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?

But you've got a village!
You said you have close family friends, and nursery!

I really dislike threads like this - "I don't understand why I'm so amazing at coping and others aren't".

I don't the term village is really about childcare per say. It is more about an entire community of people to interact positively for a child to grow positively in a safe and healthy. It suggests parents cannot meet a child's every need and children need a variety of positive role models.

I agree.

It’s quite sad if there is none of this “village” in a child’s life (and it would be like a permanent Covid lockdown!). It doesn’t need to mean grandparents who live locally and who are young enough and have enough spare time to do lots of childcare.

I didn’t grow up with close grandparents but I grew up with neighbours who popped by, friends of my parents I saw regularly, their young kids that I eventually started babysitting for as a teenager.

My kids have play dates. I have NCT friends I still see. They have music lessons with a local teacher. All of these and much more add up to my “village”.

I moved to a new city when DD was a baby and didn't make any friends. Not by choice, I tried (went to parent and toddler groups, got involved with the PTA, etc) but everyone seemed to be sorted in their own friendship groups and seemed to see me as an outsider. My friends from my home city drifted away (I didn't have many anyway) as they got married and had DC of their own. DH has never had friends and isn't interested in having any. I'm disabled now and haven't worked since before DD was born (hoped to go back when she was at school but chronic illness/disability put paid to that) so haven't made friends that way. DD didn't have many friends when she was little, she was never invited to parties or to people's houses.

Nobody ever asked for help. I used to offer to pick up other parents' DC from school or offer to babysit but nobody ever wanted me to. If I asked other mums if their DC would like to come for tea or whatever they always said no/they were busy/maybe another time.

Family wise DH is NC with his and mine are dead, there was only me and DM and DF who both lived hundreds of miles away anyway but died when I was in my 20s.

It's been very lonely and it still is. I moved from one major English city to another so not rural at all, but people here never accepted me. I once overheard other parents laughing at me and DD's accents in the playground and doing impressions of us. It was always very clear we didn't fit in, even though we tried to.

We have 4 'children' aged 20 (now at uni), 18 (about to go to uni), 15 and 13. We are in Central London. I have been a SAHM the whole way. I can say we have had no family help whatsoever for our kids as both sides are overseas. I have taken them to every club / activity / you name it (or DH has on weekends), until they were old enough to go themselves. They went for three short mornings (9.15- 12.15) to a playgroup nursery from the age of three to when they started reception. Apart from that - nothing. But they are very independent. The eldest worked overseas / travelled the world alone before uni. None of them are clingy. Loads of friends but we never relied or asked 'favours' from anyone. My husband used to work abroad a lot as well. I did find lots of people used to try and palm their kids off with me during holidays ('because you're there anyway'), but in the end, I just told people 'no' if it didn't suit our plans.

With kindness, OP, I do think you need to check your privilege. Not on your 50/50 husband, but many of the other things you have said - particularly the waiting until you were older and more established, and selecting the ‘right’ husband, before deciding to have children. Many people can’t even climb that rung of establishment before their fertile years are over. Many people (men and women both) are let down by who they thought was the ‘right’ partner. Using nursery was your village - it doesn’t really matter if you think it was or not. The people who do regard themselves as needing a village would need a much smaller one by far if they could afford nursery.

You say you ‘struggled massively’ during the childcare years. OK - so you wouldn’t have appreciated more of a village then? If not, then why describe yourself as having struggled massively?

Irrespective of all the above, even if you haven’t ever felt that way and always felt fine and dandy ‘getting on with it’, what is the point in a post disparaging people who need extra support, for any one of the hundreds of reasons someone might need extra support? Or not feel as if they have the means to ‘get on with it’? And if you didn’t feel fine and dandy, then what’s your point?

‘It takes a village’ is also a phrase old enough to predate fathers being expected to join in child rearing 50/50 and before nurseries and play groups etc became the norm for socialisation and support.

For what it’s worth I have a 50/50 husband and the means to employ a nanny. Do I still feel like I need a village to do a good job? Absolutely.

