It Literally Takes a Village
Everyone’s heard the adage, “It takes a village,” in respect to parenting. And thousands of years ago, people did actually have the help of a village in raising their children. Consider our original mode of survival: hunting and gathering. Tribes of people co-existed in relatively small areas and relied on each other in various ways. Everyone shared chores, and goals were reached as a collective effort, including raising all the children. This ensured a maximum survival rate because let’s face it, sometimes just surviving is incredibly hard, and no one can do it all on their own.
Yet, today’s modern parent is expected to virtually do just that. We now live yards (if not acres) away from each other in huge houses with only our immediate nuclear families. We don’t have our closest girlfriends, elders, and a medicine man all living within a ten foot radius of us to help with our burden. Some of us are with our children, with no other real adult interaction, for hours (or even days) on end. We can seek relationships on the internet, but when relative anonymity is an option, it’s pretty much scientifically proven that there is a huge increase in general nastiness. Thus, there tends to be nothing communal about some of those larger Mommy and Daddy groups out there.
So, when I read yet another entry by an aching, isolated woman who feels like she’s losing her battle with Postpartum Depression or something similar, my heart weeps with my sisterhood in Motherhood. I know how isolated and lonely she must feel, especially within those first few years. Sleep deprived, her hormones going haywire and attempting to find equilibrium. She is desperate to find a semblance of who she was pre-baby, while being immersed (OK, more like drowned) in her new world of infinite commitment and consuming love. The fears, the anxieties, the worries. They are overwhelming. No, they are suffocating.
And we all have them. Within the trenches of our swelling hearts, resides the worries. Will I be a good mother? Do I have what it takes? Can I keep them safe? The pressure is immense, but the fact remains: we all feel it. None of us are alone in this journey, even if we assume that we are. We only feel inadequate because we weren’t meant to brave this incredible, life-altering journey in such an isolated manner. We were meant to have a village behind us.
So, for all of you who feel like you’ve lost yourself, who can’t find footing in this sudden onrush of emotions and sleep deprivation and love and pain, just know this: the feeling of trying to stay above the water, but repeatedly being swallowed by the waves… It’s not forever. It will slowly subside over time. We all feel it at some point, to some degree. You are not alone.
And since you are not alone, others have survived. When it feels like you’re alone in this, there’s always someone to turn to. If one of us doesn’t know how to discuss it, she may have someone in her remote “village” that does. And if that doesn’t work, there are professionals who are trained to guide us. Because none of us are alone in our worry and pain. We are a sisterhood in modern Motherhood, and we just have to work a hell of a lot harder to find our village.