By Melissa Wagoner
Co-living in the same house for the past ten years, the Pattison and the Neves families have often found themselves joking about what it would be like to be “a TLC reality TV show”.
“But we always said we weren’t dramatic enough,” Emily Neves said, referring to the everyday lifestyle the two families share.
But when a news program recently asked the families to “record something around the house,” both households decided the public interest around co-living might warrant additional consideration.
“People are always like, how does this work?” Emily said. “And there is just stuff that is hard to put into words.”
And so, in December 2022 the families created their very own YouTube Channel coined Life at The Burrow as a way of answering questions and giving information about a lifestyle that many people in this country and during this time are not familiar with.
“What even is co-living?” housemate Kate Pattison asked in The Burrow’s introductory video. “These days co-living is generally defined as three or more biologically unrelated individuals living in one house with some shared aspects of life. And it’s different than roommates because it’s very intentional. You might have separate bedrooms or some private space but the whole house is shared and in a lot of cases it’s co-owned… In North America we give co-living a special name, when really, for much of the rest of the world and throughout most of time, co-living was just… living.”
Perhaps because co-living is relatively rare – in 2021 only 18 percent of Americans lived in a multi-generational household, according to Kate’s husband, John – the logistics of life in a home with four adults, four children and one dog appears to fascinate people to the tune of 24,642 views and counting.
“We wanted to put [The Burrow] out as a potential resource for others,” Kate pointed out, referencing the handful of longform videos that cover topics like prepping the garden, making freezer jam and even welcoming home a new family member – the Neveses’ daughter, Kelly in June 2023 – along with the dozens of short videos members of the household create on a somewhat weekly basis.
“It’s just a new form of storytelling,” John, the author of the book Slow Church, said. “And the writer part of me loves that. The challenge is learning a new media. Right now, I do most of the editing. But Kate will take on more. And we all film.”
Which means each video features a slightly different perspective from the popular “Workday Fun: Filling the Woodshed” short – featuring the housemates’ quest to split and stack two years’ worth of firewood in one day to one entitled, “Burning Day: Surprised by a Spider” that shows how backyard maintenance happens Burrow-style.
“But our most popular YouTube short is one Kate did on getting and sorting the mail,” John said, referring to the video titled, “Co-living FAQ: How Do We Manage Our Mail?” which features Kate retrieving and then sorting the day’s mail into golden envelopes attached to each of the housemates’ doors.
“These are small, practical systems we’ve had to develop” John said.
And while many of those systems aren’t that different from the ones large families establish around schedules, mealtimes and chores, the fact that the Pattison-Neves household includes four adults instead of just two means some arrangements look a little bit different.
“We calendar, we meal plan and we have a chore chart,” Kate said. “But we’re managing a single-family home with four adult brains and four adult bodies. Everything is a rotation. So, each one of us cleans the bathroom once every five weeks and yet it gets cleaned every week.”
The household also shares finances, including the mortgage on the house.
“It’s just so expensive,” Emily said, describing the ways sharing finances has allowed the household to live a more abundant lifestyle. “This is one solution, and it makes everything more accessible.”
“We joke that it’s half price,” Kate added.
The finances are just one of the many benefits – raising children with the help of two more adults is another.
“One of the definite benefits of co-living and multi-generational co-living is you have parents or families at different stages of life,” Kate said in one of The Burrow’s videos that features baby Kelly asleep in an Ergo Carrier while Emily and her husband, Elijah, take a walk. “And so, I already did babies in the Ergo but now I get to experience babies in Ergos again as we support our housemates while they’re out… It’s sweet.”
It’s also beneficial to the children in the household – ranging in age from 15 all the way down to baby Kelly. But when it comes to filming those benefits, the Neveses and Pattisons are extremely cautious.
“One of our concerns with doing the channel was our kids and not wanting to exploit them or overshare,” Kate explained.
“Our kids are cute and funny,” Elijah added. “But the internet is forever.”
With that thought in mind, the families have made a conscious effort not to keep the children from being “front and center of the videos.” The Pattisons’ oldest daughter, Molly, has veto power over the sharing of any video that includes her.
The families didn’t want to eliminate the children’s presence entirely because, along with being instrumental in sharing their way of life, the videos are also a documentation of their time together in The Burrow.
“I love home videos,” Elijah said, of this secondary benefit. “So having these will be fun as the years go by. And having the motivation to do something with the thousands of videos is also nice.”
Viewers appear to agree.
“This is so interesting…” one commenter wrote. “Thanks for sharing.”
For more information visit
www.theburroworegon.com.
