AIBU to not need "the village"?

[holycannaloni]

Prompted to ask this by a number of threads over the last few days, and particularly today (childless friends with friend with baby, person whose family is all on holiday without them, childless weddings), where people end up asking "where is the village nowadays?" The concept of needing "a village" to be a parent seems to be such an online Mum-ism of the last few years, and I just don't get it. I've never felt the need for a big group of friends and relatives to pitch in with child-raising, or for me to pitch in with them, and I don't see it in the parents around me either.

I suppose I'm lucky in some senses as I have a great husband who is completely 50/50 on all home and children things, and we earn enough money that we have been able to pay for the nurseries that we've needed over the years, but that's not to say it's always been easy. But we've just gotten on with it, as have most of my peers who have children. Both our sets of parents are abroad, and we don't have other family in the UK, so it's not like we're getting loads of family help either.

I guess I just don't recognise this craving for a village, or a bemoaning that the UK isn't like other countries who apparently are better at child raising in this collective way. It's nice that our children (and us!) have close friends and that our families love our kids and feel close to them, which they do, but this collaborative parenting isn't something we've ever looked for.

Does anyone else feel that the mystical "village" actually sounds a bit OTT, or am I just the odd one out on here?

Parented first child with no external help whatsoever, no nursery, no parents, no close friends nearby. DH worked 12 hour days an hour away. Obviously it can be done and is by millions but I wouldn’t fucking recommend it😂 Saying otherwise feels a bit like making a virtue out of a necessity IYSWIM.

Youngest DC is ten and we recently moved house. The people next door have a DC the same age. I am blown away by how much life easier is when there’s someone else there. It’s a two way street, I do stuff to help too, but it’s not even that we’re always calling on one another, we are all pretty organised and the kids aren’t tiny. I just feel like there’s a net under us I never had before. If I’m stuck in traffic with three minutes to pick-up I’ve got someone to ring, and vice versa. So I do think there’s a lot to be said for having a community, whatever form that takes.

That probably does have an influence. We live in the arse end of nowhere. I do live in an actual village of about 15 houses. No shop, just a post office. The kids friends are spread out and there’s no bus. Activities are all very spread across a wide area. Lift sharing is essential. But it’s normal. Just makes everyone’s life that bit easier. As I said above, DH is away a lot. Trading favours isn’t essential but does help.

Post box, not post office. The nearest one of those is about 20 minutes drive away!

Of course you don't need a "village". You have a supportive husband and enough money to buy whatever childcare you need!

My understanding of the phrase is that it means parents are not the only influence in a child's life. It refers to the wider community, school, church, friends, neighbours etc. It's not necessarily about physically caring for them but creating a positive and caring community for the family to thrive in. The support might be physical I suppose but could also be emotional, educational, spiritual. It might be influence or support you are not directly aware of even.

I live in London too but definitely value a village. There's practical stuff (lifts can be taking another child on the bus with us if another parent collects) and mutual playdate swaps in the holidays etc, but that's not what I understand the phrase to mean. I think it means valuing the role a broader set of people have for educating and instilling values in your child - actively welcoming correction or guidance from others - staff in the library telling them to keep it down and be mindful of others, a parent in the park reminding kids to take turns or whatever. In my childhood that was just normal and it either reinforced messages from home or was part of learning that what's appropriate at home isn't always acceptable elsewhere. It wasn't actively railed against as far as I recall - adults backed each other up.

Look around you. Who might need a village or a bit of help?

You are evidently very self-reliant (and lucky). For one thing you appear to have confident healthy social children without any additional needs.

I'd be propitiating fate and paying it forward!

OP what choices did you make to ensure you wouldn’t have a child with a disability?

100% this.

The lack of self awareness in the OP is staggering. She has a village!

And I didn't "need" a village either. But I was so pleased I had one. My children had lots of contact with all sorts of people. They grew up seeing people modelling friendship and cooperation and helping out "just because." And occasionally, the opposite! Their lives were incredibly enriched by the "village" we lived in.

I have lived abroad, so no family to help out. Now we’re back in england it is definitely nice to be able for a night away or go to concert with my husband that we wouldn’t have been able to do without family to look after the kids. If you and your husband don’t feel the need to do those things, that’s great for you but I’m sure you can understand how others might want to.

