To think people complain about the lack of real connection but don’t want the responsibility of being a villager?

[FluentOpalFox]

Everyone’s talking about how lonely and disconnected the world feels but when it comes to showing up for others, offering support or doing the unglamorous emotional labour of real community, they disappear. People want to receive connection but few want to offer it. AIBU to think that’s the real reason so many of us feel isolated?

Apart from the stewarding, it’s far from being anything like hobbies. Parish council work ain’t all Vicar of Dibley, believe me, as I’ve spent around 16 hours this week in the fight against a new development with a very apparent road safety issue. Every Friday I cook for circa 25 to encourage older age companionship (it works). All unpaid in money, but paid double in social benefits.
Now sneer about me doing something for nothing…..

My family are just like yours but i see on here all the time new mums that refuse to let Grandparents see the baby ( especially paternal grandparents) then they are raging a year later because the grandparents don't jump when she snaps here fingers and demands childcare. A newborn is a new member of the family but we have so many women that see themselves as the madonna.

Totally agree - am having a period myself where my usual group seems to just be ghosting most attempts to meet up. What's the actual point of us being "friends" if you ignore messages and won't ever suggest anything yourself?

We're about to move on a bit from our usual snippets of catch up at school run as the kids are getting older etc and I can honestly see it happening that I will never see some of them again!

You do have to actually maintain friendships and I think people get a bit slack on this front and just expect them to still be there if and when they need it

I haven’t managed this in part due to adult diagnosed autism (therefore no help at Amy point with how to have relationships.)

My parents OTOH live and act as part of a village including when working FT in pressured jobs. Helped being in a church but my mother also helped at local drama group once a week. A mixture attended.

It meant during Covid they/we got a lot of help. Then my
parents were involved in online quizzes with the church. that was very much voluntary, lots of people didn’t have the desire or ability to take part and it was understood by everyone. There was no pressure to participate.

Now as older and less able there are younger people that help them (some who were in that drama group).

People rely a lot on healthy retirees or wealthy SAHMs for 'the village' from my experience. I intend to offer up help if/when Im a healthy retiree (or a lot more psrt time than I am now). There is some of this where I live but local mag is always pleading for more volunteers for a range of things. I sense people are offering up a lot less than they used to.

I think people have less spare time, there are less SAHMs and the retirement age keeps going up.

I feel like DH and I are villagers and have a village but we are lucky in that I work 4 days a week and DHs job is really flexible.

If I'm honest I'd like to be able to work less and help out in my community more...I think I'd get more satisfaction from it.

Maybe until you are old or sick or lonely, but maybe not. My MIL was like you she's 80 now bemoans the fact we are so far away...

Sometimes I think I live on a different planet. My friends, neighbours, family etc we all connect a lot and have so many favour done for and by us. Can’t relate

Im often surprised that what I consider normal friendly favours are often poo-pooed on MN or deemed cheeky fuckery.
For example I commute to work and when my DC were little, there was a period where the trains were very frequently disrupted and on occassion I couldnt get back in time for pick up. I had a friend who would step in ....but she knew she could ask me for before school favours and I sometimes had her children for a day during school holidays. I hope she didnt think I was being a CF. We are still good friends!
I often take parcels in for my neighbours, put their bins out if they are on holiday, offer that they can use our drive if we are away. Our road whatsapp group is quite active, people giving and receiving things.

I’d imagine people who don’t like to greet neighbours or open their doors would find it hard to get into the community spirit feeling.

Exactly this. It such a good feeling knowing if shit hits the fan, people step in and vice versa

People have raised some good points, but I think villages work for business and community too. There are some things you pay for and some things that come as perks of being part of the village - but you can’t necessarily demand it.

An example, I have a village - most of us work. I was looking for childcare earlier this year, and so I asked the people in my “village (who are a mixture of friends, family and neighbours) to recommend. A close friend recommended a childminder, and so I’ll pay for this service, and hopefully over time the childminder becomes part of my village long term (or we might not get long or nurture a “friendship” so it might stay there).

