My personal favorite is my dream of revamping society as a whole into a semi-polygamous village. Basically I kinda want to go back to hunter/gatherer days but without all the hunting and gathering. I want to keep my jeans, appliances and car. Sister ain't about to live in a loincloth.
I just don't think the whole 1 working man/1 stay-at-home woman in a house with their kids in a neighborhood of mostly dual-career families is the way to go. I'm sure my dream village would have its faults too if played out in real life, but it is a dream so it can be as nirvana-ish as I imagine.
Here are the problems I see in modern life and how the village would solve them:
- Stay-at-home mom in house with kids while stay-at-home mom friends live across the city. Pain in butt and usage of gas to get to them on a daily basis. If in a village, we'd all be close-by, so we could visit quickly in between doing laundry or cooking food and all the older kids could run around the village playing with the wild dogs.
- Pain in butt to find childcare for things like doctor appointments, part-time work, etc. If in village, nearby moms could watch kids and vice versa for such appointments. Older kids would still be chasing wild dogs, so we're only talking babies here. And stay-at-home moms wouldn't have to ask their 70-year-old moms to do it.
- Hmmm, I don't know how to be delicate about this one. The stay-at-home moms I know either want 1. no sex, or 2. sex with someone different who helps with the housework. I like to think in the semi-polygamous village there would be very hygienic single gals to help out with issue #1 for the working husbands. I don't know what the solution is for #2 because I have yet to meet a man who does housework that I'd actually like to..... well, ya know.
- Near the village....within walking distance....is a bookstore, preschool, elementary school, grocery store, library, farmer's market, Target/Wal-Mart, Starbucks, doctor's office, pool, park/playground, zoo and botanical garden, Kazoing or All About Kids, mall and gas station. I can put the kids in a stroller to do my errands...thereby ensuring we all get plenty of outside time and exercise. And save on gas money.
- Within driving distance (no more than 15 minutes' drive, tops) is an IKEA, hair salon, fancy restaurant, nature preserve, hospital, and orchard.
- There is a big community garden right in the middle of the village with a nice compost pile where everyone wheelbarrows their yard waste every couple of weeks.
- Everyone collects rainwater in large drums so nobody has to water the grass in the summer.
- Everyone keeps their yards weeded themselves or hires handsome men to do their yard work (I'm talking Clive Owen or Robert Downey Jr. in IronMan good-looking). Hey--these guys might be able to solve problem #2 from bullet number 3 up there.
3 comments:
When you create this village, sign me up! In my opinion, we are all way too isolated from "real" people these days. Could your village have jobs for our husbands that don't require relocations? Or tons of travel? Just get working on that, okay?
Well, don't know about ALL the issues you've listed, but the proximity thing has been covered by the housing developments in the NW. If only I had known what I know know before we moved! I like the IKEA/grocery/haircut store in walking distance idea a lot.
You've obviously given this a great deal of thought, which, I imagine, has kept you from doing what I do when I'm experiencing malaise: eating more chocolate than a body should consume in a year. Not nearly as productive as your community planning here.
I like almost all aspects of this exciting and innovative idea of yours. But I'd like to keep my husband to myself, thanks very much! ;-)
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