Your husband and the nurseries you've used are your village. You have literally just told us you need a village. YABU, you are very privileged to be in your position. Many women lose their husbands, are in DV relationships and have no access to life outside of their marriage and no support from their husband. There are literally thousands of scenarios out there which don't match the 'bit lazy or a bit weak' narrative you seem to have spun here.

Do your kids have freakishly good immune systems OP? I don't think you need a village for your main source childcare, but it's horrendously stressful trying to sort out what to do when nursery age children catch every bug under the sun and there is no extended family nearby to help.

It's one of the key reasons that we won't be having a second child. Nursery works fine and dandy until it's Nov-Feb, when it turns into a plague pit. We wouldn't be able to hold down our jobs if we had two sets of child illnesses to deal with and no one local to help.

She has. It’s in her first post

Both our sets of parents are abroad, and we don't have other family in the UK, so it's not like we're getting loads of family help either.

The nursery workers are your village!

Imagine a young mum with a baby & PND, DH is a military officer and they live in the middle of nowhere behind the wire. Now imagine that family being posted to a new job…….in Europe and still with PND.

So yes, some people do really need a support community around them and don’t actually have the choice of one.
Your ‘village’ was your children’s nursery. That enabled you to work, chat to other adults (again, the ‘village’) and have a lovely life. Not everybody has that choice or outcome.

Then clearly you DO have support in place to care for your children when you go into labour, or when your car breaks down on your way to collect your child from school.

You've said you would call a friend if you were unable to sort it yourself (i.e. your partner wasn't able to e.g. collect your child from school when your car breaks down) - that's exactly what I mean.

Would you rather give birth alone so your partner could mind your other children, rather than call a friend to babysit? I don't think that's a positive form of self sufficiency, more a resigned "get on with it myself" attitude.

I have many friends I can call on if I need to. Thinking back to the last 'crisis' - I called a friend to collect me from the side of the road after a minor car accident. I could have waited up to 4 hours for road side recovery in the cold, but it seemed wise to call a friend.

I also called a friend when my son got stranded due to miscommunication. I am a lone parent and make no apologies for using my village.

My son is getting more independent now and so I will be able to do more to help others.

You do have a "village" though. You have a husband, childcare, school, friends with kids who you are close to... I think the "collaborative parenting" you reference is something else entirely. I think when someone lacks "the village" it means they have no one to fall back on. I don't want to "collaboratively parent" with anyone, they're my kids. But I am appreciate of my privilege to put them in nursery, and of the weekends I spend with my friends and their kids which gives them a community to grow up in, and of my friends who will have them overnight or collect them from school if I get stuck at work.

Surely a 'village' is more than just you and your DH?

I'm sure you're great parents, you have ensured your family have had what they need. But maybe if your kids had more access to a 'village', you'd see it differently- through their eyes as well as your own?

My (single) mum certainly benefitted from 'the village.' But I did too. I have close relationships with male and female cousins who are quite like siblings now. I've layers upon layers of grandparents/elders, uncles, aunts, family friends etc. I feel absolutely protected and supported. Unsurprisingly, it comes from being parented by these people at some point, alongside my cousins (we all got the same treatment... good and bad.. but we could be absolute monsters lol). I observed and contributed to how people can support one another over the years (I am truly honoured that I got the chance to help care for all 4 of my grandparents before they died). I remember when an uncle had a MH 'breakdown' but I got to spend an entire summer with my youngest cousin (she stayed with us). It was the best summer ever for me, and my cousin remembers it fondly as she was completely shielded. She is now very successful (think Hollywood), yet she is still in frequent contact with us all.

The support I have received from them means the world to me also. I can't even begin to describe it for fear of happy tears. I am now happily married with 2 DC, who are fully established members of the above village, as well as their fathers lol. Maybe that's one slightly bigger village, instead of 2 separate ones?

Anyway, I could go on, but I guess my point is to look further than yourself when it comes to the needs of your family. Imo, unless you are truly secluded, you already have a village. Embrace it.