I've never thought the phrase was intended to convey that parents should expect to offload their responsibilities on others. I think it's about the fact that it is preferable for dc to grow up as part of a community (as in, part of extended family, part of school, local community etc), that living in siloed families is missing something about how we are meant to live.

It’s not unreasonable for people to ‘want’ a village, but totally different to when people actually feel entitled to one. Supportive hands on friends and family is lovely to have, and I felt grateful for it when I needed them, but equally if they weren’t hands on, I wouldn’t have judged them for it. I just feel that some parents have an expectation that everyone should rally round when they start a family, without having any discussion beforehand with members of the ‘village’, which is from an unfair position of self entitlement. Having lots of help is a bonus and shouldn’t be automatically assumed.

I think you do have a village OP. You don't realise it though.

It's not just about help and childcare.

There are the school teachers in your kids lives that they see every day.

The sports coach.

The theatre/drama teacher.

Your adult friends who see your children.

This is just from what you have mentioned. It's not just about rotas of people bring around casseroles.

Ive been a lone parent since both of my kids were preschoolers, so thats 18 years now. No family locally. And no useful family that arent local. No village either. Its been blooming hard tbh. Doable but hard. Id LOVE a village.

You have been very fortunate to avoid serious ill health or that of your children.

We are pretty self sufficient but have good networks but no family nearby. I don’t think it’s optimal to raise children entirely alone, independence is importance but so is asking for help and learning to do so directly. No personal is an island we are all inter related.

Sorry for typos!

Last night was my son's prom - my village was the Wapp group of parents letting each other know where different kids were and when they'd got in and if any picking up was needed.

My son and his friends have a very friendly relationship, with lots of banter, with one of the school bus drivers. They all had a photo at the end of the year. He is part of the village .

I never wanted the village as it usually comes with all manner of strings, paybacks, nosiness and pettiness along with people feeling entitled to have opinions on you and your family, and I'm fairly private.
But I would agree the comments that being able to be like that is only if don't need any help.

I do think that some people are resistant to the "village" because they think they will be taken advantage of in some way. This fear seems to be very prevalent on Mumsnet where people seem incredibly transactional. Less so in real life, IMO.

I never wanted the village as it usually comes with all manner of strings, paybacks, nosiness and pettiness along with people feeling entitled to have opinions on you and your family, and I'm fairly private.

Hmm - what a nasty place it sounds to you.

I think that 'usually comes ' is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Think we established early on that the OP didn’t understand what “village” really means.

Oh Mavis it's a hard drag now -

Think we established early on that the OP didn’t understand what “village” really means.

I was replying to Orders tbh.

The 'village' is all well and good until one of the villagers asks for a lift from the airport at 4am.

(This is a joke btw)

The phrase it takes a village has been around for donkeys years, not a new thing.

It means a "community" around your kids. All your posts show you do have a village, your kids are close (relationship not geographical) with their grandparents and go to stay with them, they had a nursery to attend thru are around your close friends and they have relationships inside and outside of school.

You do have a village, it's not just you and your husband.

@mewkins "The 'village' is all well and good until one of the villagers asks for a lift from the airport at 4am.

(This is a joke btw)"

I know it's a joke-but that's kind the point-somewhere in your village there'll be someone who's happy to do that!

I've never really considered the notion of a 'village' prior to this thread, as it's an overused concept which has almost become twee sounding, in the vein of 'finding one's tribe'.
But, read all comments with interest and, on reflection, I think my 'village' has been each and every person who has contributed positively in any way, shape or form to my daughters' lives: be it the random kindness of a stranger, or positive male role models, such as my daughters' Headmaster in their preschool/first school, or my 2 really good male friends.

In the absence of my biological family and the father being the other side of the country (and his family in Europe), we've definitely had help along the way in a variety of ways and, knowing that I alone would never be enough for my girls, I've created a network of sorts along the way.

It has been a tough 5 years since my girls were born and we are far from where I'd like us to be, but we're getting there and I don't think we'd be in the more stable position we are currently in had I not 'grown our village' (did I really just say that? I, top, have become nauseatingly twee, fit for a Facebook meme!).

Fuck me, has there ever been a more tone-deag post?