suitable properties is definitely an issue, when we moved (both families) to a new part of the country we tried to join a local co-housing scheme, or find a suitable property to start one, but the affordable properties, and the existing co-housing place, were all not on great transport links to the cities. And we do like our jobs, and we don't like cars or commuting, so in the end we prioritised locality (near the good transport links, schools, jobs) over the communal dream. For now...
It's really hard to find such places in towns or cities, for a reasonable price, at the moment, I think. Big houses with lots of land. For all the children and chickens and veg plots.

There was a scheme in London for a while, where landlords got tax breaks for allowing squatters to use empty homes, and the squatters could get grants to help with maintenance. I'd understood it to be successful, so am not sure why it stopped. My guess is the borough councils being arsey, but it may also have been down to squatters refusing to move out I suppose.

It seems so logical! Don't know why it isn't reintroduced, should be right up Boris's street (ie, he gets lots of great publicity at no cost.)

You should all move up here - Herefordshire. It's underpopulated and property is cheap.

Fennel - a good friend who has lived in various communal settings all his life reckons that some kind of separate kitchen facilities are the key to harmony for people with children (even if you also have a shared kitchen). Just the ability to feed your screaming 5 y/o pizza and oven chips without being judged . . .

Agree agree agree on the big houses with lots of land in accessible places. And the planning system doesn't help of course (though Lammas did get permission in the end - in the middle of absolutely-bloody-no-where mind you)

There used to be a women's house in Cambridge, years ago - lovely big communal house - probably went the way of all good things . . .

The more separation with voluntary pooling is the co-housing idea, in contrast to the commune ideal. I think it's more workable, in reality.

We do live in a part of the country with a very high house price/income ratio, which does perhaps explain why people are struggling to set up co-housing projects.

celadon, interestingly, I would definitely consider living in a community again, whereas DH definitely wouldn't. I suspect all our conditioning from birth to give way / be supportive / etc / etc makes us better communards?

Do these structures assume that the community would be self sufficient? Could you not work outside of the community and pool your skills rather than say veg grown?

I have no idea how an intentional community works, so apologies if this is a stupid question.

I don't think they'd have to be self sufficient at all, snowmama. I think a complicating factor is that a quite lot of people who want to live communally, also like growing vegetables/keeping chickens/the whole shebang (though there are lots of urban communities of course).

Interesting thread.

I wonder about the role of the extended family here. The model where you have several generations and several siblings under one roof, and you share childcare etc.

I can see advantages in living communally with extended family rather than friends (depending on what your family is like of course). They are likely to be more committed to staying put long term and they have more of a bond with the DC they look after...

x-post with Fennel. I think you have answered my question re co-housing vs voluntary pooling.

I would rather go to work than grow veg. I like the sharing of house and land, cars and appliances, and shared childcare, plus giving children a sense of a community beyond the nuclear family.

But this is one of the problems I think with many communal dreams, everyone has a slightly different dream. For some, the vegetable patch is really important, for others the shared childcare matters the most, and for others the carbon-free lifestyle. etc.

Love the way this thread is going.

I'm with you snowmama. Id rather not go down the self-sufficient route if I can help it. I love the idea of it in principle but I know that in reality I would quickly change my mind.

minipie interesting ideas about the extended family. What you're saying makes sense. I think in my case though I'm looking for something to replace the extended family simply because I don't have one. I think if there were more extended families there would be a lot less problems for women generally - pooled childcare and I assume (hope?) that the same can be said for DV as child abuse - the more adults involved in a setting, the less abuse goes on. All this supposes you have a nice family of course. I can imagine some people might want to replace their extended family cause they're awful!

This near me.
www.canonfromecourt.org.uk/info.html

Gosh yes, my extended family are not coming ANYWHERE near any cohousing project of mine....

For me the women-only commune would not work, not while DP and I have children together, I can't really ditch him at this point. also he's terribly good commune material, he's useful with the DIY/rewiring/building, plus he's good on childcare. An asset to the community. I would like communal living for the things he's not so fantastic at - we don't like the same films or books, etc. In my dream commune DP would get on with the practical tasks while I would witter away about politics and books with other commune members.

Do you think it really matters re. the different dream, Fennel? We spent soooo many hours of meetings defining 'what we were about' as a community, we boiled it down into I think 4 really snappy sentences - and could any of us ever remember what they were . . .

In fact, maybe so long as people's dreams don't actively clash, there can be a advantage in having a range of aspirations, if nothing else because you can benefit from the vegetables grown by one person / learn from the attachment parenting of another / be inspired by some-one else's commitment to low carbon living?

I agree that shared childcare is wonderful, for children and adults. Going OT from the initial premise of the thread of a women's living solution, but it was also really good for us living with a group of people who also considered equal parenting by women and men, plus equal division of household / out of household jobs to be an entirely normal and sensible way of life.

PMSL at your DP Fennel, I know a lovely community where he would be very welcome - in fact funnily enough there's a very nice house empty right now looking for new inhabitants!!!

Canon Frome Court is lovely, I've been there, its definitely very posh communal living!

Yeah, tis posh

Hang on, there's a website directory ...
... got it!
www.diggersanddreamers.org.uk/index.php?one=dat&two=dat

Might prompt some ideas?

[there was a scheme in london for a while where landlords got................]
oh i didnt know this Garlicbutter-it sounds good-makes so much sense.
its a pity that this isnt happening now.
actually-with the current climite i think this is a bloody good idea.
win win situation instead of lose lose-for everyone.
ive been a single parent for years and although im ok with it-it does get lonely sometimes and i do look back at my days of squatting and wish i was still there sometimes.
last year i did look into co-sharing a bit-but everywhere i looked-they wanted people with good jobs and money.
i would really like to co-share/squat with women only.
i can see so many benifits to this all round.
im sure that sticking a single parent in a box and chucking her money isnt the answer[such as myself]-its horrible.
mind you-if there was womens communes someone would come along and say"this isnt healthy for children to be living with all women"!

Our communal project (including now, in 2 houses but the shared childcare) is very much based on the idea of gender equality in parenting/paid work/domestic work. That and the environmental concerns are our bases. But I know we are quite different to many other wannabe commune dwellers on these priorities, and i think it can cause tension. It's fine if one person grows veg and tends the chickens, and another goes to work and pays the bills, as long as you're all in agreement about the relative importance of those things. But then you get the Artist, who wants her art to be taken as equally important (however, she's too busy being creative to share the shopping trip duties).

And then you get the Car Guilt. Mixed with income discrepancy/transport choices. One person (ok, me) thinks it's better to use the car for a day trip out with multiple kids rather than pay a fortune for everyone on the bus, another (on a much higher income, with loftier eco ideals) thinks that's a terrible misuse of the communal car. A third person thinks it would be fine if Other People's Kids weren't always the ones misbehaving and sick on the communal trips. etc.