"The village "stepped in when a family member was diagnosed with cancer. They cared for her three ,young children and husband , were by her side emotionally and practically until the end and when she died her friends organised the wake. They carried on caring and just being there for years afterwards.
Family helped obviously, but were several hours away. These were local friends and they could not have managed without them.

Me and DH had absolutely nobody when we were bringing DD up. No friends, no family, nothing. I'd have loved the support of a tiny secluded hamlet in the middle of nowhere, let alone a village.

When you have nobody to have a cry to when they're throwing their teenage worst at you, nobody to ask for advice when they're teething, nobody to share their achievements with, nobody to babysit (we didn't have an evening out for 14 years and only went away together overnight for the first time when she was 16), nobody just to have a chat to... Yes. You really feel it.

It may just mean you’re introverted or that you prefer your circle to be closer in—your husband and children. And since your husband is 50 50 and is very supportive, and you’re both in good shape physically, emotionally, and financially, and so are your children, then it’s fine and of course you don’t crave or need anything else, as to be honest, being married and having children, that day to day is all encompassing and busy and there’s little room for much else including friends or wider family.

But yes, the concept of the village, the community, here in the USA we have neighborhoods, same idea. I will say that sense of community is not the same as it was. When I was growing up, our neighborhood felt like an extension of our house and garden. Safe to explore but feel independent as a kid. Sidewalks and wide streets, church bells ringing on Sunday mornings, little stores, gas station, mostly houses. We kids would ride our bikes or walk to the nearest park (7 blocks) which had a tennis court and swings, there is a little store down the street from my parents where we’d get candy, and a pharmacy across the street from there that had (still has) a soda fountain and made hamburgers and hot dogs and fries, it was a treat to have that for lunch and cold cups of coke with ice. The neighbors were all around and seemed to look out for each other. We spent time with the close neighbors beside and a lady behind us, trick or treated, there was even an old condemned house at the edge of our neighborhood that we kids ventured to on our bikes, it was exciting. Played outside til dark. I’m sure a lot of people have similar experiences. Cousins came over in the summer and for 4th of July cook outs. Aunts and uncles. My mother gets regular visits from church pastor and others from church now that she can’t get there as often.

People do seem more to themselves now. My son played with one neighborhood boy and we do have a neighborhood garden club but I relied more on other moms mostly whose children were my son’s age, and my mother, sister and SILs. ‘Playdates’ were the thing. And watching each other’s children when one of us was working.

You all have the ‘village pub’ and different kinds of communities but it’s all the same idea. When I watch escape to the country, every couple wants to be in a village near the pub 😀. That sounds nice to me.

And we walked to our grammar school which was about nine blocks away. The best school ever. Big old beautiful building full of character. A giant fallen log we’d take turns leaping over at recess.

Ok I’ll bite.

I have abusive parents and a disengaged extended family.

I met someone who had a heavily involved family and I believe him when he said we were 50/50 on childcare, housework etc turned up it was all an act - Mr Cyclist had other ideas. All the women in his family stayed home - he didn’t want me staying home as I earnt twice his salary but he also wanted me to the do the stay at home told. His parents didn’t see why I was so lazy - out at work 8-5 pm and then I would pick the children up from nursery and so all of that - make him dinner whilst he went to work, went out cycling and left me to do it all. Every time I pulled him up on it I got told off as he was a new dad and his mum didn’t see why I shouldn’t get up. Our marriage became abusive and after court and police we divorced.

So I have two children under 5 and I need to be in work or leave for work at 7.15 am nursery doesn’t open until 8. I finish at 5.30 pm but being a teacher this is without marking, prepping or anything else. Then of course, my own children have clubs, homework etc and I have nobody to tag team to do 50% I do it all. Every last bit. I can’t be ill - I just can’t.

I can’t ask another mum to drop mine off every morning for me and have them an hour before school - that’s proper cheeky fuckery.

money wise I don’t qualify for benefits. But I don’t get CMS either.

I’ lucky I have a fab church and great friends - if I have a parent evening or something I need it.

do you really not get how having a lovely supportive partner means you can take your eyes off them, go out, go in the bath - lessen the physical and mental load - are you so arrogant you can’t see your privilege?