Modern parenting, extended family, and why "village" life looks a bit different now

[FoxInGarden]

Hey everyone,
I’ve been doing some reading lately on how family and parenting structures have evolved, and it got me thinking about the whole concept of "it takes a village."
We hear all the time about how hard raising kids is right now—childcare costs are through the roof, local support networks are stretched thin, and parents are exhausted trying to do it all in isolated nuclear family units. But looking at how families actually function, it’s so clear that we rely heavily on people who step outside the traditional "mum, dad, 2.4 kids" mould to help hold communities together.
Anthropologists and evolutionary folks talk about how, in nature and across different cultures throughout history, having a "reserve army" of extended family, aunts, uncles, and community members who don't have biological children of their own has always been vital. They act as alloparents—extra hands for mentoring, emotional support, fostering, adopting, and just buffering the community.
Even looking at modern data here in the UK, it’s amazing how much heavy lifting LGBTQ+ and diverse families do in the foster and adoption systems, stepping up for kids who desperately need stability.
It just makes me roll my eyes when older public intellectuals try to throw a fit in the weekend papers, acting like gender variance or non-traditional lives are some brand-new "modern psychosis" or fad. Human societies have always had a diverse mix of roles, and frankly, modern parenting is hard enough without posh old biologists gatekeeping who is allowed to care for, protect, and support children.
Has anyone else noticed how much we rely on our wider, non-traditional "village" these days? How do you guys find your local support networks?

Still confused about the point of this thread.

It's a standard attempted "Gotcha!" from a TRA. It's school holidays & they are getting bored with Reddit. The username is new even if the OP isn't but they aren't one of the better ones as the mask slipped with their second post.

But what about the not strange man? most men are not strange
but on average all men would be more likely to be a risk than the mother

What i meant was the strange man in the village is basically never safer than the birth mum.

Of course he isn't. However that is what the OP is trying to get us to agree to.

If op was interested in agreement they would not start by dismissing all biologists and being agist

is this another “I can be as hateful as I like to everyone except my special interest group “

I was painfully aware of the risk of that expanding circle with my kids, particularly while they were pre verbal

so to answer your question a bit OP, the ‘village’ was a source of anxiety for me as with each member of the ‘village’ you add, you have to weigh the real risk to your child with the benefits to them and you. Members have to be admitted to the village with great care

In evolutionary biology gay people are considered a problem for the hypothesis that genes just want to get passed on as people who only have sex with same sex people don’t have children.

and the fundamental idea behind evolutionary biology is that genes “want” to get passed on and so genes that make someone more successful biologically (have more children) get passed on.

gay people (gay men specifically because rape has always been a thing) are a problem for this theory because evolutionarily speaking they do not have any biological children and are therefore a dead end.

various biologists have suggested that having a few gay people around is helpful for the village as they can put their effort into other people’s children and help “their” genes survive that way. It’s sometimes called the “gay uncle” hypothesis.

it sounds like crap to me. It also is trying to address the question of the evolutionary roots of some aspects of human behaviour not human behaviour now.

i’d Also note that gays exist in other species and that most people fall into a spectrum of sexuality where they are bisexual to some extent and 100% heterosexual and 100% homosexual are both relatively rare.

I think biologist is a new ist label word, you know the ones that when thrown up in the air so that they land randomly immediately offer a useful slur.The problem with biologist is that is really doesn’t describe someone’s mindset and intentions in the same way as other ist words do.

Biologist.

Doesn't really have the same ring as sexist, racist, ageist, fascist does it? But apparently it has the same power to hurt.

That statement in itself does not point to someone being a TRA.

The writing skills slipped with their second post too, as soon as they stopped using AI

But that's because you're a woman Bernard. And a mother. Unlike so many of our plopping posters determined to upend facts, biology and the social contract to further their own niche demands.

And I could (but won't) expand considerably on "non traditional families" and our networks that hold our children. Suffice to say they never include men arguing that children or anyone can be born in the wrong body.

Possibly. But the new poster who in their second post asks if a woman "can't address two points at once" makes them a shoe in for the type of man unable to discuss with women without getting irritated and making allegations of female incompetence.

Even looking at modern data here in the UK, it’s amazing how much heavy lifting LGBTQ+ and diverse families do in the foster and adoption systems, stepping up for kids who desperately need stability.

This part of your OP is just a total non sequitur in relation to the preceding paragraphs. Of course there are some LGBT people in the adoption and fostering pool, and that is great. (I don't know about "heavy lifting", but they are there amongst the other potential fosterers and adopters.) But that's not what "it takes a village ..." relates to.

That saying relates to the need for a support network around whoever is doing the parenting, (adoptive or otherwise). That network, just like the extended families of yore, will naturally include people who are gay and people who display any degree of "gender diversity" (especially since only a minority of people live up to that weird standard "gender conformity")

What on earth does your invocation of "taking a village to raise a child" actually add to your desire to state the completely uncontroversial fact that LGBT people are among the people who relate constructively with children??? Of course they are!!! - this is just another way of saying "some people are LGBT".

And then the other non sequitur -- about 'public intellectuals' who call "gender variance or non-traditional lives" a "modern psychosis". Who on earth are these people?? I've not come across anyone making this claim - except when I dive back into outdated nineteenth- and twentieth-century psychology texts. If I met them I would like to have a word with them. Psychosis is a serious and disabling condition that should not be roped into culture wars just to mean something like "a reaally bad and horrible thing", which is how you are using it yourself, @FoxInGarden .

