It takes a village: Bringing up a baby while co-living
Two big life events
[Charlotte] I’m thinking of getting the flatmates together to buy a house. Are you interested in joining? Want to buy a house with us?
That was the question that kicked off a whole new life chapter for me— a big moment! Followed shortly by another life changing conversation:
[Jody] If there’s two lines on the test, it means we’re pregnant. The test isn’t wrong. We’re definitely pregnant. No, it doesn’t matter if the second line is faint. It’s still positive. WE ARE PREGNANT.
Wait a second. But what about the people we were going to buy a house with? Who in their right mind would want to move in to a new house with a fresh newborn baby? Someone who hates sleeping maybe?
[Me] We have to tell them soon. I know it’s really early days, but they have to know that they might be buying a house with a baby in it. It doesn’t matter that we haven’t told our parents yet. Let’s tell them tonight at dinner!
[Jody] I’m still not sure yet… it’s so early that we can’t really know whether we’re having a baby or not. Let’s wait a bit longer!
And so there we were at dinner, eating side by side with our friends who we were looking to buy a house with. Two of us, six of them.
They were relaxed.
We were full of tension.
Jody and I kept looking at each other, wondering how we could be staying quiet with this big news burning a hole in our pocket.
Do we say it now? Do we wait til later? When’s the right time going to come?
Jody cracked first. We’re having a baby!
There was a brief moment of silence, which seemed to take forever. Then, everyone got excited. That was slightly relieving. But we couldn’t stop there. We pestered each person individually to express their full thoughts on the matter, and then we said we’d follow up again a week later. Are you sure you really want to buy a house with us now? We’ll give you time to think about it. It was just going to be us four adult couples. Now it’s going to be four adult couples and a baby. Quite a different experience.
Eventually, we were convinced. Everyone else in our home buying group is ok with it. Phew! Time to let some of that tension go!
Unfortunately, that was when my doubts started.
Working with doubts and uncertainty
What if my baby changed the character of the home into something people didn’t like? Could I deal with the guilt of forcing the group to adapt to my changing life situation? And was I going to enjoy parenting while co-living? I was imagining how much worse a baby crying in the middle of the night could be in a shared house, knowing that it may be causing my friends to lose their sleep.
And the big question. Could Jody and I manage to navigate the life-changing beginnings of parenthood — while also navigating making a massive purchase with our friends? I wondered if these two big milestones were too big to be happening at the same time.
We needed a way to respond to all this doubt and uncertainty. So we said — Let’s make it really easy to leave. That way, if we buy a house together and it doesn’t work out, it won’t matter so much. We can hold the whole thing lightly, treat it like an experiment. The group hammered out a whole lot of different exit scenarios, agreed on the specifics, wrote it all down and signed it. We even got our signatures witnessed at a law firm. That work was the basis of our co-ownership agreement.
With those sneaky doubts taken care of, we took the plunge and moved in to our new home, the eight of us.
Pregnancy: much easier, together
Pregnancy was a tough journey for me and Jody. But as it turned out, we were very lucky to be co-living for most of it.
I couldn’t believe how much we were supported. When pregnancy was hard, our house friends helped. When we got excited about our new baby on the way, our house friends shared the excitement. The group offered to cook all our dinners for us, for our first months of parenthood. They even set up a silly pregnancy-themed group photoshoot!
It was overwhelming — I had never been given so much by friends before.
These acts of support really helped for me. Not just because it helped me to cope with the big changes coming my way. Another big benefit was that I could clearly see that the group was opting in to this situation. Seeing my house friends choosing to give their support reassured me that they had chosen to receive this baby too, just as much as we had.
Co-living, with a baby
Fast forwarding to today, it’s incredible how smoothly living with our new daughter has gone so far. It’s really surprised me. From my (biased) perspective as father, it seems that our baby has bought everyone closer together — a far cry from my initial fears that she was going to annoy everyone to the point that someone had to move out.
In general, I find it pretty hard to get a group of people rowing in the same direction. And particularly with our co-living group — where our personal finances and lifestyles are at stake — alignment has been tricky at times. But when our baby came, alignment was easy. A fully formed shared goal just dropped into our laps. We have built a lot of trust through our shared experiences — shared experiences of entertaining our new friend, keeping her safe, and helping her to grow.
I feel privileged to see my house friends sharing their own unique moments with her. She plays the piano with Charlotte. She smiles as Mike boops her nose. She sits quietly on Jesse’s lap while contemplating the trees outside. She is soothed by Rosie’s singing. She watches Tom attentively as he plays guitar. She falls asleep in Grainne’s arms.
I remember before having kids, I’d hear things like:
My Ralph did this for the first time yesterday
It was so cute when ___
My child is so advanced
And I’d switch off. BORING!
Somehow, our house friends are much more considerate than I used to be. They see us parenting every day, they know our daughter well, and they’re actually interested in hearing about the challenges and excitements of new parenthood. I can rant freely about the latest thing she did that I’m really proud of, without feeling too boring.
New parent anxiety
Co-living with a baby is good for me too. As a first-time parent, I have plenty of reason to be anxious about everything baby-related. But sometimes, co-living makes anxiety impossible. For example, I’m sometimes anxious about making noise while the baby sleeps. If I lived on our own, I’d probably be tiptoeing around the house so as not to wake her up. But I can’t make eight people tiptoe around the house. So I chose to relax our noise standards instead.
It’s not always easy. Plenty of times, I’ve felt angry towards people for making noise that “wakes up my baby”. But then I remember that it’s not their fault — she was probably going to wake up soon anyway.
Are things working well because I have an easy baby? Or is the baby easy because that’s how she’s been shaped by our co-living situation? It’s hard to say. But one thing we can say for sure — co-living has helped to keep me from getting isolated. Staying connected to friends is so easy, that it’s become the default low-effort option. That’s kept me well. And if I’m well, ultimately that’s made the journey for my daughter much easier.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. But that’s generally not how it goes where I live in New Zealand, at least for babies. I see lots of people preferring to do the bulk of baby-raising by themselves, interfacing every now and then with their extended family or friends.
It’s understandable. Parenting is full of big decisions, and you get more agency and autonomy if you do it on your own. I was expecting the mix of parenting and co-living to be quite challenging. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much I’m enjoying it. For me, co-living has meant less control, but a far richer journey of new parenthood alongside my partner Jody. I’d trade off control for support and richness any day.
Much gratitude to Charlotte, Mike, Gráinne, Thom, Rosie and Jesse. Thanks for walking this path with us, and for all your support!
Other articles coming out of our co-living project: