Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood?

Isn't it ironic how Sesame Street can teach kids how to recognize helpful strangers and form a sense of community in their neighborhood with their song and book, "Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood?".  Yet, as adults we feel weird about knocking on our neighbor's door to ask to borrow a cup of sugar?

I was reminded of it's truth after reading an article about a new book called In the Neighborhood - The Search for Community on an American Street, One Sleepover at a Time by Peter Lovenheim.

It's a bold and clever idea for an adult man to ask his neighbors if he can sleep over at their house to get to know them better.  Why not just ask to borrow a cup of sugar?  Because no one does anymore.  (Plus, it wouldn't be sugar you were asking for; it would be stevia, or agave nectar, right?  Who has that to let you borrow anyway?)

The author discovers that "...his neighbors have very little to hide."  However, Jennifer Howard, a writer for The Washington Post, who reviewed the book, thinks it's "...remarkable...how seldom those lives intersect."  I agree with her that the days "...where people mind[ed] each other's kids or chat[ted] away a warm evening on the front stoop" are gone.

It's one of the challenges I have in my neighborhood as a SAHW.  All of my neighbors are married.  And only one other couple in my neighborhood doesn't have kids.  Many of the wives stay at home; but, they are SAHMs who are busy with their kids, homeschooling and soccer practice.  They even have their own homeschooling group in the neighborhood where they can interact with each other while their kids play alongside them.

Making neckties in the kitchen. The 11 year old girl and 13 year old boy work on the ties every day after school. The mother on right works steadily. Two neighbors help with the work. New York City., 02/23/1912

So where does a SAHW fit in? I guess exactly where the SAHM and her husband fit in.  I agree that everyone should work toward a goal of creating "...neighborly bonds...with quiet but real results." But Lovenheim suggests that "All we need to do is deliberately set out to know the person next door, or across the street, or down the block; to ring the bell and open the door."

If only it were that easy!