To think some people on here can be a bit naive with regard to ‘the village’?

[Buildyourvillage]

I see it quite a lot on here, that if you need sudden childcare either because of an emergency or last minute change of plans, you should have a village to call on.

I found out I was expecting my (planned!) baby a couple of weeks after the first lockdown was announced, but I was still determined to be as sociable as possible. My own parents died before I turned 30, so I didn’t have them as support, but we had DHs parents although they live about an hour and a half away.

We did the NCT course and we were really lucky as everyone in our group hit it off and I know not everyone does. However, we’re a little widespread geographically and most significantly, out of six of us, four went back to work FT: two straightaway, two initially went back PT but then got different FT jobs.

Toddler classes here are hit and miss at best. We do the activity with the toddlers and I am always friendly and sociable but somehow it’s hard to strike up meaningful conversations beyond ‘how old is she …’

I have seen on another thread that you should be apparently organising childcare swaps with other mums to cover for school holidays and the like and I’m not against that in theory but in practice I do wonder if one persons village is another persons CF. AIBU?

The random school person is being paid to be there.

The idea that everyone can have a village of people able to get their kids at any time of the day is laughable.

@Buildyourvillage I’m super social and make friends easily (I will talk to anyone) and I most definitely don’t have a village.

Parents and PIL arent local and it’s great having mummy friends but most are also working / have their own lives to live. In a true emergency Im sure I could call a friend but most are 15-30min drive away. None one round the corner etc.

I always find the people saying you need a village have lived in the area as a child with a great family network.

It must be so much harder for more introverted people!

I have seen on another thread that you should be apparently organising childcare swaps with other mums to cover for school holidays and the like and I’m not against that in theory but in practice I do wonder if one persons village is another persons CF. AIBU?

Nope. I'm the type of person who has always been happy for my kid to have as many kids over as she likes (partly because I'm not house-proud 😂 and because I find it easier when she's busy with friends than if I had to entertain her on my own). Her best friend's mum is the polar opposite and almost never wants to have anyone over. So 99.999% of the time her best friend has always been at our house- for weekends, for half term holidays, sometimes she comes and doesn't go home for a few days/a week over the holidays 😅 I really don't mind to be honest. It makes my life easier if they are together and entertain each other.

In my experience, it is because people place to much emphasis on that help coming from family. (know this is not the case from others).
Not childcare, but other end of the scale. We lost my gran 3 months ago. She needed care, but all that fell on my mum and myself, despite having a larger family. They CBA basically. Mum used to say all the time 'we have no help, nobody cares'. We had to rephrase that to 'we have no help 'from family'. We found that other people WANTED to care. Several people from our community, our church, neighbours, several came and sat with her, popped in to make her a cup of tea, did little things that helped us a lot. If we had relied on family, sure, we would have had nothing, but by extending that scope a bit, we did have a network (perhaps not a village, but something).

@Buildyourvillage we do have all our parents, grandparents and best friends near by. I can't think of a time that I haven't been able to drop some pain killers and just get on with having DS no matter how I'll I feel. We would of course help friends if they asked but would find it a little weird. When I was a child my parents and my best friends parents organised a childcare swap around school hours/holidays but ours mums had also both been best friends since childhood. Our kids are now friends (boy and girl so not as close). It's a a small town!

I'm not in this situ yet but I've seen with my step kids that their mum maybe... errr... stretches the limits of her village in terms of getting others to cover her childcare commitments!

Maybe I'm the idiot but I would feel too embarrassed to be inviting my child over to other people's houses after school or after pick-ups from tennis practice (oh so if they're going to yours, can you just get them all from practice as you're going to get your child anyway?).

So yes, I think the "village" is sometimes a bit of a convenience rather than a naturally evolved network of connected friends and supporters! I think it can be but I think there's two ends of a spectrum here.

Not RTFT so apologies if this has already been covered but it's annoyed and upset me in the past when I felt like people were being friendly by inviting my child and me round but then it turns out that they were actually just setting up some childcare options.

I also had a neighbour who was always offering help that I didn't need or take and then asked DH if we could have her twins every week after school until 6.30pm and feed them. He said yes without consulting me and I landed up doing it for a while. I don't mind helping people out but it was done in such a conniving way that it left a sour taste in my mouth.

The whole meeting other parents so you can help each other out in emergencies doesn't make sense, because if you are a working parent, it's more likely that the other parents that you meet socially also work, so they are not going to be in a position to help out when childcare falls through on a workday, nor are you.

Having a child has been a real eye opener to how the current system is stacked against both parents keeping their careers without oodles of nearby family help. Before I had my DS, I had no idea just how frequently he would get sent home from nursery with illnesses (and often it's not even an illness, e.g. if he vomits just once, it's a 48 hrs out of nursery, even when it's clearly a one off and not a D&V bug.)

There's an expectation by the nursery that at least one parent can seamlessly take time off work to deal with this, and an expectation by your employers that you can't take repeated days off. It's a nightmare.

Before I had my own child, I never understood why so many women quit their jobs once they have kids, but I can now see why some couples think "sod this for a game of soldiers", and decide that it's less stress to live on one income and not have to constantly juggle work and childhood illnesses.

