AIBU to ask where the heck is my village?

[whereismyvillage]

I need to get this off my chest and see if I'm the only one. Between the school runs, trying to arrange playdates, and the sheer awkwardness of asking for a favour from a parent you've only ever nodded at the school gate, it feels like a second job. Last week (on day 2 of back to school), I had to take my eldest to A&E and spent 20 minutes drafting a text to ask a mum in my youngest’s class to have him for maybe 10-20 mins just until their dad got there. I ended up deleting the whole thing because I felt like I was being a burden. I look at my parents' stories of a 'village' and wonder where ours went. AIBU to think it shouldn't be this hard to just... help each other out?"

I’m interested to know:
How do you all currently handle it when you need a last-minute lift/pick up for your child?

What's the most awkward part about trying to make mum friends (I’m 8 months in this new area)

Have you ever not asked for help even though you really needed it? What stopped you?

ans for those who have managed to build a little support network, how did you actually do it? What was the breakthrough moment?

I sometimes sit and daydream about an easier way ( my husband travels a lot for work and work FT too). In my ideal world, I’d have a directory of verified local parents where I could just quickly see who's around and send a low-pressure ask or even a play date but I just never know how to. I don't know if that's just me! Maybe the problem is just modern life. That's why I'm asking.

AIBU?

Class WhatsApp is our village for nearly-7yo. Any of them would help us and we would help them. Our upstairs neighbours are also amazing and we are always happy to help each other. We have a 2yo as well; they have a 4yo and a 2yo too so we see it as we are all in the same boat.

if nobody was available fast enough and my husband was away (happens often), I would just have to sack off work and take on both my children…which seems a reasonable organisation of priorities.
We were abroad recently when our eldest cracked his head open 🙄 this was just a one-night stopover so we all ended up going to A&E…! These things happen.

Yes to class WhatsApp group, another mum messaged on there last week to say her husband was stuck in traffic wasn't going to make ASC pick up on time, she was still in central London did anyone have an out of hours number as the office phone was switched off, I had just picked DS up so offered to go back and get her son and take him to ours, I just called her when I was there she answered the security questions.
I've had similar when an after-school sport was cancelled and I hadn't booked ASC and the app was down, immediately had 3 or 4 offers to collect him.
I've recently been diagnosed with a health issue and can't drive at the moment and lots of the parents some of whom I don't even know well offered help, support, anything you need etc to me and DH. It was really touching.

What favours have you been doing? Offer. To have a village you need to be part of the village. I have no family and work away so I’ve needed to have other parents I can ask favours of. I’ve made sure to put the favours in and have other kids for play dates and sleepovers. I’m happy to have them as my kids love it but I also know I don’t need to feel guilty if I needed to ask back.

You have to spend time getting to know people first, be on friendly terms. That way doing favours for each other comes naturally, and you won't feel like a burden asking.
You also need to be confident you can trust the person you are going to be leaving your child with. It takes time .

You need to be giving at first, not taking.

You cannot just expect people to drop everything and help you out.

You need to help others and it should be reciprocated.

The only way to avoid relying on other parents is relying on yourself. Sorry if that sounds trite, but this means planning and putting childcare into place.

I do think the whole idea of a village is a bit of a myth tbh.

People just take the piss with it and freeload usually.

We have a class WhatsApp and I or anyone else would put can anyone have x for a 10mins after school because of y. Equally I always make sure that if I can I’m always the one who says yes especially to DD friends so I never feel bad for asking for help. Equally we give back to our school community be it via the PTA or the local football team. It helps create that village.

Ask for help. People like being needed. As long as it's not you asking all the time. Offer to reciprocate and mean it.

I agree with you need to offer before you ask, people will know you are genuine and will help them if they need it. Too many people throw around "it takes a village to raise a child" when they really mean "I need someone to babysit/pick up/allow me to work"

I've lived in villages in the past. No doubt some are really friendly and helpful but that hasn't been my experience. I much prefer living in an urban environment where people might seem quite reserved but, when it comes to the crunch, they are happy to help if asked.

