"A few years ago, Marice, thirty-nine, moved from China to the United States with her teenage son. She had a good job in human resources in Washington, DC, but the transition was difficult. There were language differences and cultural differences, and she was raising her son on her own. Eventually, she realized how she wanted to live — in a big house with lots of other people who would be like family.
"She rented a six-bedroom house in a tree-lined neighborhood just off the tangle of highways around DC. She and her son took one room each and then she set out to find housemates to rent the other four. She hoped that some of them would be people like her, who had come to the United States from other countries. She wanted to help them make the adjustment. When I visit, Diego, a young man from Mexico, is in one of them and an Iranian couple in another. The remaining two went to Americans — Paul Godbout, a sixty-two-year-old single dad from DC, who shows me around the house, and his twenty-year-old son, who is planning to move into the other bedroom soon.
"As the person who dreamed up the idea of creating this family of choice and then made it happen, Marice could have laid down the rules of the house. But that's not how chosen families work — especially when all of the family members are adults. Instead, they all get together periodically to craft the rules they will live by. Their current list includes the following:
"• The common good trumps individual wants.
• All rules must be agreed upon by everyone.
• All rules are subject to change.
• Personal items stay in personal spaces.
• Each person is responsible for keeping his or her own room clean.
• Responsibility for the shared spaces is divided among the housemates. (Paul and his son take care of the backyard.)
• When you leave a common space, it should look the same as it did when you entered it.
• Use utilities sparingly; turn off lights in rooms that are not in use.
• Use the washer and dryer only when the noise won't bother the others.
• No wearing shoes inside the house and no feet on the furniture. (Those are Paul's least favorite rules. In a place of his own, he'd put his feet up on the coffee table while watching television. Still, he says he doesn't mind. 'It's good for me.')
• Everyone buys his or her own food. There are designated shelves for items that people want to share.
• No food in the bedrooms.
• Anyone who breaks a rule places a quarter in the piggy bank."
