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?

the traditional "mum, dad, 2.4 kids" mould to help hold communities together.

Th "traditional" 2.4 kids isn't traditional at all anyway. It's a postwar stereotype but not much else.

The whole premise is a nonsense.

That's how it comes across to me. Not even necessarily trans, either.

Especially this

without posh old biologists gatekeeping who is allowed to care for, protect, and support children.

Can't have anyone gatekeeping children, can we.

"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?"

We live in a traditional village. There are 3 generations of our families here and grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles and family friends are always willing to help out with childcare, animal care, helping the sick and elderly, checking houses and gardens when people are away and all the rest.

Yes... and no.

Certainly sex for practical procreation and sex for love or fun have not always been linked. But in those cultures there have still been outlets for expression of the latter as well (for the men anyway).

I say "those cultures" but really there's a lot of that in ours as well.

I don't think there has to be a positive evolutionary advantage to it, for a human variation to survive down the ages. All that's necessary is that there isn't enough of a disadvantage for it to impair the individual or the society to the point of being unable to continue.

So if having a minority of gay members is something that a society can comfortably accommodate without dying out, gayness is likely to continue, whether it is a positive, a neutral, or a minor negative in terms of optimal survival.

I was a single, full time working mum from when ds was 2 until now. He’s just turned 18. My support network consisted of two other single mums. We covered for each other in rare emergencies.
Plus two dsis helped while I underwent treatment for BC.
No assistance from various LGBT and other childless friends, or from ‘smug marrieds’ or from men.

I’d say the village is as it always was - mums supporting each other.

I agree it tends to be, and the more removed 'helpers' are from that, the more it seems to warrant comment/praise. Bit like dads getting "oo isn't he great" for changing a nappy.

Actually and interestingly in many traditional cultures baby care is shared among the women. Baby is strapped to/held by someone but it’s often aunt/cousin/neighbour with mum as part of the group. It’s western societies where baby is always strapped to mum while she also does housework/paid work etc. I don’t think many traditional societies strap babies to men, but extra women are always useful.

Yes, that was an odd leap of logic.

The LGBTQ "community" is also at the forefront of demands for surrogacy - well, the G at least.

Have you ever lived in a rural village in a traditional society? I have. Social norms are strictly policed, gender roles are clearly demarcated, and "deviants" who might rock the boat are excluded - literally sent to the fringe of the village. Many such societies have evolved specific roles to accommodate some non-conformists; formalised roles for non-masculine men/gay men are a common example. These accommodations are much more frequently found for men than for women.

The village will help raise your child. Everyone will keep an eye on everyone else's child. That's the upside. But if you want the village to help raise your child, you had better be prepared to a) fit in with the way the village does things, and b) accept that your fellow villagers will discipline your child if they think it necessary, and they won't wait for your permission.

You can be individualistic or you can be collective. You can't be both.

There are no strangers in a village.

@FoxInGarden , did the weekend interviews with Richard Dawkins upset you? Or do you routinely take pot shots at "biologists"?

It is a typical magic trick. Take a word. Use sleight of hand.Change its meaning. Confuse and deceive the unwary.

See also woman, man, pronoun, literal, assign, gender. And many more.

Is this insinuating that the LGBQT+ ‘community’, or rather the QT+ have always done all the heavy lifting when it comes to holding the village and society together, much like ’there have always been trans people peeing next to us’ and it was a transwoman (no it wasn’t) who threw the first brick at Stonewall?

Aside from that, I’ve always thought it was laws followed by judges, magistrates, social workers, and psychologists even, that gate keep who can care for, protect and support children other than their biological parents, not biologists.

I went back and read the OP trying to figure out what point was being made but your guess is as good as mine basically

it seemed to be something like ‘Richard Dawkins has been outrageously frank about his views on gender ideology… something something something….gay people sometimes take care of children….BIGOTS!’

Precisely. Mothers curate their children’s “village” with very great caution. The children who don’t have competent mothers are ready targets for predators. Hence the “heavy lifting” done by people who no sane parent would allow anywhere near their child. Case in point: the man who abused and killed baby Preston was a safeguarding lead in his workplace…

Did someone mention the fox botherer?

I agree with you. Because it's now easier for LGBT couples to foster & adopt, many more kids are being given homes, and that's wonderful. The actress Luisa Bradshaw-White has talked about adopting with her wife, and the difficulties along the way, for example.

I do hope more couples in general will be inspired to foster by Suki and Eve's story in Eastenders.

These days, many LGBT couples are fully supported in the adoption journeys by their own families - although sadly trans people are still frequently estranged due to lack of family acceptance. But that will, thankfully, change as younger, far less bigoted and ignorant generations grow up.

It's great to read such a positive post, thank you. Wanted children are happy children. I'm so glad the world's moved on from when I was little and my mum got nasty comments just for being divorced.

I have lived in a rural village. It's like everywhere else - gossipy, full of LGBT people the village has no issue with, and with a healthy suspicion of 'respectability'. It's not the bloody Wicker Man.

You must have missed the important word here. It sounds very much like Mapletree didn't mean current village life in the UK.
"Have you ever lived in a rural village in a traditional society? "

What is an "LGBT" couple? The correct term is same-sex couple. Yes, the vast majority of same-sex couples are lesbians or gay men, but most bisexual people end up in heterosexual relationships and trans are often heterosexual. For accuracy and clarity, it's best to use the term same-sex couples.

Even single people - whether gay, straight or bi - can adopt these days, so you don't even need to be in a relationship.

But if you want to adopt, don't say, "I don't know why people make such a fuss about parenting, doesn't the village take care of all the hard stuff?"

A bit like that wonderful tribe so eulogised by Tatchell, where adults had sex with children and it was all lovely and kind and safe, except that it turned out it was all incredibly abusive?

No, I am talking about babies who are young enough to be exclusively breastfed before eating food: their mothers will always be nearby to feed the baby. A newborn is fed basically constantly and the "extra women" have to pass the baby back for that. An aunt or cousin might have a quick cuddle but the mum will be spending much more than half her time attached to the baby.

Unless in the occasional circumstance where an aunt is also postpartum to breastfeed her niece/nephew, which is far less taboo in many places than it is here.

When you see babies being strapped to the other women or sitting about playing within a group of women, they're not newborns any more but 6-12 months old.

The requirement to breastfeed keeps the mother and baby near to each other and this has a safeguarding benefit.

When the baby starts breastfeeding less frequently (4-6 months plus), that's when the family members take on more of a key role.