"It comes down to the health of my future children"
Living in community = distributed parenting, education, food, and care
I don’t have kids but I would like to have some someday.
Maybe two or three. Having one seems like a lot of pressure to “get it right”. With two or three, you at least have some redundancy.
I’m nearly 37. It’s entirely possible that I don’t have kids.
The friends I grew up with in Dallas have been having kids since their 20’s, with two of my oldest male friends, W. and E., becoming fathers in the past few years.
I’m happy for them. It’s cool to see people that I’ve known for a long time become parents.
As for myself, I’ve made peace with it. If it happens, it happens.
I think I would be more motivated to have kids if:
The world wasn’t on fire, and destined to get worse
I made enough money to pay for them
I lived in a community where I could raise them with the help of others
Community = Distributed Care
Even if I don’t have kids, I’d like to live in a community where I’m part of the fabric of that community.
I’d love to give guitar lessons, teach art classes, or whatever else, as one of many adults living in an intentional community.
I really enjoyed living at The Abode, because it was intergenerational. I love old people too.
Honestly, I kind of like hanging out with people who are not in my age range more. It’s typically more interesting. I feel like the young and the old have less to risk in telling the truth and being their true selves.
There’s so much pressure to live up to perceived societal and social pressures when you’re in your late teens to your 30’s. I found living with other people who were a variety of ages to be fun, engaging, even healing.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around how American social relations became so atomized. I can point to the history, but it still seems unreal.
Most every other country I’ve been to, people seems less guarded, more friendly, more communal, generally speaking.
How do we unlearn the settler colonialism-”American-dream-as-advertised” brain disease?