By the way, my main reason for using the term non sequitur is that I don't know the Latin for "fake gotcha". Such glib stupidity - a stupidity that aims at gotchas in place of debate and can't even construct them properly - would make me angry on its own, even without the bonus of abusing people with psychosis in this profoundly othering way.

You've been "doing some reading lately" ... Is this question somehow related to a PhD thesis you're undertaking in Gender Studies or Sociology?

Humans have also evolved to live in communities where we don't just care for our own children but also care for other people's children, if only by paying taxes. However, that isn't the same as being a parent.

The OP seems to be confusing villages/adoptive parents/foster parents as though they are all the same.

An adoptive parent is not just 'stepping' in. They are the legal parent of a child. A foster parent isn't just a random person off the street. They need specific skills and character traits and nobody suggests that fostering is interchangeable with parenting.

If calling someone a biologist is done to hurt that person then I have to report that it isn't working. I'm a biologist (and a very good one) and I'm not insulted or hurt by being called one, and I very much doubt Richard Dawkins is either, he'd probably also agree that he isn't exactly a spring chicken anymore but I don't know how he feels about being called posh.

Damn it, what a shame.

I clicked on this thinking it was going to be a thread about the gap between pre-modern or pre-civilised models of childrearing as a common, socialised activity and the moden concept of the nuclear family in which childrearing is essentially a private arrangement between the parents which the state/"village" should stay out of, and how that intersects with capitalism to lock women (in the original female sense of the word obviously) into a financially and socially precarious position.

But no, it's just tedious TRAbstract waffle that pretty much keeps all the bad ideas about childcare being essentially a private responsibility but wants to blur the lines over who gets to be that private group.

And yet, even in that, there could be a really interesting discussion about whether adult male sexuality has always posed a risk to children and if so, how societies that had a more socialised view of childcare dealt with it (eg did they still keep childcare to women just a larger group? Did they just accept it as horrible but unavoidable? Did their culture not recognise the issue of sexual harm to children?) or has something in civilisation increased the tendency of men to be sexually interested in and predatory of children?

A very challenging set of questions, none of which appear to be on the OP's radar at all, as their sense of curiosity and indeed history appears to begin and end with "same as today pretty much, just with rainbow t shirts".

Moderately interested in the thread up until this point.
Here, the OP uses a familiar mix of allusions to popular philosophy in an effort to appear superior to all the rest of us pathetically ill educated oldies. I think it is the gap year student back again

I'm a bit confused. I don't think gay and lesbian people want to be treated as unpaid babysitters?

Generally extended family and friends are the 'village', regardless of sexuality, and other parents are more helpful than non-parents.

"Did their culture not recognise the issue of sexual harm to children?"

Thinking about what we now know about the recent history of many institutions from boarding schools to children's homes - perhaps not? Or maybe they just didn't care?

I agree that this is how the so-called gay uncle theory came about. But it's bad science.

If the initial hypothesis is that genes "want to be carried on" - it's pretty wild as it implies some kind of momentum that has no discernible driving force. Why would a bunch of molecules "want" anything? Unless they mean "all organisms want to procreate", which is such an easily disprovable hypothesis.

Then we have gay people who don't fit the hypothesis.

Good science then says you should throw out the initial hypothesis rather than contort some even wilder explanation to shoehorn your new evidence to fit the hypothesis.

Edit - i lost my quote but I was quoting Octavia

I've also read the hypothesis that you get higher proportions of gay people (as well as people choosing to remain single) in places of higher population density, as that's the species' way of regulating overpopulation. I don't know if it seen in other animals. That hypothesis probably won't get much research as it would be deemed offensive as it presupposes that gay people don't have their own biological children (which they wouldn't without modern IVF etc).

"Gay uncle" is pretty obvious though, no?

The uncle shares a significant proportion of his genes with his siblings. So genes that code for a mixture of straightness and gayness and for familial bonds between uncles and neices/nephews have more adults taking care of fewer offspring, meaning offspring are more likely to survive.

I don't know if it's true, but it's a viable strategy in evolutionary terms.

(Unpopular take - I don't really subscribe to the sexuality-is-determined-in-genes theory anyway. You just need to look at humans to see sexuality or at least sexual behaviour is far more fluid than that. I've always been of the belief that if humans are smart enough to invent shoes we are smart enough to invent new ways of giving and receiving romantic love and sexual pleasure, so as long as everyone is able to consent, does consent and is happy to go far it then good luck to us!)

Adoptions are down period. The majority of adopters remain heterosexual couples. I have enormous repect for anyone who adopts the children awaiting adoption outweigh the number of adopters something like 2:1.

The childcare village is made up of reliable people who can be depended upon to support the parents (mother) look after the child(ren)
You’re looking for an aptitude with children, decent logistics, kindness , dependability , trustworthiness and ideally some common sense and a good notion of what is safe/unsafe and appropriate for the age group
Sexuality and choice of clothing is not relevant .

The belief that we should even consider our romantic preferences has not been universally shared across history. Sometimes the priority is just more hands to look after the farm or an heir to grow or maintain family wealth.