from there, i tried to get something bigger going, where there'd be an actual daycare center and members of the coop exchanged various services for care - whether it was legal assistance, cleaning, childcare itself, cooking, grant writing, administration, taxes, etc. I just didn't have enough energy to do it, and I don't think it would have garnered enough members because I was living in a very small town at the time - ~2000 people.
i did know of a group in Ithaca, through one of my tutors at college, who had a dinner coop. There were four families. One family would cook one night, everyone would go to that host for dinner; then switch. You only cooked one a week (plus Fridays). He told me about that when we were talking about alternative parenting arrangements. I'd said something like, "Why don't we make it more communal? We could live in common housing, share cleaning, cooking, childcare, etc." He pointed out that there are drawbacks to the arrangement: you don't have as much privacy. To illustrate he said that the dinner coop was great exept, once in a while, you felt constrained: you can't have an argument that night and have to sit there steaming pissed at each pretending that you're not; some nights, you're just damn tired and don't want to put on the smiley face for everyone, etc.
I mentioned the idea to a single mom at work when she complained, "Why doesn't someone cook for me." On facebook, I told her to drop on over because I'd just taken a big roast out of the oven and had plenty for her and kid. I knew she wouldn't do it because we have such inhibitions about feeling 'dependent' on others, feeling in their debt, etc. But I really wish she had. I would have loved the company, and loved helping out a struggling single mom as I'd been. So the next day, thinking about all the friends she has who piped up to say the same: who will make dinner for me?, I told her about the dinner co-op. She lit up about the idea, though I don't know if she's gone through with any of it.
At 09:28 PM 1/25/2011, Michael Pollak wrote:
>On his blog yesterday, Krugman referenced his baby sitting coop story yet
>again (and reading it again, I realized he hasn't noticed it needs a
>serious update). But aside from economics, it got me wondering -- he says
>they're common, but I've never heard anyone mention one. Has anyone here
>ever belonged to one as a parent or child?
>
>(Not that it matters but if anyone's curious, this the baby sitting coop
>link: http://www.slate.com/id/1937/ and this is the blog post link:
>http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/the-war-on-demand/ )
>
>Michael
>
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