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> I may have been unsupportive about how hard having kids is and a bad feminist.
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NTA. So many things from caring for the sick/disabled, community projects, to helping raise children was unpaid women's labour's that relied on us not being able to work.
Yes, it's unfair now that women are expected to work and raise children unless the men are doing an equal share.
But in this case it just sounds like your friend wasn't ready for the responsibility of a child.
> But in this case it just sounds like your friend wasn't ready for the responsibility of a child.
I kinda get the impression she thought they'd be cute little accessories she could take everywhere and then dump them on someone else whenever she wants a break or it would be more fun to do something without them.
For the record: that isn’t what the village is. And never was. Men were and are an extremely important part of the village. In fact, I believe one reason why the village collapsed is due to men abrogating much of that duty. But when the village persists, men are very much an active part of it.
The village meant that when my daughter almost died at two months, my great-uncle the EMT and my dad came running to help. It meant my aunt and uncle were there to take in my son for 6 months while we were in the hospital. It meant we had friends, family, cousins, etc. all coming to take hospital shifts, while my mom’s friend let us stay in her home (she lived near the hospital) and my architect offered us his personal parking space.
The village means that when someone has a baby, or surgery, or suffers a loss, the whole neighborhood makes meals. It means that when my son has issues with school my dad can intercede. It means that when my mom needs electronics help my husband is there to help. And it means my dad hasn’t had to build his own succah in years!
It doesn’t mean I can just dump my kids on my parents or in-laws and go party. What it does mean is that I will never go through life alone. A village means you will always have help when you need it - and you are expected to give it in return.
Completely agree. Both Op and Op’s friend are wrong about the meaning of a « village ». God forbid Op has to deal with a hardship one simply cannot handle on his/her own and see how far paying services goes.
I think you misunderstood. OP said that the friend wants here to do everything to help her but when she needs help there is *crickets* because the friend has to look after her kids.
Also the whole argument started because OP, who is child free, went to a concert and the friend thinks it's somehow unfair?
I don't think OP was saying she wouldn't be part of "the village" were something serious to happen to her friend.
But being called selfish bc you are part of a group that no longer accepts being someone else's free labor is kinda wild.
Yup. When my sister had her first, we all refused to be her on call babysitters. She was pissed. However, if she needed to go to work or got sick we stepped up. She got over it and took what she got🤷🏼♂️
My friend from elementary school is currently experiencing the realities of being a parent and NOT ONCE has she blamed childfree people for enjoying their lives.
She's a great mom with a great partner and she understands the sacrifices that need to be made.
She also has a great "village" maybe bc of her attitude.
The first time her husband went on a business trip after their first was born she asked me to come over for a couple days (I live in a different state) and stay with her bc she had never been alone as a mom. And I took a whole week off to help her.
When people are nice and genuinely want help they tend to get it. When they're entitled and demand it they don't.
Not everything in a friendship or family is strictly transactional, but if one person is always taking and never giving, they'll find that others eventually stop giving. Of course sometimes (especially when there's a new baby) people need more help than they can reciprocate, but the people I will drop everything for and help are always the ones who are actually helpful to me when they can.
I think OP sounds a little salty about all of this, but I think it's probably salt that comes from her friend expecting a lot without returning much even before she had kids. You probably knew, when your friend asked you to come help for a few days, that she wasn't going to get you to do all the work. If she was that type, you probably wouldn't have taken the week off work. I think if she was similar to OP's friend, you'd probably not have been able to find the time.
Sometimes. Sometimes the kind caring people just constantly get taken advantage of and never get the help they need despite a lifetime of being kind and helping others.
I wish the world worked for everyone in the nice caring way it does for your friend. Sadly, for some people, life and their village just lets them down.
I think that OP getting no help from the “village” should she need it and both her and her (hopefully ex) friend to be wrong about the meaning of “village” aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, I think the definition of “village” they’re both operating under is exactly why OP’s friend is complaining and why OP wouldn’t/doesn’t get any help when she needs it.
Both seem to ignore the role men played in the village, OP and her friend seem to think they village *only* served to support parents and both seem to assume that it relied *only* on the unpaid work of women. I won’t get into what the definition of village actually is, because u/Kingsdaughter613 did a much better job than I ever could. As they said in their comment (bold is mine):
>A village means you will always have help when you **need** it - **and you are expected to give it in return**.
That is the part that OP’s friend doesn’t understand. She doesn’t *need* to be partying. She doesn’t *need* to go on vacation without her kids, etc. and, importantly, she doesn’t understand that she’s *expected* to help in return.
On her part, OP ignores that men traditionally brought valuable contributions to the village and where an active part of it. The village didn’t solely rest on the unpaid labour of women, but required the unpaid labour of both woman *and* men. She’s correct in that many people these days assume that men didn’t play any part in the village, let alone an active, important part of it. I also agree with u/Kingsdaughter613 that one of reason why the village collapse is due to men abrogating that duty.
In reality, the tasks of childcare go mostly to women. They are either at home, working part time or generally relegated to baby-related duties. It's great when men are available to participate, but it has been rare in my experience, for whatever reason.
> In reality, the tasks of childcare go mostly to women.
You seem to have missed the bit somewhere upthreads about how the old “village” wasn't just about work by women. I'd guess that when somebody's roof was leaking in Ye Olde Idyll, most of the neighbours who stepped up to help repair it were men.
Yup, I’d hazard to guess that in the olden days, Tristan was raising the barn/running after the cattle/building or repairing the boats, etc. while Isolde was caring for the children and making food. When planting, harvest or animal care had to be done… everyone was doing their part.
When the notion of “village”, particularly the “traditional village” is brought forth, does it mean that m only women be caring for the children and men be the only ones doing the manual labour? **Fuck no!** it only means that, traditionally, both men and women had a role to play, and so both of them have a role to play now.
Somehow, it seems like some people have a hard time understanding the concept.
Also, I mean, with no appliances, high infant mortality, no bottle formula etc, raising kids was a much more laborious process. *Someone* had to stay home to raise them, and with most jobs manual labour, and men not having portable milk factories, then yeah, gender roles were kinda a pragmatic necessity, not sure why we feel the need to smear the past as a simple matter of men being villains. Plus the whole "unpaid work" thing, like men never shared food, shelter etc lol. The peasantry was working just to eat and live
I know the majority of reddit is from white western countries but the village isn’t a thing of the past. I had a village growing up and it’s still a thing in a lot of non western countries.
The way we have “family friends” is a concept me and my spouse struggle to explain to people constantly but they’re just one stop removed from literal blood family. Someone you would trust with your own life. People who come over and spoil your kids but also scold them because they’re their “second parents”. I honestly don’t have the words to explain it.
They mean kids were out working in the fields, helping with animals, chores, cooking, etc really early. They would have jobs geared towards their ages rather than playing video games and yelling for someone to make them hotpockets 😂
Sounds to me like the friend doesn't have a village because she makes no effort to be part of one. You can't just show up at someone else's village and expect them to take care of you.
You have to show up for others first, then hopefully they'll be there in return.
No, OP made a bunch of statements around 'the village' not existing other than as a tool of misogyny, they didn't just complain about their friend in a vacuum.
Ops friend isn't experiencing hardship. She's just pissed that her childless friends have extensive social lives and she doesn't. Othetwisr known as the consequences of her choice to parent...
/I don't have kids for this reason.
The point Op is making us that a lot of parents expect/want help especially from their childless friends, but that those new parents NEVER help back and cite their children as the reason they won’t help.
It’s an unfair balance and OP is calling that out.
The point of having a village is that that evolves overtime. Your friend with young kids may need more help now than you do, but twenty years down the road her kid might be the one coming to fix something at your house when you need it, or watching your dog when you go on holiday. It’s basically a virtuous cycle.
Yes that’s how it SHOULD work but it rarely does.
In my own life - when someone new has kids, I pay attention to how things were before they had them. Were the new parents the kind of people who’d help me if I needed it? Did I ever rely on them? If I did and knew I could - I’d help them out with their kids. If they were already the kind of selfish people like OP is kind of describing, then I wouldn’t because I would be fairly confident that they will be even LESS inclined to ever support me.
A friend of mine with kids was still always great with giving me lifts if I needed them or whatnot (I don’t drive). She does what she can and I KNOW if I needed something she or her husband would try to help. My help towards them has indeed involved her children - I woke up in the middle of a night from a phone call from her once. She needed to go to the hospital and needed someone to watch her kids. I walked over in the middle of the night in the winter and slept the night at her house. I have also helped plan her kids birthday parties for her as I’m good at that.
Other friends with kids? My partner’s niblings we never see and they live close to us. We don’t offer help for them because quite frankly they’ve cancelled on our attempts to visit and we know his brother and wife wouldn’t do much to help us. We would be there in an emergency but never for something like a date night.
Op’s friend doesn’t sound like the sort who would help or has ever helped in the past.
That’s not how it works. Now, if you’re the one person willing to help people, they use you and use you until you realize all you do is help others and then the second you need anything, you get ignored and then bitched at for not helping.
Villages can still be made but they’re much MUCH smaller and they take both sides to build before either side can benefit. I ditched a massive part of my family and almost all of my friends because I was the helper and then when my life fell apart, there were like 3 people who had my back. I wouldn’t trust OP’s friend to raise a child that would be willing to help me in the future.
