Multiple Parenting in Community: The Disadvantages

by Daniel Greenberg

C OMMUNCAL CHILDREARING IS often a double-edged sword. In the Spring 1995 issue I explored how the plethora of opinions and helping hands available in most communities can be of great help to struggling parents and their children. In this issue I will flip the coin and examine common difficulties that raising children in communities presents for both adults and children.

For parents in community, simply keeping track of their children's belongings can be extremely frustrating. As one member commented:

I can really relate to living in a nice little house all to ourselves where I can keep track of everything. It doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but like getting up for school in the morning: "Where are your shoes?" "I don't know." She could have been in any of 10 buildings on any of 300 acres or even gone off the farm with somebody. Where do you find a shoe? I just have gone crazy with that. It's hard enough for the adults keeping track of their stuff around community. It's worse with children.

In addition, when many adults assume personal responsibility for raising and disciplining children, the multitude of personal theories about everything from diaper changing to the budding sexuality of adolescents can turn parenting into a real circus.

There are such very different philosophies about how to take care of children. Some want the children to be very independent and have minimal supervision, and then there's the opposite extreme who think that a young child's day should be totally structured, totally supervised with entertaining and interesting activities planned throughout, and then there's tremendous variation in...how much the child has to conform to adult expectations of peace and quiet.It goes on and on.

These differences may be even more evident in the early years of a community's existence when adults first notice disparities between their ideals and visions of community life and what is really happening within their community. As one parent recollected:

People were really idealistic. I remember one mom telling me...she was shocked when their children started fighting. They had believed that because of their meditation and because they were really trying to live such a high lifestyle, our children were just going to be born so pure that they would never fight or anything.

It is also true that parents in community are like parents everywhere in that they tend to invest more time and energy in their own children. Consequently, when multiple adults are responsible for the care of children, parents may feel blocked from providing their children with the types of care they feel they need or deserve. One parent struggling with this issue, had this to say:

As a parent, I feel that I want this certain thing for my child or this certain kind of care or this certain kind of...way that people act toward her...I don't have complete control over that. If I want to change something about her environment or about what's happening, I have to get together with the group and we have to talk about it and it's a process. I think that that's really valuable. I feel that the process of working with a number of people on a consensus basis comes up with the best solutions for problems or issues, but it takes an awful lot of energy.

On the other hand, parents frequently become frustrated and angry when they assume that other members in the community will share in the raising of their children, but find that most members believe that children are their parent's responsibility and are more concerned with "adult" activities within the community.

Occasionally, parents express that they are self-conscious about making and enforcing rules when other adults are present. This may arise from a fear that other adults may challenge a decision in front of their children or even vice versa. This fear may be increased in situations where parents feel that other adults have more influence over their children than they do themselves. At the same time, parents are frequently reluctant to relinquish their sole authority over their children and attempt to control the influence of other adults over their children's behavior and environment. This situation is frustrating for both related and unrelated adults. As one childless adult noted:

Probably the biggest drawback is always having to work things out with other people, and parents seem to be harder to work things out with than other adults. They have very strong opinions about what they want and expect. This is not all parents. I'm generalizing. But enough of them have enough trouble compromising and seeing things from other people's point of view and so on that it's pretty hard making decisions sometimes.

Conflicts between parents and non-parents frequently involve one adult allowing children greater freedom or privilege than was deemed appropriate by another adult. Such conflicts tend to be quite emotional. One community member offered a poem he had written on the topic:

Another Night on the Farm

Wind blows a cone loose from a fir
the door swings open another heartache enters
playing then wrestling he nearly chokes a young girl
silently we watch as another TV violence scene
suddenly becomes real
the girl cries
the boy wonders why is it any wonder that compassionless boys
grow up playing with Star Wars toys
I reach out to encourage an apology
the boy's mother rebukes me "let him work it out on his own" she says
without guidance, the lesson is missed
no apology, no reprimand, no lesson learned
Are these the families who will guide our world to Peace?

From a child's point of view, conflicts and inconsistency among multiple caregivers with respect to discipline and expectations can be just as frustrating as it seems to be for adults. Occasionally, children are caught in "double binds" by being told to do something by one adult only to discover it had been forbidden by another adult. These situations frequently entangle many people in a very short amount of time. At other times, more than one adult may reprimand a child for the same violation of a rule or norm. This phenomenon of having too many bosses has even been given a name--the "Cinderella effect" as in "Cinderella do this!" "No, Cinderella, do that!"

Problems can also arise around common space. Because children have large amounts of free time, but limited mobility, resources, or private space, they are frequent users of communal areas. Consequently, they are frequent violators of rules or norms involving noise and neatness. This can be especially discouraging in crowded communities, and for adults who do not particularly enjoy the company of children. Also, for children, the omnipresence of social interactions may make it difficult for them to find time or space to be alone.

In addition, it is occasionally the case where children are held to an even higher standard of behavior than adults. As one communitarian put it, "The kids are expected to be angels as opposed to many of the adults here who have many problems and are often very inconsiderate of others. That problem is being addressed. At least get people to talk about it. That will probably be a long-standing problem."

Overall, it appears that most difficulties with multiple parenting result from a lack of communication or diverse expectations among adult caregivers, or both. While it may not seem as important as discussing year-end profits and losses or the proposed design for a new building, a series of open community meetings on the topic of communal childrearing is invaluable in exploring, and, it is hoped, even agreeing upon, basic values and expectations regarding children in community. Such meetings require patience and understanding, but the rewards are well worth it.