I could also go to my village for childcare, I’ve been fortunate to have a mum that could play that role, but I also have a few friends that do not work and at the moment would do the odd babysitting. But I also appreciate they have their own lives and we live in a money centric (capitalist) society now where we should either be working or spending (pretty much). Back in the day, my mum happily picked up about it 5 kids from school for free, because she could and her working hours allowed her to. And those women became part of her village. But today, we don’t do things without an exchange or without feeling weird.

To answer your question, nurturing a village is so complex. I think the best “villages” I’ve ever had have been a mixture of diverse people (as in different jobs, places in life, personalities), we’ve lived very close (it’s so hard to nurture a village when you live hours away), commonality that keeps us together (school mums, uni friends, whenever I’ve volunteered or got involved in something local) and when you get to know who people are for who they are and you accept that (I might not be friends with Pam down the road, but it doesn’t mean I won’t say hello, have a chat at the door - back in the day send the whole street a Christmas card)

edited to change can to can’t

I’m a villager to my elderly parent, my family, my relatives, friends and colleagues.

I don’t have the time to be a villager to my neighbours beyond basic humanity.

I have an elderly neighbour who tries to bend my ear for 30 minutes whenever she sees me. I have stopped engaging with her as I just do not have the bandwidth. Guess where her son is? Fucked off to live hours away and never comes to see her, and obviously she looks to random women to fill the void.

@nomas

I’m a villager to my elderly parent, my family, my relatives, friends and colleagues.

I don’t have the time to be a villager to my neighbours beyond basic humanity.

There seems to be some confusion on this thread as to what is meant by "village". Your situation sounds like what I would think a village is.

Some posters seem to think it's all about doing things for neighbours, "randoms", or volunteering. I thought OP was referring more to friends who look out for each other (although some of these will start as neighbours, people met through community activities etc).

A "village" IMO would mainly be friends, doing friendly things. Unfortunately an awful lot of peope seem to have a different idea of friendship - one where you make friends young then sort of loosely stay in touch but don't actually spend much time together, share your lives, help each other out. This is the village I believe many are lacking. The real connections, not jusy running errands for neighbours.

But as you said it is often a way of making friends. One of my very best friends used at have a part time job as a barmaid in my local pub. She was moaning to someone that she'd had to walk as cat wouldn't start and thought was flat battery

I told her id come with jump leads following day and get it started ( hopefully)

She made me a cuppa after and that's how the friendship started. Moved on to drinks, dinners weekends away etc. still very good friends 14 years la4ter

I want anonymity and nothing to do with people I randomly happen to live near.

I think when discussing anything about relationships on here it's really important to remember that this forum attracts a high number of misanthropes. You can end up with really odd ideas about what's normal when you forget this.

I’m a massive introvert and I don’t want to be part of a village really. Maybe because I’m in my sixties and grew up in the kind of village where everyone knew everyone else’s business and I hated it.

I do volunteer in my community and have participated every week for two years now. I love it, but it doesn’t involve people, just dogs!!

Yanbu.

I generally do take the view that its on me to organise (for example) regular childcare - i use a paid childminder for the days i can't do the school run.

But I live in a small village and generally view it as the "done thing" to be helpful to neighbours. I used to live next door to a lady with kids in same school classes as mine and would see her struggling on a friday (my wfh day) to get her kids to school before dashing to work.

I offered several times for her to leave her kids at mine a few mins earlier to walk to school with us - made it clear zero reciprocation needed, its as easy to walk four 7 & 9 year olds as two, its no skin off my nose and would obviously save her a ton of stress. She always refused. I found this odd but my sister immediately said she'd been in a similar position & refused help because she didn't want to feel she "owed favours" even if people were adamant they didn't mind.

I found that a bit sad really. I wouldnt have expected a "return of the favour" but equally it wouldn't occur to me to find it burdensome to offer help to others in that sort of situation, where its no real trouble to me but saves someone else a real faff. Its just being part of the community.

But some people really don't do it. You see it all the time, when someone's stuck on a broken down train amd desperately needs help picking a kid up, the same people volunteer to help and its not just the sahp/less busy folk either.

Such a nasty way of looking at it, have you ever considered it's just natural instinct? I know women don't seem to be allowed them, because society only cares about mens 'needs', but plenty of other animals keep their newborns isolated for a short time.

This is why I don't want a village, so much judgement and sniping. Women can be fucking horrible at policing each other.