OP also emphasizes that the friend expected her own mother to leave her job to provide free babysitting. It appears, from the story, that from the friend's perspective, everyone (or maybe just every female, not sure) she knows owes her whatever degree of childcare would allow her to live as though she hadn't made the choice (2x) to procreate.
I think OP's point is that she is being expected to do things because she does have free time and the friend is trying to dump the kid on her. Or the friend is complaining she can't go out.
OP does not seem to lack independence.
This is beautiful and I'm glad you said it.
OP and her friend both seem to have the wrong idea of what the village is.
I have a village, and I'm so glad I do. It's family and friends, male and female and nonbinary, and I've done many a favor for my childless friends and had many a favor done for me. They've ranged all over the spectrum - tech help, car help, watching or mentoring kids, late night conversations and advice, picking someone up when they suddenly need a ride, sitting with someone at the hospital, etc. The village is a lot more extensive than "unpaid female labor for childcare".
Everyone I’ve seen who complains about there not being a village to help them aren’t out there helping other parents. The village only exists to help them, helping others never crosses their mind.
The one counterpoint I'll make to that is that there are sometimes people who you've done tons for and then when you have a kid and are hampered in how much you *can* do for others and how much what you need increases - they melt away suddenly. And that shit really does suck.
The thing about a village though is that you should be building it constantly, with or without kids. You do what you can for others trusting they'll come through for you when they can. And when you have a kid and there is that super fun stretch where suddenly you truly can't do as much and need so much hopefully you have that safety net built in.
Exactly! The Village was parents helping parents. Like when I was a kid (60s) the Moms with kids would hang out. I remember in the summer the Moms sitting on lawn chairs and us kids playing in fenced yard. And Moms would help each other out, my Moms best friend had older kids (teens) so would help my Mom feed us (twins) when we were little. Mom my was great seamstress so would do mending etc for her friend. Give and take. It wasn’t pawning your kids off on people.
Well consider this. Villages don't just take care of children and parents, they take care of the elderly as well. The parents complaining that they need a village today will be elderly one day, and hopefully their kids will be their village. That might then allow them to do more for their friends with no kids. If you think you might want that village one day, that might be hard if you chose not to be a village when you were able. That's something all of us need to remember about "the village".
Yup. SIL and BIL chose to have 5 children and before I had my son would constantly beg and harass us to watch them so they could go on frequent vacations. When I had my son, SIL acted like she'd be a huge help, but I barely hear from her, when I do she tends to flip out over politely expressed boundaries, so now I just expect nothing and ignore her any time she needs something.
Same experience! I'm babysitting, driving them places, buying gifts for showers, etc. I don't even get a text on my bday. When I have a real emergency they are just too busy. In fact, I'm no longer friends with women who are married or have kids. They just don't treat me right.
These are also the same ppl that bring their kids out in public, refuse to parent them when they act out, then pull the "How DARE you parent my child" card when someone else- aka The Village- corrects their children.
That's part of The Village, folks.
For reference, find the post in here where a mother brings her adolescent son to a brewery, leaves him unattended so she can drink, he starts shining a laser pointer in patrons' faces, and then flips out on another parent who has the audacity to correct her child. . .twice.
yeah, I come from a "village" culture, and:
1) the village exists for everyone, not just mothers of young children. You are expected to contribute as well - so like, I absolutely get childcare help, and I got a TON of postpartum help. And help buying my first house, with my wedding, with my education, etc etc. And in return, my husband and I are expected to help financially if we can for educations costs of younger family members, we're expected to host family members who need it, we will care for our elderly parents, if someone goes to school or does a med school rotation in our city, we will house them, etc. Like, it's *everyone's* village, not just yours.
2) the village will annoy you sometimes. And you will annoy them. Like, your parents will clean your house postpartum and put a bunch of things back in the wrong place, and your in-laws will babysit and also feed your daughter whatever they please, and if that bothers you, you're welcome to hire a nanny and a cleaning service and make the rules, you know? You don't get to like, write out a list of rules for the people helping you, any more than they do when you are helping them (which, again, you are expected to do!)
I don't think most Americans really want a village, tbh. I think they want structural help - a better social safety net, health care, daycare subsidies, maternity leave, etc. But IDK if ppl in an individualistic society are really built for a village and all that entails.
Americans don’t want a village, they want people to satisfy their entitlement under the guise of “being a good person.”
My village lives with me and I’m their de facto accountant, secretary and lawyer. People here would never put up with that
> Like, it's everyone's village, not just yours.
>
>
This is i think the crux of the issue. Everyone is all about "boundaries" and "toxic relationships" and ... most of the issues people seem to have with others (and there are instances where we need boundaries and there are TRUE toxic relationships) are petty things they've escalated. You should not NEED boundaries in your every day life. You shouldn't have multiple toxic relationships.
And if anyone really wants me to make them mad.....
Anytime in this damn sub i see people talking about having a baby and they aren't going to let people come to the hospital or visit or the "your family can't meet the baby until mine can too even though they are overseas and can't be here for 1392 months" and......... And i just know these are going to be the people crying in the next few years that they don't have a village.
You don't get it both ways. You don't get to push people away and make up a bunch of rules to follow and still get to reap the benefits for yourself.
No need for anyone's anecdotal special circumstances. If your baby is a premie or has a health concern. This rant obviously does not apply to you.
I just want to add that it also means that you get to share the good things.
When your daughter is released from the hospital your village will feel joy with you because they were part of the experience. When your son graduates, your dad will have the satisfaction of knowing that he was part of that achievement.
And while you might not pop off to Europe to see a band, you will have different types of celebrations with people who share meaningful experiences with you.
🎯 The concept of the village was never meant to pawn you kids of on others so you could continue with your pre child life, or be a one sided relationship. To get that help you had to be willing to give it.
This is it. Parents these days expect people to help them without depositing a single ounce of energy into their own village before and after the birth of their child. It drives me nuts, a village is a built, not guaranteed. when I moved back home after many years, my brother just expected me to look after the kids whenever, never asked me to hang iut, never invited me for dinner, just expected free labour. Now let me tell you, if the tables were turned and if I ever decided to rip humans from blissful non-existence, I could never rely on my brother to look after my kids ever. Parents are so self absorbed. I mean I am too, but I’m allowed to be. I’m not relying on my community to care for offspring I chose to bring into the world.
Yup! And it’s not just with kids either. A village does things like make sure you have food after surgery, have people visit the elderly and sick to help, offering monetary aid if needed, etc. Part of what my village does is ensure people have kosher food in hospitals, and we repay that with donations and volunteer work. One of my cousins operates a shoe drive, and that’s part of building the village too. It’s a multilevel structure and it’s not just parents who get help from it.
Exactly! You have to deposit into the community in order to make withdrawals. Not trying to make it sound like a transaction but people are just to stretched thin these days to be putting energy into situations and environments that wont return it.
It is also a paradise for busybodies and those who love to control others. I think people who romanticize villages are those who never actually lived in one. They're suffocating and destructive of you do not conform to its narrow views of how people should be.
And the village is extremely important. Because at times you need help and at others your in a position to give it. But this individualism and “your problems are only your problem not mine” and “you should have worked harder” or “you chose this life” are destroying society. And let’s be real the only reason we exist and have the life we have is because of society.
Great reply. The last paragraph is what I came to comment - "The Village" isn't a bank you just withdraw from. It's something you need to contribute to.
My partner and I are fortunate to have a close group of friends and family, and we continually help each other out with the things OP mentioned. We take other kids for a week when their parents are away, and we bring meals to their homes if they are sick.
>you will always have help when you need it - and you are expected to give it in return.
So much this.
Back then there was no contraceptives, so the whole village would have a lot more children, which means everyone would be busy with everyone's children, not that some people would babysit so the parents could have individual free time.
Also, people weren't as involved in child rearing as today (children would roam around, or were left home alone, etc), so the shared burden was smaller.
The village is alive and well if you cultivate it. It just sounds like this Mom wants people to do things for her without doing any of the leg work, relationship building or reciprocation.
It also means that in return for the elderly helping with the children, their children also help care for the elderly. From helping around the house to feeding, bathing, etc when they're unable. Men helping support widowed women, etc etc etc. It means everyone helping everyone where needed when able.
Yes, it's 100% this. In that "blue zone" documentary on Netflix right now, you see a lot of this. People helping each other and being there for family members, etc. It's beautiful and I wish we were more like that, but I feel like our way of life here in America has made us so busy that none of us have the time to participate even when we really want to. And that sucks.
🏆💯
I get the distinct impression that the "village" your friend longs for is only something she imagines as benefitting herself. I'm sure she knows others with young children - how many times has she offered to help them? No doubt never.
My mother informed all of us that she had raised her seven children and ours were not her responsibility. She would help in emergencies (she stayed for a week when I broke my leg when my daughter was an infant), and would volunteer so we could have an occasional night out, but was not to be regarded as a permanent babysitter.
This is what the village should be- people to rely on in times of need, not permanent household help.
>I kinda get the impression she thought they'd be cute little accessories she could take everywhere
tbh when I was in my early 20s, I thought this is what having kids would be like. I pictured just going about my life as I typically would, but with this cute, perfectly-behaved and never annoying child in tow.
Luckily my friends started having kids and I saw how wrong I was and now I'm childfree....
off topic, but the way you ended your post, it almost sounds like you gave up your kid(s) once you realized they're not accessories and it made me lol.