We just spent £190 on an emergency babysitter this week, because our DS had loose stools from teething and we were worried nursery would consider this suspected D&V. We both had very important work commitments that fell on the same day, which we couldn't miss.

It's my number one reason for not considering a second child. While it would be nice for DS to have a sibling, juggling two sets of illnesses would kill any chance of us both maintaining our careers.

@MaybeOneAndDone The whole meeting other parents so you can help each other out in emergencies doesn't make sense, because if you are a working parent, it's more likely that the other parents that you meet socially also work, so they are not going to be in a position to help out when childcare falls through on a workday, nor are you.

Well, someone is picking up your kid from school (if it's primary) so in case of an emergency another parent can ask you to pick their kid up as well and take them to your house until they collect and vice versa. Has happened to me many times.

Has it really never happened to posters on this thread that they have asked another school parent if they could collect their kid after school or asked them if your kid could go to theirs for a "playdate" because you have something ok that can't be moved? I've done it many times over the years (my kid is now a teen) and have also agreed to help my daughter's' friends' parents.

have something on*

Yes, possibly useful when you get to wraparound stage and the emergency doesn't relate to illness.

However, if my 20 month old gets sent home from nursery because of a slight temperature, any friends that I made on mat leave would not be able to help because they are at work themselves. You can't create your own village for nursery age children.

The village isn't just about tit for tat favours and childcare though.

It's difficult to make friends and takes time and effort.

One thing I find on Mumsnet is how many people aren't bothered about getting to know people, are all about their little family, won't open the front door, won't do anything spontaneous with people unless someone's booked an appointment several days in advance, don't know their neighbours, are awful in the way they talk about parents at the school gates (remember parents chatting to pass the time at the gates are never friendly, they're always evil bitchy cliques), never have time to volunteer or get involved in anything that might put them in contact with other parents etc and then seem surprised that they haven't made a network of friends.

I agree with this.

I really don't understand why Mumsnetters are so hostile about the school run or other school parents. I can honestly say that I have never had a single bad experience on the school run/with another school parent. 🤷‍♀️

If only it were as simple as "be open and friendly to other parents and all your childcare emergencies are solved!" I have made a huge effort to get to know parents with similarly aged children. I didn't do this for childcare reasons, but so DS would get to see other kids his age and I could have some camaraderie re being a new parent.

I am very happy to have made these friendships, but it has done bugger all to help with childcare emergencies (I also never expected nor anticipated that it would serve this purpose). I can only see it helping at nursery age if you and the parents you befriended were both stay at home parents.

The "my little family" mindset is, in my opinion, really damaging.

You are right in that one person's village is another person's CF.

I was at school every day (drop off and pick ups) so knew everyone really well, but it took me until about year 4 before I would've felt it appropriate to ask another mum for emergency childcare/lift somewhere for the kids etc.

Of course in a dire emergency id have done it. But i wouldnt have wanted to because I wouldn't have wanted to appear to be a CF.

If I was working FT and all the other mums were working FT then I can see how a reciprocal arrangement would work well. But as it stood I wasn't and I wouldn't want someone else child foisted on me without there being a very good reason.

I have to admit that I was really surprised at how many people on here don't know their neighbours at all. I don't know how it's representative oflife outside of MN in UK but it's odd and takes away the community which is the village, literally.

I agree OP

It's even more complicated when you are a lone parent/live rurally/kids with additional needs.

A lot of people don't have a clue.

@Elephantinasandstorm yes I know all my neighbours too. Not in the same way my parents know their neighbours (like they literally know the whole street, are on a neighbourhood WhatsApp group etc) but I know them.

In fact when we move in anywhere, one of the first tasks is to knock on and say hi and introduce ourselves to people living in a reasonable radius of the house. So i knock on houses 3 doors down either side and across the street from us.

I think you can be very friendly and not get any help. Where I am most people have family to help so they don’t need to reciprocate for me if I have their kids, because their mum will have them. It’s a lot of luck if you have a friend, neighbour or acquaintance that’s willing to help out with childcare.

I've always done condensed FT hours and you are absolutely right. My spare time is at gym to keep me healthy (sendentary job) and running errands. I know maybe one person who might help but they work too. I don't get much time to socialise. One set of GPs are barely in touch and make little effort and the other set work too, one gp has ggp to sort out too.

I think the people who suggest this are part-time or SAHP's, or older MNtters who had kids when the economic situation didn't demand 2x FT wages and maybe didn't work.

I think the village is a thing of the past. People don't retire at 60 anymore and you can't survive on one wage unless it's a very good one, so not much time for being sociable in the early years.

That's what I'm thinking about OP the context she's giving isn't even the correct definition

Same. It's not usually friendships lile my paremts had but knowing who is there and have some like "Yallright Jane. How is the garden going?" relationship is good.
When we were kids our elderly neighbour minded us in his house emergency when dad had to take mum to hospital. Another neighbour passed us fruit from his garden during seasons.
We knew we could knock on anyone's door 5 houses up and down in emergency and they would help while our parents got there etc. My friends there still have this, but it's bit more difficult in UK tbh. Though I managed to get into goods exchange with 2 neighbours on our street within 6 months being there😂