Parenting is not in crisis. It’s just lost its village.
In a tiny village in India, is a tiny alley on which my mother’s family has lived for generations. Multi-story structures with courtyards line either side. The pungent aromas of farming fill the air as cows are milked and goats are fed.
This is the source of some of my happiest memories growing up. Every couple of years we would pack up for months and leave our fully privileged home in Canada and trek to this village. My grandfather was the mukhi (the unofficial mayor) so his family was generally regarded with great respect. There was nothing to do, per se. Just be. Wander the streets with cousins, climb onto the tractor with an uncle and head to the farmland, or grab a snack from one of the many homes open to my brothers and I.
This was such a stark difference to our lives in Saskatchewan. Where we lived in a sprawling house and coridally knew neighbors. Where we rode bikes with neighborhood kids but generally stayed to our own home. Where my parents loomed largest in our lives.
But it was in my grandparents’ village, where I rarely saw my parents during the day, that I first felt village even before I knew of its deeper concept. It’s where I first felt the freedom and haven created by the many.
“Village” is not a collection of homes. It’s the collective of neighbors.
Every person you meet is a neighbor: a friend or a family member. Whether you know them or not. Every one trusted and willing to help out in a pinch.
This is what I’m missing from my life today. I believe so deeply that this is why parenting has never been the burden for other generations that my generation can’t help but feel it is today.
We’re fleeing our villages.
Today, it’s expected that many of us will move away for education or career. In fact, today it’s reported that most of my peers stay in a job for less than 3 years. My husband and I were no different. After graduating from our undergrads, we both moved to: 1) Toronto 2) Cincinnati 3) Boston 4) Shanghai, China 5) Boston and 6) Seattle in a span of 10 years. Not only did we change jobs, we moved cities rapidly. Sure we missed the friends that we grew to love like family, but we were always energized by the opportunities that lay before us. It took some time, but we would eventually “find our people” — the ones that made the city feel like home.
Until we had our first daughter. We moved to Seattle with our precious 6-month-old in tow and having found a house and nanny in 3 weeks, we both flung ourselves into demanding corporate careers. So much so that it took us 6 months to meet our across-the-street neighbors — the ones we would eventually rely on to be our village. Six. Months.
And I’m sure we’re not unique. How many of us are moving to new cities — excited for the new opportunity even as we carry dread about how we’re going to sort out daycare or nannies or schools.
We’re all hurling ourselves over exciting new career opportunities but few of us are thinking about what safety net is going to catch us when we need help. Or if we are, we’re dejected at the realization that there is little help to be relied on.
And yet, the focus of the panic of parenting is mostly directed at the parenting bit. Scores of articles are written about why parenting feels so hard or how we shouldn’t try to be so perfect.
We’re missing the real culprit.
Parenting is not in crisis. It has just lost its village.
“Parenting”, if it must be a verb, is largely what it used to be. Raising kind, capable children while teaching them to be responsible, contributing members of society. Making sure they are fed, clothed, cared for. Nurtured into the next generation that we can pass our civilization onto. This is all still true.
What has changed is the sheer number of other adults we can trust and lean on to help, even as the obligations and occasions that require help just increase.
The way that I think of it is that the “weight” or the responsibility of parenting is largely the same (though the pressure to put kids in 43 classes each month and have pinterest worthy birthday parties and just manage the household logistics of 4 humans has arguably added some weight). But the main point is that while previously this weight was distributed over a larger number of people (grandparents, aunts/uncles, neighbors), with others readily available in the wings, today it’s largely shouldered by two people — the parents (this doesn’t begin to discuss the heroics of the single parents amongst us).
This is the frenzy of parenthood today. This is why it can feel crushing. Why it doesn’t feel like we ever get a break.
This is what we need to fix.
Families need their villages back. For the sanity of parents, for the well being of our children, for the sake of our society.
The power that I felt all those years ago, of that tiny alley in that tiny village echoes within me today, louder and more urgent.
It’s time to bring our villages back.