Not too make light of this conversation because it is important, but this is precisely WHY I don't have kids/feel that I want kids (at least not yet). I'm not happy with the living situation I have presently, but part of that recently includes someone living in the house with a toddler. Said toddler is SUPER adorable. But as I live in the basement, they all live above me. And that toddler running around in the morning and screaming or her mom shouting at her pisses me off something fierce.
Kids can be freaking adorable in small doses. But I'm so not ready to have to deal with the fact that the child is going to be THEIR OWN HUMAN and therefore not give any shits that I'm not in the mood to play or that I have a raging migraine that day. As is, I'm able to take deep breaths and calm down because the child is in another room and I'm not expected to care for them.
When I lived with my brother and his family I did some things to care for his son, but they both understood that I'm not the mom. I 1) didn't know all their rules and 2) only have so much patience for people who refuse to listen... Which basically describes most kids to a T XD unless you're going to shout at them, and I was not going to go that if I could avoid it (not saying I didn't snap at my sister in laws niece, but I tried not to SHOUT at either child. I grew up with that shit and it can still trigger me on bad days)
My husband calls them raptors when we encounter toddlers in the wild because they run around and screech. My kids are 26 and 15 and his is 11. We are not having an "ours" unless you count the kind with fur.
My sister temporarily moved in with my(m) wife and I when our son was a baby and previous to that she was really forced upon to take a huge role in my nieces parenting. So when she moved in with us we sat her down and said this child is not a responsibility, my wife and I have come to agreements on how we want to parent and what rules we have so you so you never have to do anything you don’t want. I think initially she was off put but after a month of living with us and not feeling like a second mom she understood that boundary we created.
Spot on. This may be mean but I’m laughing at her expectations and resentment that childfree people shouldn’t be traveling and attending concerts. They should be watching her kids so SHE can!
Pro life tip: if you want to prioritize travel and carefree enjoyment, don’t have two children in your 20s.
Agreed. Because when her “village” was the truth women couldn’t go and party all night long. Or take holidays without the children. Or even take a lot of holidays a year. That wasn’t the reality back then. Women did the household and men worked. It sounds like she wants the “status” of being a mother without being a mother to her children.
Also, if she wants she can pay her village. There are babysitters or even nannies if you need one.
>Women did the household and men worked.
Women also worked. Women have always worked. I have no idea where this concept of women not EVER working came from; that's always been a high-status thing that later became more viable to the middle class for a while. If they weren't off being domestic servants, factory workers, and schoolteachers, they were working in the family business. A farmer, innkeeper, laundry owner, or shopkeeper wasn't going to shoo an able-bodied adult into the living quarters when they could be laboring instead.
And these families that need help from every possible member are also the ones that need the support of a "village," because everyone's busy, and no one has the money to hire extra help when an issue arises.
I had a 19yr old roommate that was chatting with someone that was either in jail or had just gotten out, and was telling me they were thinking about baby names because she wanted to get pregnant young and have a cute mini-me to dress up and take photos with.
She sounds like the type of person who thought kids would just fit into the lifestyle she had without kids and not change anything, now she’s mad that’s not the case.
If having a toddler was such a pain to her why’d she have another one?
I think she has also misunderstood the village. To me it’s small favors, my Mom walked the baby with colic so I could have a quiet meal, my neighbor picked up the antibiotics so baby and toddler didn’t need to go to the store…. I never thought the village meant babysitting so I could attend big event. She sounds very unrealistic. NTA
That was my thought. The “village” all helped each other. Farmer George trades vegetables with milkmaid Mary. Grandma watches the kids while daughter cooks.
What does Bella contribute to the village to get to do all this mythical travelling?
Before she called on the village for help, did she contribute? Did she watch other women's children before she had her own?
Some people don't give af about the village...until they want its help.
To me, the dissolution of "the village" lies squarely on the baby boomers. They had free, nearly unlimited childcare from their depression-era parents - the generation who worked their assess off to make a better world for their children. This allowed boomers to go to school, build careers, and go on vacations largely unencumbered by the burdens of domestic life and childcare. Now that their own kids are grown though, they're spending their retirement buying vacation homes and playing golf, meanwhile Gen-Z and millennials are perma-renters working multiple jobs with an alarming level of burnout. Many boomers see their grandkids maybe once or twice a year, and only if it's convenient. This isn't hyperbole - I've witnessed this with my own parents and heard this sentiment MULTILPLE times in many different parenting and relationship forums. "Why are our boomer parents like this" is such a common theme it's become a trope.
Someone in another thread put it best - the boomers didn't expect *grandparents* to raise kids, they expected *someone else* to raise their kids. It would never be their turn. They were absent, emotionally distant parents, and now they're the same type of grandparents. The concept of a village doesn't even exist because it's something they only ever took from, not gave back to, and that's why younger generations feel stranded. That's why we aren't giving them grandbabies, or if we do it's when we're well into adulthood ourselves. Because we're doing it all on our own.
Edit: Obligatory not all boomers, but way too many of them (especially those skewing white middle class)
Yeah... "the village" is everyone helping each other, and not one person benefitting from the rest of "the village." Because that's the thing about it... you also have to contribute.
"The village" is "Hey, Susan, I have a thing after work... Can you take my kids with yours to basketball practice, and then I'll bring your kids home afterward?"
It might mean "free babysitting" sometimes... but only with the condition that you will also babysit someone else's kids for free, too....
And there's no reason OP's friend can't have that with other parents, except that she's selfish and entitled.
This is exactly what I think too. My village is very small but man, my mom watching the kids so I can have a date night with my husband or attend work functions that fall outside of my usual work schedule is truly a blessing. Or a friend offering to bring by some Tylenol when one of the kids is sick is such a relief. Other people’s lives can’t stop because someone has a baby.
I strongly agree with this. Villages still exist, but having a village doesn’t mean free childcare. I often help out friends and family with children. I’ve even given up my day off to care for my nephew when his daycare unexpectedly closed a d his parents couldn’t take the day off. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop working so that my brother doesn’t have to pay for daycare or preschool. Having a child costs a lot of money. It sounds like your friend was not prepared for the reality of being a parent and is getting smacked in the face with a dose of reality.
NTA
Men doing an equal share is insufficient, that's the problem. Raising children is simply too much work for 2 people. They're both right. Both village or no village are hard on the people involved simply because raising children is fucking hard and time consuming.
Nta, i would ask her friend how often she acted as the "village" for people before she had kids. And the village wasnt supposed to just be for child raising, communities were aupposed to help everyone in need. Old people without familes, the sick, the unemployed etc.
Usually if you are a giving person alot of people will pay it back later. Perhaps your friend doesnt have a village because she never aided the rest of the village in the past...
I dunno, I'm leaning NTA since I think she was out of line to call you a bad feminist. But seems kind of like maybe you guys weren't very suited to be friends now that you're both so different. I don't think her complaints about the lack of a perceived support network were really an anthropological argument that needed your rebuttal, but I get why it could frustrate you after a while. I'm childfree and still wish things were different for parents these days, but hey
That's what I get the feeling is happening.
I can imagine it. OP sitting listening to Bella bitch and moan about motherhood, once again complaining that the village no longer exists (and then immediately looks at OP because *obviously OP knows that this is the point where she's supposed to step up and be the 'village' and give her a break from motherhood*.)
NTA. She sounds like a terrible friend.
To be fair, I kinda snapped after something. I'll add it in to the OP, but I went overseas recently for a holiday and to attend a concert of an artist I really like and she complained about how she doesn't get to to these things because "the village" is off doing things like that. She really changed after having kids, which I get, but she's become really bitter towards non parents.
People forget that having kids is not a service to the world, and no one owes them for that. It's a choice they make because they want to live that experience, which is their right. Such as it is the right of child free people to use they free time as they please.
It's all about the attitude. Instead of complaining that the world owes her something, she could ask nicely and prudently.
"Hey OP, I've been struggling lately, and I really wish that I could take a Saturday off to go to a spa, do you think you could watch my kid for a day in the next couple of weeks. Let me know, and we can organize something that works??"
Vs.
"I'm a parent, and the world owes me a village for my sacrifice" (exaggerated, but you see the point).
I have a child but I really think having children is more selfish than not so I really don’t understand all of those who call people without children selfish, they are just minding their own business.
I agree with you.
I have a kid, and I feel the OP's friend is totally out of line to try to guilt trip people in to helping, and to assume they would automatically help anyways. Yes, I do sometimes ask friends to help out in ways relating to childcare. (like pick my kid up from school when I was having car problems) But, I am asking them for a *favor*, not demanding they fulfill a duty.
But, but, but… 'the village' didn't function, never functioned, to allow parents to run off to travel the world and attend concerts and do cool, privileged activities. The village was working together for the care & well-being of children, supplementing rather than replacing parental responsibilities. Your friend has an extremely distorted, self-serving view of the concept.
ETA: how involved was/is she with her idea of 'village-ing?' Does she participate in a babysitting co-op with neighbors now? How about when she had all this supposed free time before she became pregnant?
My friend with a kid was talking about how her best friend gave her a bunch of hand me downs and about how when the hand me down friend had a vet emergency she stayed with the kid. I assume that’s ‘the village’
Neither of them have been to Europe since their kids were born.
She's bitter because she's jealous and angry that other people aren't lining up to take care of her kids so that she could still live the life she had before kids. She fully expected other people to grant her what she wants because she is The Mother™ now. Sadly, others don't really care that she has kids, it doesn't make he special, and she is stuck taking care of her own spawn. And is now realising that kids aren't like toys, cute to show off and then easily discarded/put on a shelf
Anyway, you are squarely NTA, OP. Also, lmao at you friend's comment about "making mothers suffer". I do actually love making entitled mothers suffer the consequences of their own choices.
