To think society should stop glorifying self-care and prioritise community care?

I know you haven't said or implied it, us cynical old hags who have been round the block more than once know how these things worked. So no, not projection. Experience. HTH

And not considering how much this work generally fell and still falls to women is significant in itself.

totally agree with you.

I think this encouragement towards self-care can be particularly problematic in the workplace, where encouraging resilience and wellness can come at the expense of decent working conditions and adequate staffing levels.
People can't 'resilience' themselves out of everything, and I think the problem with some of this language is that it suggests that with enough inner strength and well-being, any individual can succeed in any circumstance, when actually sometimes the issues are actually structural.
This can obviously apply on a broader societal level too.

It does work, if you can establish the gentle contacts, and somehow, it does help to have a nice word with neighbours, get up to date on any issues. Nothing we do is hugely time consuming, or requires huge mental or physical commitment. It’s not structured, nothing is written or expected in tablets of stone.

For context, I do fully understand those that talk about how tired and fed up they are, how any extra thing might seem a huge add on. I am a full time carer with my sister for our very elderly Mum. She has severe dementia, lives her life between a bed and a special chair, but is rich in love and comfort. I also have my lovely OH who gives his help and support, despite having Cancer. He is about to have his fourth big operation, but the love of his family, and the good wishes of all our nice neighbours goes a long way to lightening the load and brightening the day. Offers of help in all sorts of ways have been great.

This is a really good point.

I also think theres a lot of benefit to the church and other faiths and the communities they create but there’s also control and these are very patriarchal and paternalistic organisations and there are strings attached.

Ditto political parties and charities. I think all these organisations and forms of social support have an agenda, whether it’s moral or political.

One of the reasons people move to cities is because they find these networks and their moral values stifling. They choose to surround themselves with their own ready made communities but they are naturally individualistic people who don’t want their life trajectory shaped by the community they grew up in.

”Self care” is a bit of a bullshit term but I think the most useful thing about it is the ability to draw boundaries and establish how far you want others, including “the community” to impinge upon your life.

A lot of people have spent much of their lives trying to get away from “the community” and have worked really hard to define themselves in opposition to it. These people don’t want to be dragged back into a web of obligations and a moral code determined by someone else.

I've been thinking more about this and I think it can be really complicated. For example, thinking back to the time when my DS was born - lots of people wanted to visit, to hold the baby, some brought me home cooked food. That was nice, and that was community.

But then they also criticised me steadily and relentlessly for years, for not mind-reading them at the time and doing what they expected me to do. For example I couldn't eat some of the things that they brought because of food intolerance, and they couldn't hold the baby as much as they wanted. He turned out to be ND and extremely sensitive but we didn't know that at the time, so I couldn't articulate why he needed not to be passed around. There were other factors that caused the problem but family sensitivities meant that I wasn't allowed to ask questions and was expected to just toe the line which meant that the "help" offered was anything but helpful.

I think the community is good but it can also be immensely hard work to maintain. I think we see that in the constant deluge of threads on MN about how to sensitively manage minor conflict at the school gate and at children's parties and all that stuff.

I think that those who do the work to maintain community should be regarded with the respect and gratitude that they deserve, and people should be more understanding when they try to "help" and realise that maybe they should ask first and listen a bit.

We are in a weird place in society where we are exhausted and therefore need to take care of ourselves and have normalised recharging and taking time for yoh - which is a good thing. And also being true to yourself - for example not forcing yourself to do things you really don’t want to do or that might go against and instinct or desire (example - a friend mentioned how we would push kids to hug a stranger, but if they don’t want to, why should you - strange example but hope it makes sense).

At the same time we are craving connection and that is because we think so much about our own needs that we have forgotten that there is a nice feeling when you are connected to an ecosystem.

Community is so important - and a very good community feeds into your self care routine. The amount of times a person in my network has offered to babysit for instance or has taken me out or invited me somewhere when I’ve spent days at home - all of this feeds into self care and caring for others - if it’s not done as a chore but way of life.

I agree. There's also the factor of people moving around more - I've moved twice in the last six years, and in all that time I was my mother's full-time carer. I am really. Not. Interested in taking on anything resembling that role again, let alone for people who are only acquaintances. That's what social services (which seem to be in a better state in my part of Australia than in Britain) are for. I certainly don't want neighbours doing that sort of thing. Feels too much like an exchange of favours would become the norm.

ETA the norm as in expected and virtually required. Just another job, in other words.