Where Is The Village?
They say it takes a village to raise a child, and we mom’s are often left asking, “where’s the village?” I’ll tell you where it is: we drove it away.
Society today is riddled with fear and agitation. We struggle to let it slide when someone cuts us off in traffic, or so much as looks at us sideways. We’re offended when another mom at the playgrounds tells our kid not to eat the granola bar they just dropped or not to run up the slide.
I clearly recall a playground trip shortly after my second son was born. (Or was it my third? Time is hazy at this point… luckily it’s not super relevant to the story.) Anyway, I was sitting on a bench watching my older kiddo (or kiddos?) play while nursing the baby. Meanwhile the toddler wanted to go into the swing, and I was in no position to help him out. Another mom took pity on him and put him in and spent time pushing him. The village had shown up! But… it was only a few minutes later when I saw her eyes searching. I felt the tension growing. She was looking for the mother of this child, and talking to the woman next to her with what felt like judgment that the mother of this toddler was nowhere in sight and was not tending to him. She never noticed me sitting 30 feet away, gratefully watching as I fed my newborn. But as the moments passed I felt a rising shame. I felt shunned. Judged. And all for something beyond my control. And it begged the question… am I ever this mom? The one judging another mama, creating division between women who should be forming a village to help care for one another?
Judgment Time
The judgment in our society today is thick. It runs rampant through the streets as neighbours drive by with eyes that ask questions like, “where is that child’s mother?” “Why isn’t a parent helping those children into the car?” “That mother yells at her kids too much, perhaps we should call CPS.” “That child is in danger because they are unattended.” Add to that the RBF (resting bitch face) that is unintentionally smeared across our faces because as mothers we are tired and longing for help, but all we receive is a heap of stares and comments like, “you sure have your hands full.” Why yes, sir, I do actually. Care to help?
Growing out of the phase of constantly having newborns and toddlers in the home, I will say that thankfully there has been much relief to the stress that I felt as a mom in the throws of baby puke and diaper bags. The game has changed now, but the “village” has stayed the same: distant.
Riddled with Fear
Much of this has also come out of the news and media outlets. A few years ago we decided to ditch cable TV and stop watching the news. It was a total game changer. The news rarely ever reports anything uplifting, and for the sake of high ratings much of what is shared is made to sound like the world is ending. It makes sense that people have gone into panic mode and no longer allow their children to run free outside. (For more on this and childhood anxiety, check out this article.) What we now have is a major trust issue. Especially for families living in cities, would you ever trust a stranger in a department store who offered to hold your baby so you could shop? Probably not. We tend to get annoyed when anyone so much as breathes in our baby’s direction.
Even Halloween candy has come into question. Gone are the days of baking our own goodies, or handing out homemade candied apples. There might be a razor in that apple! Or poison in that chocolate! Trick or treating seems to be slowing down, too, in favor of safer Trunk or Treat festivals hosted by local churches. I’m not saying these things are all bad, but our trust has dissolved and been replaced by fear, which is only putting up more walls between us and everyone else.
The Remedy
The truth is, this is a difficult problem to solve. But that’s not to say that we can’t take steps toward building a village that supports one another. The way it starts? I believe, it’s with a smile.
Of all the people who walk by my house every day, very few ever bother to make eye contact and say hello. So a few years ago I took it upon myself to change this and force friendliness on these people. One particular man I even had a nickname for: Man With Two Dogs Who Never Says Hi Back. This was how I referred to him for years. It took time, but after countless hi’s and friendly smiles and waves, he finally started to say hi to me, too. Now I even know his real name! And guess what… when our dog got out one day, he happened to be walking by and even wrangled Chewy and brought him home. Hello, village! But it all started with a smile.
What if we could make this kind of an impact on everyone? Even the moms that we don’t really like that much? I know we won’t change the whole world. Evil still pursues its dark ways, but we can fight it off by being the light. The Bible tells us in Matthew that we aren’t to hide our light – we are to put it on a lampstand so it shines for all to see. We are also called to be kind to one another, to forgive one another, to have sympathy and show brotherly love (1 Peter 3:8, Ephesians 4:32). The village doesn’t need to all be best friends, but can we be friendly enough to keep an eye out for one another? Helpful enough to give the new mom a hand carrying her groceries inside? To ask the mom that yells a lot if she needs help, rather than immediately calling the authorities on her? If we’re looking for that village, we need to be the light-bearers. The ones who set the pace for a village worth being a part of. Let’s wipe off that RBF, replace it with a smile, turn off the news, and go spread some joy. Let’s bring back the village.
