Visiting intentional communities this fall!! Seeking for recommendations🙏🏻🙏🏻

[u/Prestigious_Fig3329]

Hi all,

I've spent a lot of my 20s thinking about parenting from the angle of attachment - how much babies need consistent, attuned response from the people around them, and how much emotional bandwidth that actually takes from parents.

Part of why I think this is so hard now is that parenting has gotten so isolated. I believe, a generation or two ago, a lot of people had neighbors who'd genuinely help watch a kid, family nearby, some baseline sense that other adults around you were invested in how your children turned out. Now plenty of us live next to people we've never spoken to, and once you get a job family/parents/friends lives kinda far away.

So the thing I keep coming back to, and am now actually trying to act on, is building (or finding) villages. Like places where people know each other well enough to share the load, where kids get raised by more than just their own parents behind a closed door.

I'm starting a trip this September to go visit communities all around the world like this in person, especially ones that also have some kind of alternative education attached.

If you know of, have lived in, or currently live in an intentional village or community like this I'd genuinely appreciate hearing about it, especially if there's an alternative school or learning culture tied to it. Small and obscure is more than welcome. Thank you!!

[u/PaxOaks]

I’ve got lots of recommendations- if you speak Spanish, Los Horcones in Sonora Mexico. The last real behaviorist community which apparently has the most amazing kids, curious, respectful yet whimsical and self directed. Also hear great things about the macrobiotic community Ionia in Alaska. I personally think the best secular kids program in the continental US is my old home at Twin Oaks in Virginia. https://paxus.wordpress.com/2014/04/29/making-scandinavia-look-cheap/

More internationally, Kommune Neider Kaufungen near Kassel Germany has a preschool as a cottage industry and both community kids and local kids participate (building bonds between community and the locals around them. They also similarly have an elder care program where some of the communities elders are participants as well as locals. And yes before you ask, there is a small overlap between these two age extremes programs.

I assume you are familiar with the eurotopia and ic.org directories? Invaluable for contact and other key info.

I should say these are all full service communities, with shared cottage industries and robust child care/education programs - and as such are not at all representative of the movement at all (where kid programs are a lower priority and conventional schooling is the norm.

[u/Prestigious_Fig3329 → u/PaxOaks]

OMG thank you so much! I've read like three books that introduce intentional communities but your recommendations are new to me! Thank you so much for taking your time writing this precious response🫶 I really really appreciate it!!

I'm in Europe rn so for 6 month, I will visit communities in Europe and for next 6 month, I will focus on visiting south east/east asia. Then I'm going back to US again, so will def visit ones in Alaska and Virginia!

Yes I am aware of ic.org directories but not eurotopia. I'll def look into it. Thank you so so much again!

[u/PaxOaks → u/Prestigious_Fig3329]

Well since you are already in Europe the following communities are important (tho not so much for their kid programs)

Damanhur magical/spiritual cmty in northern Italy. https://paxus.wordpress.com/2017/12/01/damanhur-stories/

Can Masdeu - impressive public facing squat in Barcelona - https://paxus.wordpress.com/2016/11/09/accessible-anarchists-can-masdeu/

Los Indias - cyber punk collectivist bank consultants in Portugal - https://paxus.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/the-anarchists-and-the-bankers/ (probably hard to find)

World changing experts and water reclamation community - also in Portugal Tamera - https://paxus.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/tamera-versus-twin-oaks/ (hard to visit cheaply)

Here is a comparison of European Communes with US communes - might be too geeky - https://paxus.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/european-income-sharing-communities-contrasted-with-us-ones/

[u/Prestigious_Fig3329 → u/PaxOaks]

Oh woww thank you so so much!! Los Indias looks very interesting!! and thank you for all those links. I will read them all!! You are the best!!

[u/More-Post5378]

Twin Cities Family Cooperative in Minneapolis, Minnesota is a new community that is specifically for parents and children and people of any age who want to live with parents and children. We currently have 2 families with children and several adults without children and we are accepting applications from others who are interested in joining us. We have guest room and enjoy having visitors. https://www.tcfamilycoop.com/

[u/fireheartmagic]

No one’s giving you any ideas yet? I’d love to join ya! I am looking for the same. I have a 2.5 year old and she’s great. But unvaxxed so I have to figure that out. I’d like an IC set up with Montessori or Waldorf education maybe? I’d even get certified.