I said at some point how it takes a village to raise kids. Somehow irked some with that comment. Here I am being the village this morning. Taking care of my sick nephew. Would my sister rather be home? Fuck yes. However other sick kids needed her. Because it takes a damn village!
Discussion
Yea it is definitely normal for family to help out grandparents uncles aunts. Nothing controversial about that. Even good neighbors. Where I grew up all the neighbors had kids the same age as me. My mom was a stay at home mom. She was the mom of the neighborhood. Every kid loved her. My mom doesn't speak great English but she is amazed how anytime she goes out people that I grew up with still remember her and always say hi. Sometimes even good neighbor takes part. A village.
Your Mom sounds amazing!
Absolute 😇. I was blessed. Here is one of the OG photos I have around the office. Always there with unconditional love and often taken for granted especially when I was younger. Respect to all the moms out there!
Those irked by it probably never had kids to raise lol
I wish that were the case. They claim to have children. They just thought a mother should be responsible for a child’s care at all times. I think that’s an impossible ask.
At no point in history has that been the case. Families used to live together and the grandparents and aunts and all jumped in to help manage the household and the kids. It wasn’t just a single person doing it all. Honestly it’s an impossible task to ask one person to take care of a Child and everything needing managed in daily activities in a household, especially in the first several months post partum, which is the hardest and least talked about. If my sister wasn’t able to stay at my house and help I’d be quickly running out of money right now.
Also I Hope your Nephew feels better!
Thank you! He’s already doing better. Fortunately I missed the projectile vomiting stage. (Well this time 🤣) He just needs to rest and take it easy today.
The nuclear family, in isolation, *is* the death of the family.
I’ve found the following to be much more common than hardliners who truly believe all nuclear families should be insular and completely self-reliant with the mother carrying almost all childcare tasks:
Some people just don’t understand the original meaning of the “it takes a village” idea. It can be perceived as meaning not that it’s natural for children to learn about life from those outside the family, or that a nuclear family will sometimes need support from trusted people in the community, but that a nuclear family needs interference, boundaries crossed, or “support” with strings attached or at the expense of unwilling people, especially from the government.
The suggestion that your child needs the help of someone you do not trust to influence them is very threatening.
It’s hard to blame people who think this is what the phrase means; I think it’s been co-opted for this meaning before. But it doesn’t cheapen the original meaning.
agree 💯 👍