Single Parent or Just Single: Co Housing Could Be Just What You Need

When my son was about three, his father and I split up, and I was completely at sea as to where I would move. Searching for a roommate can be hard enough, but searching for a roommate who is OK with living with a toddler or young child can be brutal.

At one point, a friend recommended the idea of co-housing. It was a fairly new idea then, and I wasn't able to find something close enough to work and child care, but it did make me stop and think about the whole notion of living in community, and how the world seems to be set up for nuclear families rather than people on their own.

What is co-housing, exactly? It's an intentional community, said to have begun in Denmark in the 1970s and introduced in the U. S. during the 1990s. It might be an apartment building or small community with 15 to 35 homes that offer common areas such as kitchens, gathering places and other amenities that residents find helpful. What I think co-housing offers is the chance to live in a supportive community that brings authentic connections and relationships into your life.

While I hoped to find a co-housing space when my son was small, I ended up renting the bottom half of a duplex with the owner couple living above, and we had a wonderful experience there. When I did get married a few years later, we moved to another duplex nearby--but I kept thinking about how things might have turned out if I'd been able to find a co-housing setting. Working with older adults these days has also shown me how isolated most people are, and how little attention we give to people who are not "coupled" -- no matter what their ages might be.

This week, my view was validated by an article by New York Times Reporter David Brooks in The Atlantic. Brooks writes astutely about how the nuclear family was a mistake and  shows the consequences we all pay for it. He believes it tends to work better if you are affluent and I agree -- it can be a big fail for everyone else, economically, mentally and socially. As social beings, we need community support and friendships. We also need more generational interaction for resilience and strength.

Brooks talks about how older generations, single people and/or parents and children suffer most when the nuclear family ideal is held up as the ideal. Co-housing can change that and level the playing field in ways nuclear families cannot. The article lists a few different options in The Atlantic article that I wish I had known about in the early years of single parenting.

Brooks mentions CoAbode, a website that helps single parents find homes to share with each other all across the country. He also says a group called Common offers 25 co-housing sites to young people and is teaming up with another developer to start Kin, which caters to single parents. While each family would have its own living space, shared commons spaces will include play spaces, child care services and family-oriented gatherings.

If you are looking for housing that offers community support, I highly recommend the Brooks article and other articles about the co-housing option. The most important thing to know is that you don't have to fit in to some ideal of the perfect family to find like-minded people. A new kind of family life is out there -- and it may be exactly what you need.

Other articles about co-housing may be found here:

What the Heck is Co-housing?

4 Reasons Why I Spent 14 Years in Co-housing and Why I Plan to Stay


There's Community and Consensus - but it's No Commune


Gardening photo: d-olwen-dee