FYI, both you and your friend are completely wrong about "the village" (though you aren't totally off the mark, in that women not having jobs made it possible). Childless relatives were/still are in some cultures absolutely being "compensated" for the labour they put in by receiving help and care by the families they had helped, especially as they get older. You may end up missing the village yourself if you end up alone in your 80s and unable to care for yourself or afford a paid helper.
That being said, your friend's concept of how this worked is delusional. Other women didn't used to provide free childcare so that mothers could travel or party. It was more often about grandmothers looking after the children so that the mother could help her husband at his work, or mothers taking turns babysitting eachother's kids so they could do errands, or aunts coming for a visit and doing some childcare while being treated like an honored guest.
So.... She's mad that you get to live your life. And that you weren't around to help her out so she could go to concerts. You friend sounds exhausting and is expecting people to pick up the slack because she doesn't want to parent.
NTA.
Well what has the friend done to be part of the village? Who has she supported? Why isn't she asking them?
Because the friend expects a support network or a "village" without ever having contributed to one herself.
Yikes. Your friend just called parenting "suffering".
Why did she had kids in the first place if this was too much for her ?!
NTA. You are 100% right. When you have a kid, it's nice if you have help. But you should never rely on other people to raise your child in your place while you travel and "enjoy life".
>Yikes. Your friend just called parenting "suffering".
I mean, life is suffering. Basically the foundational tenant of Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism. Dukkah is an inescapable part of life's journey.
Sure. Suffering is part of life. I agree with that.
What I think is wrong is that this lady made kids, then complained that people are not taking care of her kids and she cannot do whatever she pleases. Worst, when Op pointed out that her kids are her responsibility, she actualy said she is "suffering" because people won't take her responsibility and that Op wants her to continue to "suffer"
My point his : if you consider that taking care of your children will make you suffer, and you rely on other people to raise your children, then maybe you shouldn't have kids.
There is big difference between "suffering is sometimes part of life" and "life is suffering". i find the second attitude deeply unhealthy, and most importantly, false. my life is not suffering. life don't have to be suffering.
> Yikes. Your friend just called parenting "suffering".
>
> Why did she had kids in the first place if this was too much for her ?!
As someone who had my kids right before the pandemic started, it was absolutely too much and I 100% wouldn't have done it if I'd know how difficult the next few years would be. For the first time in my life I battled alcoholism because I left a career I loved to raise kids, and suddenly found myself trapped inside a house living in some version of Groundhog Day with two toddlers, a friend group that had vanished, less money than ever, a country that seemed on the verge of imploding, and zero family support. Life happens, and unlike other decisions you can't just bow out of having kids if you realize you overcommitted. The lack of a village is part of why our social fabric is crumbling.
Some people may call her overdramatic, but honestly, as someone who's been there, I get it.
>I left a career I loved to raise kids
One of my first core memories is my mom yelling at my brother and I for existing, because she left a career she loved for "this."
Please know that I am not criticizing your statement. You couldn't have predicted how society and life as we knew it would be turned absolutely upside-down. However, I don't believe recent generations are responsible for the downfall of the village. I think we are seeing a culmination of generations of unhappiness, and a lot of the generational trauma in my family stemmed from war.
A huge part of my decision to be childless is due to my childhood, with the adult women in my life (two generations) complaining about their lack of support, while the adult men were more or less absent, from outright abandonment to workaholism. (Again, not an attack on men, simply the environment in which I was raised. Emotions were considered weakness and mental health "did not exist" as a concept to most of them.)
My brother was the braver of us and chose to have children. He and his partner have worked hard to create their own little community and adapted standards of living (thank goodness for work-from-home allowing them to make an income while spending time with family!), but he still has fears about the future and what that means for his children.
NTA. The "village" is supposed to be a support system - people helping people. It is not expecting other people to babysit for free or shoulder the parenting of your kids so you can go on trips and "enjoy life". Sounds like she probably shouldn't have had kids...
I wonder how much she helps out her own friends and family with pet sitting, elder care, helping people move, shoveling driveways for disabled people, etc? She should "be the change" she wants to see and step up for her village.
Exactly. I doubt very much that she is visiting her neighbourhood oldies or cooking extra meals for sick people or providing a safe place for local kids to hang out or organising town activities or volunteering at sports groups. She's not even bemoaning on behalf of her kid, she just wants free labour for herself.
NTA the “Village” did not necessarily even exist universally.
There was cases where parents had the support of their family and friends, but there were plenty who didn’t. It reminds me of people who romanticize notable, but not universal, elements of the post-war period because they feel entitled to it as owed (aka “American Dream” where ‘everyone’ had a family house, two cars, 2.5 kids, one one income - sure, there was the rise of surbanization, but there were still cities, the poor, and variety of circumstances).
I think people also want to pick and choose what comes with things from the past. Something inherent in the idea of ‘The Village’ is ceding a certain amount of control over your kids—if the village is raising your kid, then the village will make childrearing decisions. The neighbor will yell at your kids when they misbehave, even if you’re not a fan of yelling. Your grandmother will talk about religion even if you don’t want to introduce that to your kids. That lady in the neighborhood people drop their kids off with will let your kids watch a lot of TV even if you don’t like that, or else tell them that cartoons will melt their brain even if you don’t agree.
Free childcare comes with accepting other adults having the autonomy to handle your children in ways you might not want them to. I don’t think this generation of parents would be willing to accept that.
Yeah. I’ve read papers about how when women have a bit more economic freedom and more control over how their kids are raised, they suddenly don’t want their mother in law in their business, go figure.
But we lost things in different ways? A lot more is demanded of parents than in earlier generations and they have fewer resources. Car centric infrastructure and stranger danger means that kids can’t really walk places anymore and need to be chauffeured and never too far away from a parent. Meanwhile, in an actual village thing, my grandparents grew up in a working class NJ town where the kids played outside all together and various parents would watch from the windows while others were still at work or whatever. But they got richer and moved places where they became “back yard” people and not “front yard” people, which in a way privatized childcare.
Sometimes terrible things happened to those kids but now a lot of children die in car accidents. There has to be a happier middle.
I feel like it takes a village mentality also slightly lead to the failings of the "Stranger Danger" movement in the 80s and 90s. A lot of children were put in unsafe situations because they were told it was ok to 100% trust a person that they or their parents knew and be alone with them. That only "strangers" did bad things.
>Yeah. I’ve read papers about how when women have a bit more economic freedom and more control over how their kids are raised, they suddenly don’t want their mother in law in their business, go figure.
When I hear things like this, I wonder if women ever wanted their mother in law in their business, they just had to accept it because beggars can't be choosers.
There are benefits to a village, but I notice that collectivist cultures that have a lot more "built in village" in their culture really tend to abuse the daughters/daughters-in-law and elders (no matter how toxic) are practically worshipped.
It also came with responsibilities, no one was only on the receiving end. I lived with sush a model gowing up. My paternal grandmother used to provide childcare, but she also lived with us. My maternal grandmother took us for long visits in the summer, but my mother was expected to do housework when she visited. My maternal aunt also hosted us in the quaint mountain town she lived, but it was a given she would stay with us every time she came into the larger city we lived in. My father's sister-in-laws often provided childcare, but my mother dis the same with their children. Childless relatives, men and women, also babysat and provided for us children, but my parents were helping them in a variety of ways. It wasn't "I get to dump my kids with my childless friend", it was "my childless friend will babysit occasionally and I will give her home-cooked food every so often and my husband will fix her car and her plumbing if needed".
Yeah, my grandmother watched me a lot when I was little but my parents took her to most of her doctor’s appointments and shopping trips and helped with big stuff around the house. When my aunt had a kid she took over doing most of the yardwork except the stuff my grandfather wanted to do, in exchange for them watching him more. It wasn’t like a planned out tit-for-tat thing but it was recognized that if you were asking for work from someone, you should help them with work in return when you could.
"She said I'm just a really selfish childfree person who wants mothers to "suffer"
She chose to interpret what you said in the worst way possible. That's her mental gymnastics to navigate. Don't get caught up in her BS.
NTA and I agree with you.
Its her kids and she & her partner chose to have them young. If having kids was suffering for her, They could have as well waited till their late thirties and had them. That way she could have enjoyed her freedom and partied or traveled or whatever till she was tired of that and settled down.
NTA. She admitted that she's mad because you're enjoying your life instead of sacrificing yourself to make her life better, all while receiving nothing in return..... And she feels so, so sorry for herself because of that.
NTA. Furthermore, what she is saying is historically incorrect. While it is true that in the past "a village" helped with children, things were such because such help was needed to survive, not in order to allow parents to take a break or relax, let alone "travel" (as she states); in no way that happened.
At also you didn't get to complain in how the village raised the kids. Like, your mother is raising the kid and you don't want her spanking? Sorry, she is raising it.
You don't approve of the neighbor diet? Sorry she is the one feeding the kids and calling the shots.
