Want the truth? Ask a child.

Lately I have been thinking about what CoHousing is like from a child's perspective. And as Oliver Wendell Homes said, "Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children." For them it must be heaven. No meetings, no money worries, conflicts come and go at the drop of a hat. So I asked some of the kids in our neighborhood what they like and don't like about living in CoHousing. What was the most telling, was that many of them couldn't come up with anything they didn't like!

Here are some of the answers I got:

What do you like best about CoHousing?

"I can ride my bike all over the place."
"Being able to walk to your friend's house."
"Playing with my friends."
"There are a lot of things, there is a lot of room that we can run and play out of the cluster"
“What I like about living in CoHousing is being able to know and connect with anyone and/or everyone. I also like having friends that are always close by and (usually) ready to play."
“I like the sledding hill and I like playing with Xander."
" I like that we can run around all over and there aren't any cars."

What don't you like about CoHousing?
" I don't know."
" I don't know."
"There is nothing,... it's muddy !"
"What I don’t like about living in CoHousing is that sometimes I have two friends that don’t like each other.”
"I don’t know what I don’t like.”
"We can't ride bikes when it is snowy."
'I like everything, there is nothing that I don't like."

As I look out my kitchen window onto the place structure (The SS Ponderosa), I see happy, healthy children playing in the sand, creating whole games and worlds out of their imagination and a few sticks and rocks, and friends. Friends. That seems to be the essence of CoHousing for kids and adults alike. What does being a friend mean to you?