HEARTWOOD COHOUSING - FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is life like for kids here?
Our children live an especially charmed life. Because our neighborhood is a car-free zone and is situated within 350 acres of open space, it’s an incredibly safe place for children to roam, play, explore, and connect with their friends. There’s no need to set up play dates here. The kids have the freedom to go out and play with their friends. And there are plenty of friends to play with. We generally have 25 - 30 boys and girls living here. See our Demographics page for up to date information.
Unlike a typical school setting where kids tend to only interact with kids their own age and gender, here there seems to be more interacting amongst boys and girls of different ages. Maybe it’s because having grown up together, the kids here are so close to each other that they’re almost likes brothers, sisters, or cousins. Maybe it’s because when a game of freeze tag gets going on a summer evening on the S.S. Ponderosa (our play structure in the village green), all the kids just naturally join in. Whatever the reason, the mixing of ages and genders is a good thing. It gives the kids a chance to assume many different roles: sometimes the leader, sometimes the follower; sometimes the one with the scraped knee, sometimes the caregiver.
Our children also get to interact with many more adults than is typical. They know that they can trust all of the adults here and can go to any one of them for help or comforting. In essence, they enjoy a village of extended family with many aunts, uncles, grandmas, and grandpas.
All of those other adults within easy walking distance takes a lot of pressure off of us parents. We don’t have to be all things to our children. Our kids can learn to build a birdhouse with Eric or have a conversation about dating with Beth. They grow up with the benefit of many more life perspectives and a broader view of the world.
There’s also a very strong informal network of mutual parenting support. We have absolutely no formal shared parenting. Parents are free to raise their kids as they see fit. In practice, however, parents help each other out a lot. When the kids are little, it’s very common for parents to watch each other’s kids. When the kids get a little older, one parent will arrange with another to be the kid’s check-in, which simply means that the child is on their own, but they know that there’s a specific adult whom they know and trust that is at home and available to help them if they need it. Parents who are new to Heartwood are sometimes reluctant to allow their children so much freedom, but quickly realize just what a safe and nurturing environment it is here and loosen up and enjoy the benefits of our mutual parenting support for themselves and for their children.
We have created a lot of amenities for the kids. There’s the big play structure in the village green, the S.S. Ponderosa, two quarter pipe skate board ramps, the village green itself for smaller games, a big play field for bigger games, a basketball court, a tennis court, a great sledding hill, miles of bike trails, and ping pong, pool, and foosball at the common house. And of course there’s the natural world to explore that comes with life in the country: forests, fields, pastures, ponds, hills, ravines, trees, and boulders. What we don’t have are a lot of television and video games. While some of that certainly happens, most parents here limit those activities so kids end up spending way more time outside and with friends than they do in front of a screen.
We’ve got a “coming of age” group for the girls called the Dolly Mamas (mothers and daughters) and one for the boys called Boys to Men (fathers and sons). Each group gets together monthly to enjoy various activities to guide and celebrate our children’s path to adulthood. The kids seem to really enjoy participating in those groups and benefit from the wisdom being handed down.