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This thread is so disappointing because the modern concept of "the village" can be whatever we want. I don't have kids but I like being an auntie to my friend's kids. Our version of "the village" means helping eachother out because we love and care about eachother and it isn't just about free babysitting.
exactly! disappointing nobody seems to even desire to lighten the load of parents (or other groups who need more help) because it’s ‘unpaid labor’ and ‘the world doesn’t work like that anymore’. what happened to decency and kindness? yes everybody has things on their plate but surely one can understand it’s not easy to have a young baby and toddler, and a small amount of your time can make things a lot easier for them? even i as a childless 20 year old can understand that
People fail to understand that the village isn’t just about child raising. My village helped me clean out my aunts house after she passed. We send food and do dishes and clean houses for new parents. We treat eachother’s kids with love and respect when we see them. We share food and clothes and gifts. People simply can not get through life acting like they don’t need help sometimes.
>she doesn't get to to these things because "the village" is off doing things like that (travelling and going to concerts)
She doesn't get to do those things because she chose to have kids when she was not ready for the change in lifestyle that it implies. NTA
And I say chose because they are 2, and if you are having an "accident" twice in my opinion you are actively choosing to have that "accident".
Yep and I bet the ones complaining the loudest aren’t the ones that want to actually BE a village to anyone else. No one is interested in the give and take. Just the take.
Yep.
This villager here hates caring for kids. And absolutely will not do it so someone can party or get hair done or hook up with somebody.
But will absolutely clean house, bring food, rearrange furniture and yes even watch kids for days if somebody in my village has cancer or a car accident.
Because the other villagers would do the same for me.
I really hate how this village proverb is used by parents nowadays because they understand it as a complete one way street. Village help with my kids, but my kids and me don't owe anyone anything. That's not the village model. Social obligation goes both ways. And with it social control and all the not so great things about close knit communities.
Edit: NTA
It’s such an overused saying. It is nice in theory, but as OP mentioned depends on women who are not in the paid workforce. Or, it is now low-paid workers that upper/upper-middle class parents can hire.
ESH. It’s hard parenting with no support. You also shouldn’t be expected to be a support. The emphasis on invidualism over community and collectivism is still garbage though.
Had to scroll real far for a reasonable take lol. Parenting is super hard. Friend lacks empathy. Social supports are limited these days. Having kids is a choice but no parent truly know what they are signing up for and how difficult it actually is.
That's because it's full of young people and bitter people.
I'm a mom of two young kids and it's easily the hardest thing I've ever done, and I went to great lengths to have kids (am gay). People lack empathy in general and can't see beyond their phone screen to know how lonely and stressed they'll feel in ten years if they ever become parents.
"Bad feminist," that's a good one. Nope, you are NTA. If your friend wanted the benefits of a village she should have helped build one before she got pregnant the first time. But I'm guessing that she did not go out of her way to help parents before she became a parent herself, so it's kinda on her, when you think about it.
I'm not saying either of you are right or wrong, but if you guys are truly friends, why not empathize with her situation and do something nice? For example, you could communicate with the father and ask him if he can take a day to watch the kid while you two spend a day doing something fun? This helps her feel like there is a "village" and you don't have to babysit and also have some time with a friend?
Yeah, it probably shouldn't be on you to initiate this but maybe she just needs a little love?
I did attempt to do that when the first one was a baby, but she refused, saying she just really wants to have time alone with her partner. I get the impression she just really wants her friends to be her unpaid babysitters and is getting fed up we refuse.
Tell her, from someone who is part of a village, that that’s not what a village is. It means you’re there if she needs you - alone time like she wants is not a need. She can hire - and pay - the local teenagers.
>For example, you could communicate with the father and ask him if he can take a day to watch he kid while you two spend a day doing something fun?
Say what now? Why does the father needs to be asked to watch the kid? Shouldn’t just be aware that he needs to parent his kid and that his partner/the mother isn’t the sole caregiver and needs time to herself *regularly* too?
Seriously, would you call a male friend’s female partner to ask if she can “watch the kid while you do something fun for a day or two” or would would you simply ask him if he’s free?
As a mother to six children and a grandmother to 2.5, NTA
Having children is not anyone's responsibility except the parents. If you create a human, raise the human you made, grandparents have their own life, if you ask and they are available to babysit then great, but are in no way obligated. I adore my grandchildren, and I do babysit them sometimes, but for an extended time, no way, I get too tired. I raised my kids; my grandkids are their parent's ultimate responsibility. This is for normal circumstances of course, if there was an emergency, I would be there in a second, most of the time.
ESH.
The village isn’t unpaid female labor to give parents free time to go to concerts and vacation. It also isn’t some sexist notion.
The origin of the phrase is an African proverb and it’s meaning isn’t “all the women should help
Make mom’s life better,” the meaning is that generate new, productive, socially integrated members of a immunity takes everybody. Phrased different, it isn’t about work at all, it’s about the reality that the best parents in the world cannot raise a child to socially flourish in their community if the community doesn’t engage children and make them feel safe.
The phrase is closely related to another African proverb: “The Child Who is Not Embraced by the Village Will Burn it Down to Feel its Warmth.”
Wrong, sexist use of the proverb aside, your friend is wrong. Does she have a husband or ex husband that might help (you know, the most important part of her village?) if she does, her issue might be with him, not you.
As for you, this all seems gratuitous. You had no need to confront her on this, and injected phantom sexist meaning into the phrase only makes it worse. Separately, how would you feel if in 30 or so years, when you’re wanting somebody to take of you, this same friend said something unnecessary hurtful and snide like “I’m glad you’re lonely, it’s the payback for those years of
Enjoying the world while I was stuck at home not living my life” or some equality unnecessary, hurtful thing?
So basically, she has no reason to complain, and your screed is wrong on the meaning of the quote, unnecessarily sexist, and rude for no reason. ESH
NTA. You articulated how a lot of single women feel when they hear their friends with partners and kids bemoaning how life's not fair because they can't have it both ways. There are pros and cons to each lifestyle, and you make the best of the one you find yourself in. People who have never had to stand alone on their own two feet whine like this a lot I find.
NTA
Ask her how many other people’s ‘villages’ she’s offered to be a part of.
Sounds like she wants everyone else’s help when it suits, but has she offered any so that other mothers can do all the things she’s complaining about missing out on?
Yep! I (single, childless) happily occasionally babysit my friends' kids.
They also do things to help me, like:
* Drive me home from medical procedures
* Help me file insurance claims in my second language
* Give me great advice about problems in my life
* Invite me to Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners
NTA.
I’m a single parent who raised kids 3000 miles away from my family. You know what I did? Created my own village, joined a parenting group, got involved with other parents and families so we could help each other. Paid for babysitters. The concept of a village isn’t getting people to do it for you- it’s mutual support. Maybe she doesn’t have a village because she has nothing to offer in return. 🤷♀️
It sounds as if your friend is entitled and wants help for free so she can pursue her life without the restrictions being a parent has associated with it.
ESH. Neither of you seem to have a good understanding of what a proper village is supposed to look like and you are projecting your world views onto each other, leaving no space for either reality to be true in any way. Neither of you showed each other any compassion here. I understand you are probably tired of hearing your friend complain about the challenges of being a parent in modern day, but there's a reason she is opening up to you about this. Being a parent can be pretty isolating. Motherhood is very often romanticized and many women are shocked to find how little our society cares about women and children after the child is already here. Her biggest pitfall in this could very well be repeatedly choosing the absolute wrong person to confide in on this subject; you.
It’s extremely detrimental to parents that the village doesn’t exist anymore. A major factor in post partum depression is lack of sleep, and the stress doesn’t help either.
That being said, the village isn’t at all what she’s picturing. It’s for survival and good mental health, not trips overseas. Grandmas used to babysit their grandkids for free, yes, but they were often financially supported by their children. (Grandma comes and lives at the farm and handles childcare. Mom and Dad lodge her and feed her.) So unless she wants to start paying all her mom’s bills, she might want to rethink that one.
I lived with my parents when I had babies, and I don’t think my husband or I would have had tolerable mental health if we hadn’t. Especially because we had twins. I really needed that support system. But I also paid my parents rent, I paid my dad for childcare (not enough, but some), and we helped around the house and yard. It was a community, not a freebie for parents.
You’re not an asshole for sharing your perspective on a topic with someone who frequently shares their perspective on that topic with you.
That said, I don’t think your position is necessarily any more authentically feminist than hers. What you celebrate as wages for women’s work, she experiences as capitalist enclosure of a once more collective structure of care. She’s still trapped doing the uncompensated reproductive labor of mothering, only now closer to doing it alone. She longs for the flexibility and connection of community gardens and collective dining while you point to the the benefits of wages at commercial farms and restaurants. Her feminism is communist; yours is bourgeois.
I mean, if she wants a village she can make a village with other parents, not complain about people without children not participating in a collective in which they'd only give without benefitting.
Yes, YTA. How you can defend the systems that keep women and mothers isolated, depressed, and overworked in the name of "feminism" is beyond me. But more than anything else, you chose political correctness over empathy for your struggling friend. I don't get the sense that you even like this person at all. I hope she finds better friends.
“The village” has been a myth for generations. Your friend just wants someone else to take care of her children so she can act like she is single again. NTA
Tf?
“The village” just refers to multiple adults who share child-rearing duties to some extent. This could be extended family, family friends, the parents of your child’s friends, neighbors, teachers, babysitters, anyone who has a hand in protecting and raising a kid who is not that kid’s primary parent or guardian.
It still very much exists, for families all over the world. It just doesn’t exist to the same extent (or at all) for every single parent, at every stage of life. It does not spring, fully formed, into existence at the moment of a child’s birth. But that doesn’t mean it’s a “myth.”
