When you are expecting a baby it is an exciting time for your whole family; which is great because you know the saying - It takes a village to raise a child... Doesn't it?
I won’t disagree with anyone who says that raising children requires a village. Of course it does. I’m just one person and I can’t be all things to my son for the rest of his life because babies grow into toddlers; who grow into small children; who grow into big children; who grow into teenagers; who grow into adults.
That’s a whole lot of need in a lifetime.
I know that growing up, my son will probably create his own village and I know that’s a good thing for all of us. But right now?
That village isn’t very wide or very accessible.
Right now, my son is small. He is just a baby and his world does revolve around his Dad and I. His whole existence quite literally revolves around us and me, being his life source as he is breastfed. Everything he needs or will learn comes solely from us. It weighs on our shoulders.
I have a hard time with the oft-given advice that moms just need to chill out and “accept help” like there’s just hordes of people knocking down our doors to do our laundry or hold a baby or make us a freaking sandwich.
Sorry, but it doesn’t always work that way.
When we found out I was pregnant I was envious of the people back home with a full support system - parents around the corner coming at the drop of a hat but, I would soon snap out of that. Call me crazy, but pretty soon after that I had the thought that if I was going to have a baby, it was going to rest on our shoulders to raise them, not this elusive village.
Although this is the life we chose to live, it wasn’t the way I had always assumed my family life would be. When I was a kid, I was raised in the same city where generations of my family had lived. Practically no one had ever moved away.
We had grandparents just down the road and cousins at every barbecue. I never thought it would bother me - as I said, I wanted the responsibility to rest on my shoulders but, as Thomas gets older sometimes it does bother me. His cousins are a state away. My parents have family dinners and pool days with them regularly. My in-laws don't have any other grandchildren at the moment so, I feel guilty they miss a lot with their first.
When they do visit it is amazing. They get to spend quality time with us. They often push us out the door to have dinners so that they can have alone time with him.
Technology helps us a lot with staying connected. Family messenger chats, face-time weekly and a lot of photos and videos are sent.
Even with the distance the love he has surrounding him is something you cant argue.
Without our immediate village surrounding us we have slowly formed closer friendships with people who are becoming our de facto family. A community we are building for ourselves by branching out of our comfort zones.
A lot of people forget that I left my village behind. They think because I do so well with what we have that its always been this way. It hasn't. I left everything I knew and everyone I loved behind for love. That is not something I regret. I knew what the move would entail and what our future might unfold into. Branching out in my community - hell, even finding my community and the resources I needed wasn't easy. It still isn't. But, it gets easier.
I have made a lot of friends through Mothers groups, Rhyme time and talking to women with children. This is not something I would normally do - swap numbers with a complete stranger. But, when you are in the midst of your first year of parenting - feeling somewhat alone, any connection is connection enough. You cant get along with every Mum but, every Mum is worth the conversation.
Doing this parenting thing is hard. I learned this first hand in the first 3 months of Motherhood. I was juggling finding out my ankle was still broken, Tom being deployed and a newborn with severe reflux. The days were long and the nights even longer. Without Tom around there was little conversation and a lot of people couldn't understand or empathise my position.
Ultimately, I learned that when you don't have family around, you have to venture out with your baby on your own. In doing so, perhaps we village-lacking Mums can find each other and be there for each other in the ways that we'd like to have someone be there for us.
This did happen for me with two people in particular in the beginning of my Motherhood journey; who I met at a Mothers group that I didn't really want to go to. I was nervous and anxious about getting out of my comfort zone - with my newborn.
These two ladies also didn't have villages surrounding them and we bonded over that.
It is in them that I gripped and held to. It is in them that I realised the support network doesn't have to be biological to be reliable.
They were quite literally my lifeline and still are.
It is in them that my make shift village began and it still continues to grow.
They also taught me that sometimes, we will fail. We will call in sick to work because our son needs us and we have no alternative. Our house will get really messy — because there won't be enough hours in the week to do it all ourselves.
We will spend holidays alone, at once soaking in the quiet peace of our small, self-contained family, yet longing, too, for the clans that carried on elsewhere, without us.
Or, the alternative which has been more regular. We spend our holidays not actually holidaying - we visit. We visit interstate family and go from one person to another to make sure we fit everyone in. Which sometimes is more exhausting than being at home.
Though challenging at times, parenting far from family has done two things for us so far. It has helped Tom and I become an even stronger team than we were. We don’t have the luxury of taking life’s hardships out on each other, because we rely too heavily on the other’s goodwill and sanity. We love each other, and appreciate each other’s contributions, every day.
And I like to think it encourages us to be better parents. No grandparent, except during much-awaited trips, is going to take our son to the museum, or the aquarium or sit and listen to them — really listen in the way that grandparents, not distracted by screens and a million errands and stressors, are apt to do.
Parenting far from family support, we have to be the most well-rounded, present parents we can be.
Although we are building it - our village it isn't yet complete. It is a long road to trust people, really trust people enough to have them as your fall back, especially when it comes to your children.
So, if I don’t have a complete and reliable village yet, isn’t it my own fault?
I don’t know, but I do know that some days, I wish for more of a village even while feeling grateful for the village I am lucky to have. And I know that I’m not the only one.
To the breastfeeding Mum whose baby won’t take a bottle, to the Mum who doesn’t live near family, to the single Mum just trying to survive, to the Mum who can’t afford a babysitter, to the Mum who bears the brunt of solo nights and a traveling partner alone, to the Mums who desperately want the village, but can’t find it …
You are not alone.
Here’s to finding our villages, wherever they may be.
Until next time,
Carly xx
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