Down on the Urban Homestead (and in the Kitchen)
Published July 27, 2009 @ 12:43AM PT
In thinking about what my son might be doing and even where he might be living, I've been reading some about farms and intentional communities. One concern that's come up about such living situations, and about "intentional communities" in particular, is whether or not they're really segregated institution-like places, where individuals with disabilities live apart from the greater community.
The July 5th New York Times Magazine looks at farms in the city that are quite beyond the proverbial plot of vegetables. Street Farmer profiles Will Allen and his Growing Power farm in Milwaukee which has"14 greenhouses crammed onto two acres in a working-class neighborhood on Milwaukee’s northwest side, less than half a mile from the city’s largest public-housing project. A second article, Home Sweet (Urban) Homestead, looks at farming that's going on in "a gritty block in Oakland, Calif. — the kind of neighborhood that quickens your step even on a bright Sunday afternoon," in the "urban homestead" of Anya Fernald: "In Oakland, where backyard menageries and D.I.Y. charcuterie are the new garage band, the term 'urban homesteading' doesn’t need an explanation. 'It fits into the Oakland sort of self-defined vibe or aesthetic of doing things from scratch and being kind of hard-core,'" as Fernald is quoted.
Both articles are specifically about the numerous benefits---for health, jobs, self-sufficiency, more---of such urban farms. Reading about Fernald's "homestead" in Oakland, I'm reminded very much of the "urban farm" my grandmother, Ngin-ngin, kept going on the porch of her second-story duplex on Madison Avenue and in the yard below. When my father was growing up, they grew vegetables and kept chickens (all of whom wandered away one day when someone left the gate open; I've never been able to get the image of a line of chickens wandering the streets of Oakland by the Oakland Museum and the Alameda County Courthouse out of my head). Ngin-Ngin made everything, from endless types and amounts of food (I was going to write "Chinese food," but that seems somewhat repetitive in this case) to moonshine to clothes, blankets, you name it. (There's also a fireworks angle, but I won't get into that now; it is the fifth of July.) If she didn't get vegetables from the yard ("urban homestead"), they came from Chinatown's markets and, of course, from Tai Wah, which Yeh Yeh, my grandfather, owned.
Suburban New Jersey---I mean, this is the Garden State---offers a few more places to plant some seeds and let a garden grow. As I've learned from making brownies with Charlie, the process is the thing, and why not show him where food (well, some types of food) come from?
Charlie is definitely curious about food preparation.
In baking, he's interested in dumping the ingredients into a bowl and mixing (and sneaking tastes). The final ingredient draws his interest when it comes out of the oven but he's less inclined to eat the results of our handiwork afterwards. I'm hardly ready to hand Charlie a knife to mince parsley with, but he can certainly learn to measure out ingredients and stir; the last time we made brownies, we worked on breaking eggs. (Previously, Charlie took the eggs from the fridge and placed them atop the other ingredients.)
So I've been doing a lot more cooking this summer.
Nothing too revolutionary or in-the-interest-of-autism-advocacy about that and the reason is simply that---as I'm not teaching summer school for the first time in awhile and I've many fewer administrative duties---I've had more time. Time to chop green onions and ginger and parsley. Time to cook chicken "velvet" style and make lemon sauce and to put together the batter for pancakes and have Charlie help mix.
With Charlie, we like to show rather than tell. Jim taught him to ride a bike with minimal verbal explanations. We held Charlie's feet on the pedals of his tricycle and then his little training-wheel'd bike and showed him how to rotate his legs. Jim started teaching Charlie to use the hand brakes by, simply, putting his hands over Charlie and saying "squeeze brakes." When they were actually riding bikes in the street and came to a stop sign, held Charlie's shoulder while repeating "squeeze brakes," only gradually fading out the shoulder hold.
We still use photographs in Charlie's activity and other schedules, but there's nothing like actually (versus in something like a video) showing him how to do something. And cooking being the multi-sensory experience that it is---involving taste of course and smell and touch---drawing on all those other senses is a good way for Charlie to learn some things, some life's lessons that start in the kitchen and that will, we hope, radiate out beyond the yard and our suburban homestead and into the future.
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Comments (5)
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Author
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Kristina is a Classics professor in Jersey City, New Jersey, a blogger (formerly at AutismVox), a translator (of Virgil), and an advocate every day for her son, Charlie.
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End the Perpetuation of Pity
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End the Perpetuation of Pity
I've thought a lot about a community of autistics. My preference would be for the whole project to be one of self determination, and that those of us who are more socially capable (and our families and loved ones who wish to join in on the fun) have training in caregiving for those who might need a bit more assistance; the benefit would be twofold, as learning to work with kids who are profoundly autistic has given me insight into my own very mild impairments that I would not have otherwise received, but it has also benefitted those children, because I understand, somewhat, what a confusing world this can be. I think that the staff/patient power dynamic is inherently unequal; a community of friends looking out for each other with a few staff where they are most needed would lessen this inequality.
What would be most lovely would be a whole town, not simply a farm or some such. Talents crop up in the most unusual of places, as do special interests--there are certainly doctors, dentists, lawyers, politicians, librarians, anyone necessary to the running of a city, on the spectrum. Their families would provide even more diversity.
A relatively inexpensive way to begin, once land was acquired, would be with the plans for replicable small houses, designed for one or maybe two people. I am entranced by http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/ which do come in sizes large enough for perhaps a family of four. Depending on the size of the town, a busing system might need to be established, though I would strongly advocate in favour of electric trams, the most glorious part of living in Melbourne.
Sorry for the long comment--longer than usual. This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
Posted by Ali ... on 07/27/2009 @ 01:39AM PT
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Yeek, you apologized for the length of your comment, and mine is gargantuan.