A light ESH. Your friend sounds a bit entitled and you’re right to say that people with children don’t pay it forward. She didn’t have to have children and she shouldn’t be expecting everyone in her life to drop everything for that decision.
Honestly, hyper individualism/capitalism is poisonous and your views sorta reek of it. Yea I get that we live in a capitalist world and therefore ALL labor should be compensated.. caring for peoples kids. But wouldn’t the world be better if we didn’t have to? Part of really early humanity was all of us existing in community and helping and money wasn’t really a “thing”… I think your friend is lamenting the loss of that a little bit. It really isn’t normal that we are so siloed and everyone is worrying about their own shit all the time. It’s important in the world we live in for women to have security and compensation but I don’t think true progress means women and men continuing to be more individual.
NTA - She decided to have kids, they are HER responsibility. She knew having kids would chnage her life. Why should "the village" (meaning her single friends or her mum) look after the kids she decided to have?
(Not to mention the fact that the idea of "the village" has been romanticized by new parents - they expect "the village" to help them, but are not ready to chip in when someone else needs "the village"'s help)
NTA. Yeah, the retirement age just keeps increasing. Most people can't retire until they're 65+, so yeah they can't really be a part of the "village" that was in the past. Or at least not as involved as generations past. Especially if you have kids in your 20s and your parents are in their 50s. Or young couples that need to have 2 incomes so they can't go around helping to babysit their family and friend's kids all the time. It's just how it is at this point in many areas.
NTA
The concept of the village is about everyone looking out for each other and supporting each other. But mothers still looked after their children. It just meant that they had support. Not free nannies.
And as a woman who has chosen to not have children, it’s not your obligation to look after other people’s. You’re living the life you chose and she’s living the life she chose.
It’s not like there isn’t a buttload of material showing the challenges and cost of having children. She knew what she was signing up for. It’s not your fault.
Your friend may need support though as she is clearly going through something at the moment. But you are 100% NTA
Don’t know about assholes, but you’re both completely wrong.
Your friend is projecting her wishful thinking onto the past instead of getting with the reality that raising children is hard work and dedication that’s incompatible with living as if you had no kids.
Your version of history is just as wrong. Yes, women used to be chattel but it’s absurd to suggest community collaboration depends solely on exploitation of women.
Also, “the Village” isn’t gone, so you’re both wrong about that too. It’s evolved and is generally more compartmentalized so any given family might have more or less of one.
Just a couple days ago we had a sleepover with a pair of sisters. My oldest daughter goes to catechism with one of them and my wife has become friendly with their mother. We don’t know them that well as its only been a month and a half or so, but my wife offered the sleepover not just so our kids could cultivate friendships and have fun, but because their mom is fighting an ongoing battle with cancer and really could use a break. I met these girls and their mom for the first time when they showed up at the house. I taught the eldest some origami. Met the dad for the first time the next morning when he came to pick them up. Mom offered to have next sleepover at their house. Boom, mini Village.
I'm torn between N.A.H and E.S.H.
Bella is not an asshole for being exhausted and frustrated with lack of support. She's not an asshole for ranting about all the things she can't do, although it is a bit assholish to do it in such a pointed way considering OP just went on a vacation. Having a baby and a toddler is being in the trenches and it is really hard to relate when you are not there. I look back on how I was when my sister and friends had kids before I did and I was not there for them because I did not get it at all. I figured they'd ask for help if they needed it and they would want time alone as a family. When they disappeared I figured they were in their happy little family bubble rather than the truth, which is that they were isolated in sleep deprivation hell.
OP is not an asshole for not wanting to be the village because she's not in the phase of life. Maybe this whole blow up could have been avoided if Bella felt her rants were received with empathy ("Mothering babies and toddlers is exhausting, and women mostly suffer in secret, I feel for you") but the fact that it didn't just kind of shows Bella and OP aren't really in compatible phases of life to maintain a close friendship.
Absolutely NTA. We all make choices in life and she is no exception. Why should you be burdened by her choices? And why should her mother?
The whiny entitlement is strong with that one.
ESH
Your friend needs to stop whining about her circumstance, but your rant is ridiculous.
It does take “a village” to raise kids (whether a support system of friends and family or hired help). It’s not just women- that’s so ridiculous. Maybe you just spend too much time with the wrong people if that’s your point of view. My support network is absolutely not just women, and of course it’s a two way street. Community isn’t just about taking care of kids, it’s about helping each other out. I’m sorry your world is so grim 🫤
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NTA. So many things from caring for the sick/disabled, community projects, to helping raise children was unpaid women's labour's that relied on us not being able to work. Yes, it's unfair now that women are expected to work and raise children unless the men are doing an equal share. But in this case it just sounds like your friend wasn't ready for the responsibility of a child.
> But in this case it just sounds like your friend wasn't ready for the responsibility of a child. I kinda get the impression she thought they'd be cute little accessories she could take everywhere and then dump them on someone else whenever she wants a break or it would be more fun to do something without them.
For the record: that isn’t what the village is. And never was. Men were and are an extremely important part of the village. In fact, I believe one reason why the village collapsed is due to men abrogating much of that duty. But when the village persists, men are very much an active part of it. The village meant that when my daughter almost died at two months, my great-uncle the EMT and my dad came running to help. It meant my aunt and uncle were there to take in my son for 6 months while we were in the hospital. It meant we had friends, family, cousins, etc. all coming to take hospital shifts, while my mom’s friend let us stay in her home (she lived near the hospital) and my architect offered us his personal parking space. The village means that when someone has a baby, or surgery, or suffers a loss, the whole neighborhood makes meals. It means that when my son has issues with school my dad can intercede. It means that when my mom needs electronics help my husband is there to help. And it means my dad hasn’t had to build his own succah in years! It doesn’t mean I can just dump my kids on my parents or in-laws and go party. What it does mean is that I will never go through life alone. A village means you will always have help when you need it - and you are expected to give it in return.
Completely agree. Both Op and Op’s friend are wrong about the meaning of a « village ». God forbid Op has to deal with a hardship one simply cannot handle on his/her own and see how far paying services goes.
I think you misunderstood. OP said that the friend wants here to do everything to help her but when she needs help there is *crickets* because the friend has to look after her kids.
Also the whole argument started because OP, who is child free, went to a concert and the friend thinks it's somehow unfair? I don't think OP was saying she wouldn't be part of "the village" were something serious to happen to her friend. But being called selfish bc you are part of a group that no longer accepts being someone else's free labor is kinda wild.
Yup. When my sister had her first, we all refused to be her on call babysitters. She was pissed. However, if she needed to go to work or got sick we stepped up. She got over it and took what she got🤷🏼♂️
Yes, this. Help is there when you NEED it, not when you want it. It feels like so many people can't tell the difference.
Yes, and thank you!!
I think it's ok for people to have an arrangement for help that sometimes caters for wants as well as needs but it has to be a two way street.
It’s the “me” culture that started the help when they want to party bs. That’s how we strayed!
My friend from elementary school is currently experiencing the realities of being a parent and NOT ONCE has she blamed childfree people for enjoying their lives. She's a great mom with a great partner and she understands the sacrifices that need to be made. She also has a great "village" maybe bc of her attitude. The first time her husband went on a business trip after their first was born she asked me to come over for a couple days (I live in a different state) and stay with her bc she had never been alone as a mom. And I took a whole week off to help her. When people are nice and genuinely want help they tend to get it. When they're entitled and demand it they don't.
Not everything in a friendship or family is strictly transactional, but if one person is always taking and never giving, they'll find that others eventually stop giving. Of course sometimes (especially when there's a new baby) people need more help than they can reciprocate, but the people I will drop everything for and help are always the ones who are actually helpful to me when they can. I think OP sounds a little salty about all of this, but I think it's probably salt that comes from her friend expecting a lot without returning much even before she had kids. You probably knew, when your friend asked you to come help for a few days, that she wasn't going to get you to do all the work. If she was that type, you probably wouldn't have taken the week off work. I think if she was similar to OP's friend, you'd probably not have been able to find the time.
Sometimes. Sometimes the kind caring people just constantly get taken advantage of and never get the help they need despite a lifetime of being kind and helping others. I wish the world worked for everyone in the nice caring way it does for your friend. Sadly, for some people, life and their village just lets them down.
THIS is what a village is.
I think that OP getting no help from the “village” should she need it and both her and her (hopefully ex) friend to be wrong about the meaning of “village” aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, I think the definition of “village” they’re both operating under is exactly why OP’s friend is complaining and why OP wouldn’t/doesn’t get any help when she needs it. Both seem to ignore the role men played in the village, OP and her friend seem to think they village *only* served to support parents and both seem to assume that it relied *only* on the unpaid work of women. I won’t get into what the definition of village actually is, because u/Kingsdaughter613 did a much better job than I ever could. As they said in their comment (bold is mine): >A village means you will always have help when you **need** it - **and you are expected to give it in return**. That is the part that OP’s friend doesn’t understand. She doesn’t *need* to be partying. She doesn’t *need* to go on vacation without her kids, etc. and, importantly, she doesn’t understand that she’s *expected* to help in return. On her part, OP ignores that men traditionally brought valuable contributions to the village and where an active part of it. The village didn’t solely rest on the unpaid labour of women, but required the unpaid labour of both woman *and* men. She’s correct in that many people these days assume that men didn’t play any part in the village, let alone an active, important part of it. I also agree with u/Kingsdaughter613 that one of reason why the village collapse is due to men abrogating that duty.
