House with picket fence (Google)

Adequate housing is a huge issue for many people. Single parents, seniors, those living on social security, disabled people and young people starting out, are not typically well supported when living in single-person/single-family households.

Single-family living stretches budgets and responsibilities. Doubling up with others households frays nerves and relationships.

There is a better way: housing that is affordable, sociable and secure, such as cooperatives, cohousing, dormitory housing and shared homes.

My passion of many years, creating supportive, harmonious housing models, has spawned the  Transition Rogers Park Housing Group to explore alternatives that meet the real needs of real people.

My intention is to develop a template that will work anywhere. Even if you don’t live in Rogers Park, please feel welcome to join this group, or show up at a mixer and then let’s take this to your community. Joining this group, if you live anywhere in the Chicago area, is the fastest, most direct way to get housing mixers going in your neighborhood.

The Transition Town movement began in England in 2006 to respond to the challenges of peak oil, climate change and the wrenching economic impact. It is now a worldwide movement and growing.

Charlie Barlie, foster dog, testing the couch.

The young girl fell in love with my dog one Sunday morning. Charlie Barlie, world’s best dog in the world, is a looker, exceptionally sweet and accustomed to being fussed over. Nevertheless, her swoon had a lonely ache to it.

Perhaps I projected my own issues, psychically connected with her, or both. An astrological reading said that I am a magnet for others’ pain. Lucky me. I sensed a single mother, working too hard for too little money, raising an only child. I’ve worked with many single moms. That young girl has many lonely hours to fill. Given that a dog’s highest calling is companionship, they are ideally suited to fill the void of loneliness.

I extended an open invitation for the girl to come over to spend time with Charlie whenever she wanted. Her mom appropriately bristled.  What was I thinking?  Of course, I invited her to come too. She declined that as well. This mother did not know that I am not only harmless, but that I could, and would, be a resource given the opportunity. These days, it seems, one can’t be too careful. Nevertheless, that child needed resources beyond what her mother could provide. And, the mother needed resources beyond what our culture provides. Surely, the mom spent many anxious moments worrying about her child, rushed to get home on time, stretched a dollar and kept up a brave front.

Being a single parent is a tough assignment. I gained fresh appreciation for the role when I was solely responsible for a dog, and for only three months. Dogs are easy. They have no emotional anxiety about boys, girls, looks, body image, grades and do not suffer teenagers’ hormonal whiplash.

Holding down a job, putting food on the table, and clean clothes in the closet is quite enough. Throwing an illness or injury into the mix,  (drama princess at the laundromat), makes your head swim.

This prompts the question: What is a healthy, grounding home environment for parents and children? Some children of single parents get through it just fine. Barack Obama did. His grandmother’s involvement made a huge difference. Still, few are that smart or that strong. David Brooks’ wrote:  Some children are bathed in an atmosphere that promotes human capital development and, increasingly, more are not.  By [age] 5, it is possible to predict, with depressing accuracy, who will complete high school and college and who won’t.

Patricia McGinn, former president of the Illinois Counseling Association, recognized in the 1970′s that, as divorce became pervasive, the consequence would be more violence and mental instability. In her view, the family structure is such a fundamental human need that the deterioration of it breeds violence in later years.

We face this reality every day: on the bus; walking down the street; seeing old people, children, and people in their prime, begging for spare change or food.  We are wary of strangers.

Odd, irrational and violent behavior is common now. Connecting with others smooths over the rough edges of our lives. Being a member of an active, aware community such as a church or neighborhood center functions as a release valve with the potential to help people make good decisions that move them forward instead of backward.

New Community Vision is committed to community building. In collaboration with organizations such as Transition Rogers Park, Sound ConneXions, Mindful Metropolis, and the Tutor/Mentor Connection we are all working diligently to support the shift to connected, sustainable lifestyles with inherent connection, support and neighborliness. Join with us in this worthy and exciting undertaking.

Photo: Stock Exchange/Horton Group

My laboratory to study human nature, particularly children and the adults who care for them, is Chicago’s public transit system. Traveling northbound last week on the Pulaski bus on two consecutive days, I witnessed two mothers, with polar opposite maternal styles, their children and the outcomes.

The first mother traveled with two daughters, whom I guess were four and five years old. The girls giggled in the seat in front of me as their mother sat across the aisle. Something annoyed the mother who came over to stand beside them. She told the nearest one to “Shut up.” She wasn’t getting results which brought more “shut ups” and “I’ll give you something to cry about.” One of them dropped, or threw, the sippy cup on the floor. The other cried. And so began their familiar destructive dance which may have played out for generations.

The following day a mother boarded with a child riding on her back in something like a sling, a length of fabric tied in front. She settled into her seat, untying the fabric so that the child, who was probably two or three could sit down. The child fussed in a manner that could have escalated into a tantrum. “What’s wrong? What do you want?” In the special communication between mother and child, she discerned that he wanted to stay tied on her back. Accommodatingly, she stood to rearrange the fabric and, as he contentedly settled in, she stroked his hair and kissed his forehead.

We like to think that women inherently know how to care for a child. Although that may be true in the animal kingdom, for human beings it is a dangerous fantasy. Especially in the beginning, motherhood is a bewildering journey, requiring engagement with a helpless person who communicates primarily by crying. The illuminating book, The Goddess Within, discusses the feminine archetypes and their characteristics. Women of the Demeter archetype are born nurturers, with an instinctive knowing of what children need. But women of all archetypes are mothers, each with their own style and approach. If the mothers of young mothers were clueless, they will have no idea how to nurture their own children. This can manifest in an extreme need for control with no understanding of human nature. Many children become confused, fearful, and angry with very low self esteem.

Given a mother’s immense influence, with lifelong consequences for children and society, nurturing these families should be Job One. The human spirit is remarkably fragile and remarkably resilient. In every life, painful incidents become lodged in our psyches which, unless examined and reprocessed in a healthy way, can have corrosive effects. To compensate, we often develop coping mechanisms that we are completely unaware of and cause us to repeatedly trip over the same scenario, with no awareness that it is a re-run of our own making.

As the economy ratchets down, with no idea how low it can go or where it will end up, my goal is to beat the drum for healthy families and healthy communities and to facilitate gatherings to explore alternatives that support us in this uncharted environment.

For more info: New Community Vision is eager to work with individuals and groups, such as Sound ConneXions, to spawn a movement to think about our social and housing paradigms in a new context. Community gatherings to address our universal challenges are the fertile soil in which durable solutions take root. Please subscribe to this blog and contact us for more information.

Photo: Stock Exchange/Laughing Grandma

Happy Mother’s Day, our annual ritual honoring mothers. Beyond honoring, I want all mothers to be supported with actual systems and actions that make nurturing children easier. The person who sent this video clip, four laughing babies, called it her anti-depressant. These babies bring out our laughter. What strikes you about this clip? The darling babies? Their relaxed, pretty mother? What struck me is that the mother looks happy and delights in her children. She obviously has support. A house with one baby can be chaotic. Quadruplets? Everybody looked healthy. This family values laughter and it appears to be a fun household—except when it’s not. I wish every child and their parents loads of good belly laughs.

Although we give lip service to the ideal of motherhood, we need systems that empower mothers with time and resources that make mothering easier. The assistant at my dentist’s office is due with her first child, a boy, in 6 weeks. This will be the first grandchild on either side. She seems a shy, gentle person from the Middle East. Does her family live near by? No. Her parents live in Jordan and her husband’s parents live in Baghdad. Baghdad? Her mother applied for a visa four months ago but she is not certain when, or if, will come through. Is her Muslim community supportive? No. It is only she and her husband. My heart ached. The thought of a young family feeling that they are alone period, much less with an infant makes me a crazy. I referred her to my blog post Legion of Grandparents with the assurance that within her block, dozens of women would be capable and honored to fill the role of stand in grandma.

A young mom I know doesn’t like to go out in her neighborhood at night because third and fourth grade children are well on their way to becoming “young toughs”. A mother’s heart must break as she sees her child taking on the hardness of the street. Don Beck, one of the originators of Spiral Dynamics writes in The Many Dimensions of Change:

As long as there are pockets of poverty in our inner cities, with fragmented homes and lives coupled with lack of discipline and economic opportunities, expect gang-related behaviors to flourish. And if self-serving adults continue to play the race card only to gain political leverage, don’t be surprised if the amount of racism in our society expands rather than constricts.

Communities that are available to each other with a kind word, an errand, a pot of soup, or a soft shoulder and non-judgmental listening are the best resource that we have to support each other socially and emotionally. Lending a helping hand to families and children has ripple effects. Just as withholding that encouragement and support leads to a downward spiral.