We are immigrants so had to create our lives from scratch. We were lucky to have a couple of friends have children at roughly the same time as us and when it came time to buy our house, we purposefully bought one in their neighbourhood.

for lifts to sports etc I offer any time it works for me - we have a 7 seater so I shove kids in there for birthday parties whenever I can make it work. Then if there’s something that’s tricky, I don’t feel bad asking for someone else. For my son’s football I couldn’t make one night work so I was brave and asked one of his friend’s parents and now they take him on Mondays and I take the boys on Wednesdays.

Like everyone said, it starts with you. I host a lot of play dates!

I don’t so play dates as I don’t really like other people’s children in our house, but I have offered to ‘take one for the team’ and take two or three extra children to parties at weekends. Some of the parents work weekends, some have just the one child but no grandparents, so appreciate the extra time to themselves. We live next door to the playground so I never minded supervising if anyone needed to pop to the shops, or we took it in turns to do the football run.
I really do live in a village though and the children have roamed around with their friends since about year 4/5.
There are advantages and disadvantages in knowing who most people are but on the whole it works.
DH works away a lot and I’ve been able to ask other parents to keep half an eye on one of the children (i.e when they’re playing on the village park) while I’ve nipped out to drop another one off somewhere, or walk them home from school if I’m at work and DH is on a call.
Offer first and see what happens.

Whose village are you?

some good advice here. I’ve been new in a village with 2 preschool children, pregnant, 150 miles from family and husband 50 miles away when I’ve had crises. It’s tough and supportive connections take time to make. But I do think the idea of a village to raise a child is widely misinterpreted. I don’t think it’s about having people available to fill in or help you. It’s more about the importance and value of having a variety of different but invested people who input into a child’s learning and experience through normal but caring interactions. Keeping an eye out for them and guiding them through their childhood journey.

I think most people would help out in a genuine emergency.
You never know the day when they need you to return the favour

The thing to be wary of with this is that wanting people to help out because you're struggling may backfire when suddenly you are getting loads of requests back for babysitting and school runs, suddenly you've ramped your responsibilities rather than freeing time up.

People need to also be careful about foisting kids off on people they barely know.

I would start by expressly telling people that if they ever need a favour to please please ask and say (in a light-hearted but sincere way) 'it's music to my ears when someone asks a favour of me because then the ice is broken and we can start helping each other out without stressing about it'.... You need to get out there and start doing people favours! Be intuitive, be proactive. Then when you need to write a text asking for one in return you'll feel totally relaxed about it.
If you want a village, then build one! X

I think living in bigger communities and having our children in larger schools with a wider catchment area massive reduces the ability to make a “village” around you.

we moved to a tiny village with a little infant school in it 4 years ago. Within a year I had made a little trio of close friends I could call on. Now I have maybe 8 mums I am close to, and our families are close too (we are going on holiday with one family next year).

however when my eldest moved from the infant school to the closest primary for Y3 I discovered what it was like to be part of a normal sized school. In two years I haven’t really met any of the parents properly. We have had kids over on play dates but it’s few and far between compared to the regular socialising we do with the village friends, and he rarely gets invited back again.

this ontop of most mums working full time and not having time to hang out after school with the kids is the problem. The mums I am friends with all work part time and so we all meet up at each others houses for play dates, kids dinners / a glass of wine on Fri afternoons.

that being said, if anyone (even someone I didn’t know well) was desperate enough to ask for help I would absolutely do all I could and would not be irritated at all. The reluctance to call on help is in itself unhelpful for making friends as you are keeping people at an arms distance. If they help you then they are more likely to ask for help back which creates a dialogue and a relationship

By the time you need a village you are too late.
Village building is why people move back to their home town to start a family. Or started chatting to their elderly neighbours years ago. Or went to antenatal classes and networked and joined the baby signing classes or whatever.
I mean good luck if you are starting now, but lots of the support groups are already long since formed, which makes it harder, but you can only start from where you are.

Wow, so lucky - I would help anyone out if asked - sadly not always returned though. xx

I’ve not read all the replies; @whereismyvillage my dh and I are fully retired and are my next door neighbors “back up”. Over 10 years of living next door to one another and we’ve only had to help out once a year if that.
Just bog standard neighbors.

To be honest, I would always be happy to help someone in your situation, OP, even if I hardly knew them.