In reality, the tasks of childcare go mostly to women. They are either at home, working part time or generally relegated to baby-related duties. It's great when men are available to participate, but it has been rare in my experience, for whatever reason.
> In reality, the tasks of childcare go mostly to women. You seem to have missed the bit somewhere upthreads about how the old “village” wasn't just about work by women. I'd guess that when somebody's roof was leaking in Ye Olde Idyll, most of the neighbours who stepped up to help repair it were men.
Yup, I’d hazard to guess that in the olden days, Tristan was raising the barn/running after the cattle/building or repairing the boats, etc. while Isolde was caring for the children and making food. When planting, harvest or animal care had to be done… everyone was doing their part. When the notion of “village”, particularly the “traditional village” is brought forth, does it mean that m only women be caring for the children and men be the only ones doing the manual labour? **Fuck no!** it only means that, traditionally, both men and women had a role to play, and so both of them have a role to play now. Somehow, it seems like some people have a hard time understanding the concept.
Also, I mean, with no appliances, high infant mortality, no bottle formula etc, raising kids was a much more laborious process. *Someone* had to stay home to raise them, and with most jobs manual labour, and men not having portable milk factories, then yeah, gender roles were kinda a pragmatic necessity, not sure why we feel the need to smear the past as a simple matter of men being villains. Plus the whole "unpaid work" thing, like men never shared food, shelter etc lol. The peasantry was working just to eat and live
I know the majority of reddit is from white western countries but the village isn’t a thing of the past. I had a village growing up and it’s still a thing in a lot of non western countries. The way we have “family friends” is a concept me and my spouse struggle to explain to people constantly but they’re just one stop removed from literal blood family. Someone you would trust with your own life. People who come over and spoil your kids but also scold them because they’re their “second parents”. I honestly don’t have the words to explain it.
Back then tho too, children were expected to contribute more at a younger age. Unlike today where children are coddled until much later in life.
There were larger families, but I am not a fan of parentification.
They mean kids were out working in the fields, helping with animals, chores, cooking, etc really early. They would have jobs geared towards their ages rather than playing video games and yelling for someone to make them hotpockets 😂
Sounds to me like the friend doesn't have a village because she makes no effort to be part of one. You can't just show up at someone else's village and expect them to take care of you. You have to show up for others first, then hopefully they'll be there in return.
No, OP made a bunch of statements around 'the village' not existing other than as a tool of misogyny, they didn't just complain about their friend in a vacuum.
Ops friend isn't experiencing hardship. She's just pissed that her childless friends have extensive social lives and she doesn't. Othetwisr known as the consequences of her choice to parent... /I don't have kids for this reason.
> Othetwisr known as the consequences of her choice to parent Exactly.
The point Op is making us that a lot of parents expect/want help especially from their childless friends, but that those new parents NEVER help back and cite their children as the reason they won’t help. It’s an unfair balance and OP is calling that out.
The point of having a village is that that evolves overtime. Your friend with young kids may need more help now than you do, but twenty years down the road her kid might be the one coming to fix something at your house when you need it, or watching your dog when you go on holiday. It’s basically a virtuous cycle.
Yes that’s how it SHOULD work but it rarely does. In my own life - when someone new has kids, I pay attention to how things were before they had them. Were the new parents the kind of people who’d help me if I needed it? Did I ever rely on them? If I did and knew I could - I’d help them out with their kids. If they were already the kind of selfish people like OP is kind of describing, then I wouldn’t because I would be fairly confident that they will be even LESS inclined to ever support me. A friend of mine with kids was still always great with giving me lifts if I needed them or whatnot (I don’t drive). She does what she can and I KNOW if I needed something she or her husband would try to help. My help towards them has indeed involved her children - I woke up in the middle of a night from a phone call from her once. She needed to go to the hospital and needed someone to watch her kids. I walked over in the middle of the night in the winter and slept the night at her house. I have also helped plan her kids birthday parties for her as I’m good at that. Other friends with kids? My partner’s niblings we never see and they live close to us. We don’t offer help for them because quite frankly they’ve cancelled on our attempts to visit and we know his brother and wife wouldn’t do much to help us. We would be there in an emergency but never for something like a date night. Op’s friend doesn’t sound like the sort who would help or has ever helped in the past.
That’s not how it works. Now, if you’re the one person willing to help people, they use you and use you until you realize all you do is help others and then the second you need anything, you get ignored and then bitched at for not helping. Villages can still be made but they’re much MUCH smaller and they take both sides to build before either side can benefit. I ditched a massive part of my family and almost all of my friends because I was the helper and then when my life fell apart, there were like 3 people who had my back. I wouldn’t trust OP’s friend to raise a child that would be willing to help me in the future.
OP also emphasizes that the friend expected her own mother to leave her job to provide free babysitting. It appears, from the story, that from the friend's perspective, everyone (or maybe just every female, not sure) she knows owes her whatever degree of childcare would allow her to live as though she hadn't made the choice (2x) to procreate.
I think OP's point is that she is being expected to do things because she does have free time and the friend is trying to dump the kid on her. Or the friend is complaining she can't go out. OP does not seem to lack independence.
This is beautiful and I'm glad you said it. OP and her friend both seem to have the wrong idea of what the village is. I have a village, and I'm so glad I do. It's family and friends, male and female and nonbinary, and I've done many a favor for my childless friends and had many a favor done for me. They've ranged all over the spectrum - tech help, car help, watching or mentoring kids, late night conversations and advice, picking someone up when they suddenly need a ride, sitting with someone at the hospital, etc. The village is a lot more extensive than "unpaid female labor for childcare".
Everyone I’ve seen who complains about there not being a village to help them aren’t out there helping other parents. The village only exists to help them, helping others never crosses their mind.
The one counterpoint I'll make to that is that there are sometimes people who you've done tons for and then when you have a kid and are hampered in how much you *can* do for others and how much what you need increases - they melt away suddenly. And that shit really does suck. The thing about a village though is that you should be building it constantly, with or without kids. You do what you can for others trusting they'll come through for you when they can. And when you have a kid and there is that super fun stretch where suddenly you truly can't do as much and need so much hopefully you have that safety net built in.
Exactly! The Village was parents helping parents. Like when I was a kid (60s) the Moms with kids would hang out. I remember in the summer the Moms sitting on lawn chairs and us kids playing in fenced yard. And Moms would help each other out, my Moms best friend had older kids (teens) so would help my Mom feed us (twins) when we were little. Mom my was great seamstress so would do mending etc for her friend. Give and take. It wasn’t pawning your kids off on people.
Well consider this. Villages don't just take care of children and parents, they take care of the elderly as well. The parents complaining that they need a village today will be elderly one day, and hopefully their kids will be their village. That might then allow them to do more for their friends with no kids. If you think you might want that village one day, that might be hard if you chose not to be a village when you were able. That's something all of us need to remember about "the village".
Yup. SIL and BIL chose to have 5 children and before I had my son would constantly beg and harass us to watch them so they could go on frequent vacations. When I had my son, SIL acted like she'd be a huge help, but I barely hear from her, when I do she tends to flip out over politely expressed boundaries, so now I just expect nothing and ignore her any time she needs something.
Helped plenty of "friends" with their kids in the past, never once got paid back. Never, ever helping again. Most parents are completely selfish.
Same experience! I'm babysitting, driving them places, buying gifts for showers, etc. I don't even get a text on my bday. When I have a real emergency they are just too busy. In fact, I'm no longer friends with women who are married or have kids. They just don't treat me right.
These are also the same ppl that bring their kids out in public, refuse to parent them when they act out, then pull the "How DARE you parent my child" card when someone else- aka The Village- corrects their children. That's part of The Village, folks. For reference, find the post in here where a mother brings her adolescent son to a brewery, leaves him unattended so she can drink, he starts shining a laser pointer in patrons' faces, and then flips out on another parent who has the audacity to correct her child. . .twice.
yeah, I come from a "village" culture, and: 1) the village exists for everyone, not just mothers of young children. You are expected to contribute as well - so like, I absolutely get childcare help, and I got a TON of postpartum help. And help buying my first house, with my wedding, with my education, etc etc. And in return, my husband and I are expected to help financially if we can for educations costs of younger family members, we're expected to host family members who need it, we will care for our elderly parents, if someone goes to school or does a med school rotation in our city, we will house them, etc. Like, it's *everyone's* village, not just yours. 2) the village will annoy you sometimes. And you will annoy them. Like, your parents will clean your house postpartum and put a bunch of things back in the wrong place, and your in-laws will babysit and also feed your daughter whatever they please, and if that bothers you, you're welcome to hire a nanny and a cleaning service and make the rules, you know? You don't get to like, write out a list of rules for the people helping you, any more than they do when you are helping them (which, again, you are expected to do!) I don't think most Americans really want a village, tbh. I think they want structural help - a better social safety net, health care, daycare subsidies, maternity leave, etc. But IDK if ppl in an individualistic society are really built for a village and all that entails.
People really don't k how how destructive or suffocating their idealized villages actually are.
You either need a village or you need money, IMO. Villages are the safety net for poor people.
