It Takes a Village

 When I was about the age my children are now, we lived hours away from our closest blood relatives, so we had one of those extended families that grow out of common experience. There were people to whom we went, or who came to us, for birthdays, for Easter egg dying, for slumber parties so that our respective parents could get away. I didn’t realize it at the time, because to me it was all about backyard zip lines and lighting our eyebrows on fire in the birthday candles (that wasn’t me, by the way; I waited til high school chemistry for that), but they were our village. We moved away from Boston when I was about 8, but I have a lot of memories of Pleasant Street Congregational Church, of the close friendships that my parents made there. I looked up to those young couples who were my parents’ age, but were other kids’ parents, or even more curiously, no one’s parents, but who took the time to talk to us. In the way of easy childhood acceptance of our own importance, my childhood was filled with people who cared. They were our village.

It takes a village, they say. They say it a lot. And I’m about to say it a lot. It’s almost cliché. But it’s more truism than it is trite, more proverb than platitude.  I now realize completely the importance of a family’s village. Those other mothers that I grew up with, from a small child to a teenager and beyond… I realize as I see my daughters run to my friends with stories and misadventures to tell… these are their other mothers, this is community. This is the village.

Not only is it important to for children to know that someone else is available to open that juice box, to watch the newly improvised dance routine, it’s important for the adults. The herd makes different decisions than the individual, because the herd knows it can keep its young safe by the sheer beauty of numbers. In the herd, children can venture a little farther afield and get the experiences that help them grow independent. Alone, our child asks to use the bathroom, which is across the ballpark, and we see a dozen America’s Most Wanted scenarios playing out within 25 yards. Better not. Hold my hand. Be careful. But in the herd, we can let them go. Well… go straight there and come straight back, we say. Look out for each other. And their world becomes a little bigger.

The modern village has expanded, even as it has contracted. We’re less likely to know our neighbors around the corner (unless you have cul de sac real estate; those Facebook photos always look like a giant party), but we’re more likely to keep strong ties with the people with whom we’ve connected along the way. The high school and college friend, the co-worker from that awful first job, the woman who also chose the back of yoga class and those invaluable other mothers. These are the people to whom you can say, I’m worried. I think I’m screwing this up. I’m fed up, and I’m tired. The beauty of having someone to go to when you’re feeling weak is they remind you that you’re strong. And strong again, you remember you can take on mountains. Or at least those double-booked Tuesday nights when you have to be two places at once.

My village began growing before I realized it was there. I am beyond blessed with a network of friends and family who were foundational before I realized I was in the business of building. My village is connected by phone calls, hundreds of texts across hundreds of miles, Happy Hours (the capital letter kind with 2-for-1 specials), photos of joyful children on beaches and mountaintops on social media, and then the stories behind what it took to get those photos taken. (It took us almost an hour to get everyone fed and into the car, and then the youngest got car sick, and the oldest had a bloody nose and we didn’t have a single tissue, because we’re those parents, so we had to stop at McDonald’s for a small fry and NAPKINS but it was too late to save the shirt, so we just put it on backwards for the photo…)

Now that my children are getting older, our village is partially prescribed by a complicated chicken and egg formula of playdates for mothers during playdates for children. You might say that by default, this is a village of common experience. We’ve arrived within the same geography, with children the same ages. But the village has nothing to do with defaults. We choose our neighbors, create our cul de sac. Experiences knit us together, but we search for kindred spirits, as the feisty heroine of childhood, Anne Shirley, named such friends. People who get us, get what we’re going through, and can remind us that we’re strong, or at least remind us that we’re not alone. Outside the village, we can smile and say the right thing at the right time. We can agree that organic is best and shake our heads over corn syrup and screen time. And, I mean, I do feel good about buying local when I can and leery of a shelf life of multiple years. But we need spaces where we can be real about who we are, what we’re thinking and what we’re going through. Someone to whom to say, I was so tired last night when I got home from work, I gave the children ice cream for dinner and let them watch Descendants on Disney until their eyes glazed while I read People StyleWatch and imagined what it would be like to own teal velvet ankle booties instead of Keds.

Our village gets it.

To my person who trades trenches of parenthood stories with me via text on days that start and end with tantrums, thanks for being my village. To my person who understands my crazy hypochondria and anxiety, to my person who will say out loud what we are all thinking. To my person who knows the middle names of our family cats, and to my person who calls as soon as teacher assignments come out. To my person to whom nothing needs to be said at all, just a look, and to my person who understands why peaceful quiet at midnight is worth the alarm just six hours later, thanks for being my village. Every child needs one, they say. And their mothers, too.