part two - twin oaks commune, virginia, USA
The commune is open to anyone who wants to join.
"Imagine an unshakeable peacefulness - that would be HERE.
“Growing up at Twin Oaks, you’re surrounded by people whose pace of life is generally a bit slower than ‘outside’ life.
There’s just a little more time there, and people are more relaxed, a little happier. It’s a rich and nurturing atmosphere, full of people who have time to talk to you and are generally in good moods,” she says. “So imagine growing up in that.”
He continues, “It’s not like we’ve come up with this scientifically evolved program to create the utopian child. We don’t have that — just really common sense: We put a lot of resources into the kids.
The adults are not stressed out or struggling. We don’t have people who are pregnant and stuck with a couple of kids and are miserable, or even really well-off parents who have gobs of money but no time to focus on their kids, with a nanny who does not feel very empowered. So that’s not rocket science. But it is something we do well.”
It’s not perfect, of course. Kids can feel lonely or isolated due to not having enough peers, and some parents are troubled by the lack of racial diversity here, just for starters.
But there are still plenty more ways Twin Oaks does right by its youngest residents: with intense communal support among parents; opportunities for the childless to form close relationships with kids; fairly seamless co-parenting arrangements following breakups; a refreshing openness regarding the fluidity of gender and sexuality; and a striking absence of the so-called “mommy wars.” Perhaps most impressively, though, is the enviable reality of an organic work-life balance. (similar to what indian tribes had together before the 100 million indians were slaughtered by white people for 200 years and then held in concentration camps.)
It all adds up to something most parents yearn for but few find: a true village, in that it-takes-a-village sort of way. And while plenty of outsiders looking in might simply see a bunch of wacky, tofu-making hippies who have dropped out of society, it’s a perspective that doesn’t much concern folks here.
“Reading the news — shootings in schools, violence at universities — I think a lot of us feel like what we’re doing is reasonable,” Keener says, “and the rest of the world is crazy.”
Arriving at the Twin Oaks compound inspires instant calm. Driving up the dirt entryway, at least in the springtime, takes you alongside sprawling acres of freshly tilled organic farmlands and blooming gardens. There’s a dairy with roaming Scottish cows, shady canopies of pine and oak trees (many strung with the signature wide, rope hammocks woven by residents here), and clusters of blooming daffodils. The main sounds are those of rustling trees, chirping birds, and occasional moos and barks, with the dull grinding of tofu-factory machinery in the distance. And then, outside the dining hall — named Zhankoye, or “ZK,” after a 1930s Jewish farm collective in Crimea — there’s music in a range of genres, entertaining folks doing kitchen prep, blasting out the windows along with mingled scents of roasting garlic and baking bread.
Residents weeding fields of garlic. (Photo: Khue Bui for Yahoo Parenting)
Several of the shared houses are just past here, including Kaweah (so-named for a 19th century utopian colony in California). In its grassy expanse of a backyard is where I find Kathryn, a pixie-ish 38, who fell quickly in love with what she considers the sanity of Twin Oaks. Raised in the Florida suburbs, she had been living in cooperative housing in Boston as a chemistry grad student.
“I knew this was the way I wanted to live — I wanted to live around people, I wanted to share things,” she explains, perched at a picnic table in the April sun. “So I started looking for community, one that was stable and established, income-sharing, and something where you didn’t have to have a lot of money [to begin living there].
I felt like I’d have a social life here, and it just was a fit.” She moved in 11 years ago and entered into a relationship with a man almost immediately. In 2011, after putting in for and receiving a pregnancy approval from the community — mainly a formality meant to keep resources in check — they had a son, Linus, who’s 4. Kathryn can’t imagine raising him anywhere else.
“From day one, there’s been so much ancillary support outside the nuclear unit,” she says. “The house is set up for kids, the infrastructure is there — I didn’t have to buy toys or clothes. Breastfeeding is the norm, with no feeling like you had to cover up and hide or any of that. I didn’t pump, as our labor system is such that every set of parents has a budget of hours to spend on caring for their child.” Kathryn’s main job here, as a book indexer (another Twin Oaks cottage industry), was cut in half after Linus was born, and has slowly gone back up over time.
Then there’s the feeling of family that Twin Oaks provides. “[Neighbor] Finley is like a built-in brother with a different dad, and there’s no sibling rivalry,” she says. “I feel very protected here, very safe. I never worry when my son is out of sight. There are no locked doors — he doesn’t understand the concept very much, that when we go visit family [elsewhere] how you actually can’t just walk into other people’s houses. Here you can walk in, open their refrigerator, make yourself a snack. Any house here is a public building, owned by all of us.”
"Imagine an unshakeable peacefulness - that would be HERE.
“Growing up at Twin Oaks, you’re surrounded by people whose pace of life is generally a bit slower than ‘outside’ life.
There’s just a little more time there, and people are more relaxed, a little happier. It’s a rich and nurturing atmosphere, full of people who have time to talk to you and are generally in good moods,” she says. “So imagine growing up in that.”
