Virginia Commune Where 100 Adults Raise 17 Kids

At Twin Oaks, a 48-year-old, self-sustaining commune in rural Virginia, about 100 residents live and work and raise a passel of 17 kids.

How do you feel about this? Is this smart, weird or creepy?

Beth Greenfield for Yahoo News Reports:

It’s 8:30 a.m. on a Wednesday and one of the calmest school mornings I’ve ever witnessed: Anya, 6, is practicing the piano with impressive focus. She’s wearing a pink-and-lavender flowered dress and what appears to be an ever-present sparkly black scarf tied around her head (shaved during a recent lice breakout, though she did get her ears pierced out of the bargain). She pecks out a one-fingered version of “Do-Re-Mi” as mom Summer putters around in the adjacent kitchen and calls out instructions — “C! D! E!” — whenever she hears her get stuck.

Shortly after, her pal Finley, 3½, tumbles in with his dad, River. Both father and son have long, tangled hair and sleepy smiles. River nods at Summer, but they don’t speak — it’s too early and they’ve grown accustomed to the unique ease they have with each other, not family or roommates but something in between, sharing bathrooms and pots and pans and even child-rearing duties. They’re part of the same “small living group” in this sprawling, wood-beamed house at Twin Oaks, a 48-year-old commune in rural Virginia, where an ever shifting number of residents (averaging 100) live and work and raise a passel of kids (currently 17).

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