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In my search for community I have looked to communal societies, community land trusts, cohousing, and others to find a form of intentional community that would be accessible to working class families without many assets other than an abiding commitment to cooperative living. I emphasize "families" because surprisingly to me, I have learned that the communities which practice sharing to the greatest degree are the least welcoming of children.
Raising a child in community had always been my dream. I had dropped out of college to join a rural commune called East Wind, only to be kicked out after eight years of work and commitment for having a child without getting permission from the community. Today East Wind Community continues to restrict its child population to about one child for every 10 adults, which is not a problem for them because they can always attract more young adults, many of whom, however, eventually want to have children, which often then as in my experience results in their having to leave their home.
I knew that many monastic societies were childless because of the inheritance issue, which is that children in communal societies often want a share of community assets when they come of age so they can leave the community into which they were born.
Also, parents want to leave their children an inheritance other than the community itself. Unfortunately, other community members often do not want the drain on communal resources that children represent. It is my belief that this is ultimately why the dominant culture is a private-property system and is not and never will be communal.
Still committed to the lifestyle, I joined another communal society, Twin Oaks Community, which attempted for about two decades to maintain a communal childcare tradition, in which parents give decision-making power over their children to the group. This was a wonderful experience for my child and me, yet sometime after we left Twin Oaks, their communal childcare program ended. Today, both of these communal groups use a collective childcare system where the parents are primarily responsible for their children, while the communities may refuse some or all support for the children. In this way communal groups push out people with children, or else give up communalism...