He continues, “It’s not like we’ve come up with this scientifically evolved program to create the utopian child. We don’t have that — just really common sense: We put a lot of resources into the kids.
The adults are not stressed out or struggling. We don’t have people who are pregnant and stuck with a couple of kids and are miserable, or even really well-off parents who have gobs of money but no time to focus on their kids, with a nanny who does not feel very empowered. So that’s not rocket science. But it is something we do well.”
It’s not perfect, of course. Kids can feel lonely or isolated due to not having enough peers, and some parents are troubled by the lack of racial diversity here, just for starters.
But there are still plenty more ways Twin Oaks does right by its youngest residents: with intense communal support among parents; opportunities for the childless to form close relationships with kids; fairly seamless co-parenting arrangements following breakups; a refreshing openness regarding the fluidity of gender and sexuality; and a striking absence of the so-called “mommy wars.” Perhaps most impressively, though, is the enviable reality of an organic work-life balance. (similar to what indian tribes had together before the 100 million indians were slaughtered by white people for 200 years and then held in concentration camps.)
It all adds up to something most parents yearn for but few find: a true village, in that it-takes-a-village sort of way. And while plenty of outsiders looking in might simply see a bunch of wacky, tofu-making hippies who have dropped out of society, it’s a perspective that doesn’t much concern folks here.
“Reading the news — shootings in schools, violence at universities — I think a lot of us feel like what we’re doing is reasonable,” Keener says, “and the rest of the world is crazy.”
Arriving at the Twin Oaks compound inspires instant calm. Driving up the dirt entryway, at least in the springtime, takes you alongside sprawling acres of freshly tilled organic farmlands and blooming gardens. There’s a dairy with roaming Scottish cows, shady canopies of pine and oak trees (many strung with the signature wide, rope hammocks woven by residents here), and clusters of blooming daffodils. The main sounds are those of rustling trees, chirping birds, and occasional moos and barks, with the dull grinding of tofu-factory machinery in the distance. And then, outside the dining hall — named Zhankoye, or “ZK,” after a 1930s Jewish farm collective in Crimea — there’s music in a range of genres, entertaining folks doing kitchen prep, blasting out the windows along with mingled scents of roasting garlic and baking bread.
Residents weeding fields of garlic. (Photo: Khue Bui for Yahoo Parenting)
Several of the shared houses are just past here, including Kaweah (so-named for a 19th century utopian colony in California). In its grassy expanse of a backyard is where I find Kathryn, a pixie-ish 38, who fell quickly in love with what she considers the sanity of Twin Oaks. Raised in the Florida suburbs, she had been living in cooperative housing in Boston as a chemistry grad student.
“I knew this was the way I wanted to live — I wanted to live around people, I wanted to share things,” she explains, perched at a picnic table in the April sun. “So I started looking for community, one that was stable and established, income-sharing, and something where you didn’t have to have a lot of money [to begin living there].
I felt like I’d have a social life here, and it just was a fit.” She moved in 11 years ago and entered into a relationship with a man almost immediately. In 2011, after putting in for and receiving a pregnancy approval from the community — mainly a formality meant to keep resources in check — they had a son, Linus, who’s 4. Kathryn can’t imagine raising him anywhere else.
“From day one, there’s been so much ancillary support outside the nuclear unit,” she says. “The house is set up for kids, the infrastructure is there — I didn’t have to buy toys or clothes. Breastfeeding is the norm, with no feeling like you had to cover up and hide or any of that. I didn’t pump, as our labor system is such that every set of parents has a budget of hours to spend on caring for their child.” Kathryn’s main job here, as a book indexer (another Twin Oaks cottage industry), was cut in half after Linus was born, and has slowly gone back up over time.
Then there’s the feeling of family that Twin Oaks provides. “[Neighbor] Finley is like a built-in brother with a different dad, and there’s no sibling rivalry,” she says. “I feel very protected here, very safe. I never worry when my son is out of sight. There are no locked doors — he doesn’t understand the concept very much, that when we go visit family [elsewhere] how you actually can’t just walk into other people’s houses. Here you can walk in, open their refrigerator, make yourself a snack. Any house here is a public building, owned by all of us.”
Replies
People interested in joining Twin Oaks must attend a scheduled three-week visitor period. During this period, visitors tour the community and attend orientations on various aspects of membership: Unlike most co-housing situations, there is no cost to join the community, nor any rent or ongoing costs associated with living there.
Basic necessitieshousing, clothing, food, health careare all provided to members in return for their 42 weekly hours of work.[2] Since 2011, Twin Oaks has consistently had a waiting list, so visitors who are accepted for membership need to wait typically 3 to 9 months before they can join. Before a new member can join, while the community is at its population capacity, a current member needs to drop membership.
Historically, Twin Oaks has expanded its housing when it has had a waiting list for a prolonged period by building new residences and expanding the stock of bedrooms available.