It's a good idea in theory. I've talked to other people about communities like that.
The reason I would never move into one is that it could lock me into a situation where I would be unable to leave easily, due to the fact that I would have possibly become ineligible for state-supplied services due to the fact that I was already receiving enough support, etc.
Additionally, "friends helping friends" works well on paper, but in reality it takes a very dedicated set of people to pull it off. Most friends fight now and then. What happens when you have to do these things for someone you're very angry at? How does it feel to depend on someone who doesn't want to speak to you right then, and who could, at least in theory, withhold some forms of assistance the moment they get angry with you, or even unintentionally cross the line into abuse?
The dynamics get very messed up, very fast. You have people who need certain assistance being terrified to say anything that might anger the people who are giving it. You have people who are giving assistance who may want to be anywhere but where they are at that moment. And you can have both in the same person, because most people are capable of both giving and receiving assistance.
I know this because I have depended on friends for far more than casual assistance at times, and I have had friends depend on me in the same manner. It really tests a friendship. Fortunately, all of mine have survived, but they have gone through incredibly rocky patches. I remember once, ten years ago, giving a birthday present to my best friend. My birthday present was getting out of her sight for an entire weekend so she had rest. And when I came back she was still not happy to see me, because she associated the sight of me with an intense caregiver role that was beyond her capacity to handle at the time.
I have met autistic people who got passed around from friend to friend who got sick of them because they depended on them from too much. People whose (then former) friends bought them train tickets to another state. People who made friends, the friends tried to help them, couldn't handle the level of support needed, turned abusive, and they ran away to another friend, and the exact same pattern repeated. Not because of the person needing help being an inherently bad person, but because of a complex mix of factors involving how much help they needed, how much help the other person could provide within their own limits, what the person's cultural expectations were about how much help they ought to give others and how much time for themselves they needed, and so on.
And then there's how much support a person can give. I used to do very difficult physical work for a friend who couldn't do it themselves. Then my health took a turn for the worse and I couldn't do it anymore, leaving them in a bad position.
Dependency of that kind is tricky. Everyone is dependent on everyone in the regular world of course, but different cultures have different expectations of which dependence is normal and which is "real dependence". And when the kind of dependence is different from the norm, even autistic people can get caught up in resentment of other people for needing certain things. And even when that doesn't happen, becoming dependent on a particular group can make it very hard to leave if you suddenly decide you don't want to be there anymore.
(This is why so many official agencies say that if you develop a friendship with a client you should stop working for them. Many friendships can't withstand that kind of power relationship. All of mine have been able to, but for some reason my friendships tend to involve a level of commitment to each other that's pretty unusual as I understand it. But there have been very rocky times even so.)
People need to know what they're getting into. Not just intellectually, but in the real, complex, living world that they are a part of. People who need very extensive forms of unusual support (like me) need to be assured that we won't be resented, that we will be able to leave and still get services of some kind, that people who help us with very private things will keep those things private if we want, etc. We also need to be assured that we will be considered just as much a member of the community as others, and have just as much of a voice, even if our voice happens in unusual ways (this includes people who can't speak or type, the more difficult it is to communicate with someone the more they need to be part of the decision-making). People who need less assistance but might end up giving large amounts of unusual assistance to others need to be sure they can handle the level of support they are getting into, that they won't let the other people down. And there needs to be a system in place for if everyone catches a flu virus or something, or stuff can get ugly fast.
I suspect the best intentional communities happen when friends start living near each other, separately, in ways where anyone can leave when they want, and in ways where they don't have to depend on each other for support needs if they don't want to. And where, if that level of support is going to be given, it's assured that it can and will be given regardless of the situation. And the friendships need to be strong enough to withstand all the rigors of crossing a helping relationship with a friendship, with all the power imbalances that can involve -- you have to be able and willing to help a person use the toilet even if at that moment you want to scream at them.
I'm not trying to talk you out of the idea. I'm just trying to talk about the real difficulties that can happen when you try to implement something that otherwise sounds wonderful. I'm sure this can work at times, I have heard of it working, but it takes a lot of work, commitment, trust, and self-discipline.
Posted by Amanda Baggs on 07/27/2009 @ 11:57AM PT
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Amanda, thank you for that--you brought up a lot of issues I hadn't even considered, but that really resonate with me.
The very important point about friends fighting, or simply overestimating how much they can really do, stood out; it wasn't something that had occured to me (I guess because I've liked every Autie and Aspie I've met so far?). But, yes, I have experience with this--my two closest friends besides my girlfriend are currently exasperated with me, though I think the friendship will weather the storm, and I've lost friends before who, in retrospect, were sick of my aspie behaviours. You're very right that it's not fair to ask people to care for others when they are upset with them--that's one of the main issues I have with my current employer, actually!
You've given me a lot to consider, but I think the most important part is this: "I suspect the best intentional communities happen when friends start living near each other, separately, in ways where anyone can leave when they want, and in ways where they don't have to depend on each other for support needs if they don't want to." Now I just need to find some more like-minded adults in the area--it's the toddler crowd around here.
Posted by Ali ... on 07/27/2009 @ 02:06PM PT
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Since Kayla's been accepted to The Center For Discovery here in upstate NY, I'm hoping she'll be working on The Farm in her future. Personally, I have no problem with her being in this particular intentional community. I know that the program works hard to interact with the general community. I think it's wonderful that the program shows the community that by working together, no matter what a person's ability, something wonderful can be created.
Posted by Ecki Stern on 07/29/2009 @ 09:09PM PT
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I'd love to know about how Kayla does in her new school, and if there are things that either program does that seem to have particularly helped in interacting with the community.
Posted by Kristina Chew on 07/30/2009 @ 08:32AM PT
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