In 2000, Bryan Bowen was part of a team of architects working to design Wild Sage, a cohousing community of 34 townhouses in Boulder, Colorado….By the time Wild Sage was completed 12 years ago, Bryan and his wife, Dale Deegan, then pregnant with their first son, Eli, were among the residents moving in. Eli’s younger brother, Jesse, was actually born in the living room of their home, with the aid of a midwife who’s a member of the community and has helped deliver a half dozen other Wild Sage babies.

“I can’t imagine leaving Wild Sage,” Bryan says. “I can’t imagine raising my kids any other way. It’s hard enough as it is. Having the support of an interdependent community makes parenthood so much more interesting and rich.”

And it makes for a secure childhood, too. Bryan remembers renting a home in Florida for a family beach vacation when Eli was 3 years old. After they pulled up to the house and unloaded the car, Eli ran outside, saying he was going to explore. He made a loop around the big grassy front yard, then came back inside.

“He looks totally confused,” Bryan recalls. “He says, ‘Daddy, where are all the friends?’ That was a moment of epiphany for me. I realized that my kids were growing up with the expectation that wherever you go, there should be a whole bunch of fun, interesting people right outside the door. That’s how the world is for them.”

[Reprinted from Live Happy Magazine Dec 2016, “Living to Connect”]