IN SEARCH OF THE VILLAGE
- Mollie Kaye
- Jan 21
- 4 min read
“I definitely subscribe to the idea of,
‘It takes a village,’
but who in North America lives in one?
Cohousing communities may be the closest alternative we’ve got.”
When my marriage ended in 2006, I had a toddler and a kindergartener. I had arrived in Victoria pregnant two years earlier, with no extended family nearby.
To provide a “happy life” for my children, I moved us into a lovely, 2500-square-foot heritage house, on a lovely street with lovely older neighbors who waved at us from their lovely gardens.
We were living a picture-perfect North American dream.
Behind closed doors, though, the wheels had come off the wagon. Completely.
You could argue that it was simply grief, since my 13-year marriage had just ended in a stunning blaze of acrimony. Underneath the trauma of that major loss, though, was a deeper malaise: we were suffering from a stunning lack of community, companionship and support.
I found it overwhelming to be alone in my house with two young children, trying to do and be all things.
From their incessant whining, fighting, and tantrums, I deduced that they found it impossible to get their needs met solely by me and each other. It just wasn’t working for us, but I tried to be grateful and appreciate my “nice house.”
No matter how nice it was, on some level I understood that it could never substitute for the real stuff of life. The interdependence we needed with others in order to thrive.
In the 2011 documentary “Happy,” director Roko Belic travels the world looking for the sources of contentment. At one point, he lands in Denmark, which for years has been deemed “The Happiest Country on Earth.”
Beyond the perks Danes share with most of their northern European neighbors (myriad government-funded benefits, high standard of living), the filmmaker finds that “Denmark’s most unique and revealing quality is that it has more of its population living in what are called ‘cohousing communities’ than in any other modern industrialized nation.”
Cohousing communities consist of individually-owned homes built around a “common house.”
The homes are usually smaller, since the shared amenities of the common house make a larger home unnecessary. If I had access to guest rooms, a large dining hall, commercial kitchen, workshop, art studio, yoga room, and a huge shared garden, I’d be delighted to live in a smaller home—less to heat, vacuum, and maintain. But the simple, elegant efficiencies of cohousing are dwarfed by its enormous, life-sustaining psychosocial benefits.
A Danish mother of three living in a cohousing community introduces herself in the film by saying, “When I moved here, I was newly divorced with two little children, not working, and kind of isolated. If I’d moved into a flat, alone, I would have gone down, become depressed.” She says that cohousing was a “miracle” for her. “It saved me, kind of, to find it, because I needed to be surrounded by other grownups, not only my own small children. I’ve lived here for 12 years, and I’d gladly take 12 more.”
The film interviews a group of Danish children, piled on a sofa, and asks how it is for them, living in cohousing. A 10-year-old girl says: “It’s like a big family here.” Another volunteers, “I have friends at school, and I have friends at home... I have many friends.” Buddies spontaneously connecting on-site... what a tantalizing alternative to scheduling structured playdates!
Shared meals, a hallmark of cohousing communities, are another blessing for the Danish mom of three. “It helps me a lot to eat together nearly every evening. We cook one or two times a month, each; eating together saves me about two hours each evening,” and that becomes two hours of connection time with her children. Each household has their own kitchen, so those who can’t or don’t want to come to the dining hall can eat separately, but medical researchers have documented that it is the company of others—not necessarily the food—that nourishes us.
The intergenerational relationships that form in cohousing are nourishing as well. “It’s nice to have grown-ups who are always looking out for us,” says one child. The mother observes, “The older people living here are like grandmothers and grandfathers for my children. I feel they love my children as much as I do. It’s a gift, from me to my children, to live here.”
I definitely subscribe to the idea “It takes a village,” but who in North America lives in one?
Cohousing communities may be the closest alternative we’ve got, and Canadians are keen on the idea.
About two dozen projects dot the country, ranging from those in the earliest planning phases to completed developments. In 1996, Victoria was home to Canada’s first, now-defunct cohousing, which, through its unfortunate missteps, provided those that followed with an invaluable insight: purpose-built structures and living in close proximity to others does not guarantee a cohesive community.
Interdependence is a universal human need, and also a strategy to meet other needs: support, companionship, ease, joy, learning, growth, friendship, and fun. I wonder if there are enough of us parents who can see that raising our kids “alone” in a home, even if we have a partner, is not offering us or the children the richness of life we are craving.
Instead of each of us individually treading water in our own separate “pools,” maybe we could pool our combined strengths and resources to create more cohousing.
Like the Danes (and pre-Industrial-Revolution humans generally),
we all could benefit from the many gifts of “village” life.
By Mollie Kaye . First Published in Island Gals Magazine . 2013 . Volume 3 . Issue 3