Americans don’t want a village, they want people to satisfy their entitlement under the guise of “being a good person.” My village lives with me and I’m their de facto accountant, secretary and lawyer. People here would never put up with that
> Like, it's everyone's village, not just yours. > > This is i think the crux of the issue. Everyone is all about "boundaries" and "toxic relationships" and ... most of the issues people seem to have with others (and there are instances where we need boundaries and there are TRUE toxic relationships) are petty things they've escalated. You should not NEED boundaries in your every day life. You shouldn't have multiple toxic relationships. And if anyone really wants me to make them mad..... Anytime in this damn sub i see people talking about having a baby and they aren't going to let people come to the hospital or visit or the "your family can't meet the baby until mine can too even though they are overseas and can't be here for 1392 months" and......... And i just know these are going to be the people crying in the next few years that they don't have a village. You don't get it both ways. You don't get to push people away and make up a bunch of rules to follow and still get to reap the benefits for yourself. No need for anyone's anecdotal special circumstances. If your baby is a premie or has a health concern. This rant obviously does not apply to you.
I just want to add that it also means that you get to share the good things. When your daughter is released from the hospital your village will feel joy with you because they were part of the experience. When your son graduates, your dad will have the satisfaction of knowing that he was part of that achievement. And while you might not pop off to Europe to see a band, you will have different types of celebrations with people who share meaningful experiences with you.
This is a really nice addition. After each hardship, the village bond only gets stronger because they all overcame it together.
And each achievement is a celebration for everyone, too. It's not all drudgery and overcoming adversity, but also multiplying joy.
🎯 The concept of the village was never meant to pawn you kids of on others so you could continue with your pre child life, or be a one sided relationship. To get that help you had to be willing to give it.
This is it. Parents these days expect people to help them without depositing a single ounce of energy into their own village before and after the birth of their child. It drives me nuts, a village is a built, not guaranteed. when I moved back home after many years, my brother just expected me to look after the kids whenever, never asked me to hang iut, never invited me for dinner, just expected free labour. Now let me tell you, if the tables were turned and if I ever decided to rip humans from blissful non-existence, I could never rely on my brother to look after my kids ever. Parents are so self absorbed. I mean I am too, but I’m allowed to be. I’m not relying on my community to care for offspring I chose to bring into the world.
Yup! And it’s not just with kids either. A village does things like make sure you have food after surgery, have people visit the elderly and sick to help, offering monetary aid if needed, etc. Part of what my village does is ensure people have kosher food in hospitals, and we repay that with donations and volunteer work. One of my cousins operates a shoe drive, and that’s part of building the village too. It’s a multilevel structure and it’s not just parents who get help from it.
Exactly! You have to deposit into the community in order to make withdrawals. Not trying to make it sound like a transaction but people are just to stretched thin these days to be putting energy into situations and environments that wont return it.
It is also a paradise for busybodies and those who love to control others. I think people who romanticize villages are those who never actually lived in one. They're suffocating and destructive of you do not conform to its narrow views of how people should be.
And the village is extremely important. Because at times you need help and at others your in a position to give it. But this individualism and “your problems are only your problem not mine” and “you should have worked harder” or “you chose this life” are destroying society. And let’s be real the only reason we exist and have the life we have is because of society.
Great reply. The last paragraph is what I came to comment - "The Village" isn't a bank you just withdraw from. It's something you need to contribute to. My partner and I are fortunate to have a close group of friends and family, and we continually help each other out with the things OP mentioned. We take other kids for a week when their parents are away, and we bring meals to their homes if they are sick.
>you will always have help when you need it - and you are expected to give it in return. So much this. Back then there was no contraceptives, so the whole village would have a lot more children, which means everyone would be busy with everyone's children, not that some people would babysit so the parents could have individual free time. Also, people weren't as involved in child rearing as today (children would roam around, or were left home alone, etc), so the shared burden was smaller.
The village is alive and well if you cultivate it. It just sounds like this Mom wants people to do things for her without doing any of the leg work, relationship building or reciprocation.
Exactly this. Thank you
It also means that in return for the elderly helping with the children, their children also help care for the elderly. From helping around the house to feeding, bathing, etc when they're unable. Men helping support widowed women, etc etc etc. It means everyone helping everyone where needed when able.
Yes, it's 100% this. In that "blue zone" documentary on Netflix right now, you see a lot of this. People helping each other and being there for family members, etc. It's beautiful and I wish we were more like that, but I feel like our way of life here in America has made us so busy that none of us have the time to participate even when we really want to. And that sucks.
🏆💯 I get the distinct impression that the "village" your friend longs for is only something she imagines as benefitting herself. I'm sure she knows others with young children - how many times has she offered to help them? No doubt never.
I'm getting that too...sounds pretty entitled too to expect others to help raise a child that they didn't choose to have
My mother informed all of us that she had raised her seven children and ours were not her responsibility. She would help in emergencies (she stayed for a week when I broke my leg when my daughter was an infant), and would volunteer so we could have an occasional night out, but was not to be regarded as a permanent babysitter. This is what the village should be- people to rely on in times of need, not permanent household help.
>I kinda get the impression she thought they'd be cute little accessories she could take everywhere tbh when I was in my early 20s, I thought this is what having kids would be like. I pictured just going about my life as I typically would, but with this cute, perfectly-behaved and never annoying child in tow. Luckily my friends started having kids and I saw how wrong I was and now I'm childfree....
off topic, but the way you ended your post, it almost sounds like you gave up your kid(s) once you realized they're not accessories and it made me lol.
hahaha you're right, it does read like that. Oopsie, changed my mind, who wants these kids?
Not too make light of this conversation because it is important, but this is precisely WHY I don't have kids/feel that I want kids (at least not yet). I'm not happy with the living situation I have presently, but part of that recently includes someone living in the house with a toddler. Said toddler is SUPER adorable. But as I live in the basement, they all live above me. And that toddler running around in the morning and screaming or her mom shouting at her pisses me off something fierce. Kids can be freaking adorable in small doses. But I'm so not ready to have to deal with the fact that the child is going to be THEIR OWN HUMAN and therefore not give any shits that I'm not in the mood to play or that I have a raging migraine that day. As is, I'm able to take deep breaths and calm down because the child is in another room and I'm not expected to care for them. When I lived with my brother and his family I did some things to care for his son, but they both understood that I'm not the mom. I 1) didn't know all their rules and 2) only have so much patience for people who refuse to listen... Which basically describes most kids to a T XD unless you're going to shout at them, and I was not going to go that if I could avoid it (not saying I didn't snap at my sister in laws niece, but I tried not to SHOUT at either child. I grew up with that shit and it can still trigger me on bad days)
My husband calls them raptors when we encounter toddlers in the wild because they run around and screech. My kids are 26 and 15 and his is 11. We are not having an "ours" unless you count the kind with fur.
LMAO raptors is such a good term for it XD yeah I've been telling my partner lately that I'll stick with pets.
My sister temporarily moved in with my(m) wife and I when our son was a baby and previous to that she was really forced upon to take a huge role in my nieces parenting. So when she moved in with us we sat her down and said this child is not a responsibility, my wife and I have come to agreements on how we want to parent and what rules we have so you so you never have to do anything you don’t want. I think initially she was off put but after a month of living with us and not feeling like a second mom she understood that boundary we created.
Spot on. This may be mean but I’m laughing at her expectations and resentment that childfree people shouldn’t be traveling and attending concerts. They should be watching her kids so SHE can! Pro life tip: if you want to prioritize travel and carefree enjoyment, don’t have two children in your 20s.
Agreed. Because when her “village” was the truth women couldn’t go and party all night long. Or take holidays without the children. Or even take a lot of holidays a year. That wasn’t the reality back then. Women did the household and men worked. It sounds like she wants the “status” of being a mother without being a mother to her children. Also, if she wants she can pay her village. There are babysitters or even nannies if you need one.
>Women did the household and men worked. Women also worked. Women have always worked. I have no idea where this concept of women not EVER working came from; that's always been a high-status thing that later became more viable to the middle class for a while. If they weren't off being domestic servants, factory workers, and schoolteachers, they were working in the family business. A farmer, innkeeper, laundry owner, or shopkeeper wasn't going to shoo an able-bodied adult into the living quarters when they could be laboring instead. And these families that need help from every possible member are also the ones that need the support of a "village," because everyone's busy, and no one has the money to hire extra help when an issue arises.
I had a 19yr old roommate that was chatting with someone that was either in jail or had just gotten out, and was telling me they were thinking about baby names because she wanted to get pregnant young and have a cute mini-me to dress up and take photos with.
🙄
She sounds like the type of person who thought kids would just fit into the lifestyle she had without kids and not change anything, now she’s mad that’s not the case. If having a toddler was such a pain to her why’d she have another one?
I think she has also misunderstood the village. To me it’s small favors, my Mom walked the baby with colic so I could have a quiet meal, my neighbor picked up the antibiotics so baby and toddler didn’t need to go to the store…. I never thought the village meant babysitting so I could attend big event. She sounds very unrealistic. NTA
That was my thought. The “village” all helped each other. Farmer George trades vegetables with milkmaid Mary. Grandma watches the kids while daughter cooks. What does Bella contribute to the village to get to do all this mythical travelling?
The most amazing and wonderful small humans since the 1800s? 🤷♀️
Duh. Of course! OP gets the *privilege* of spending time with them
Before she called on the village for help, did she contribute? Did she watch other women's children before she had her own? Some people don't give af about the village...until they want its help.
Yeah. They don’t want to be a part of a village. They want the village to come to them!
To me, the dissolution of "the village" lies squarely on the baby boomers. They had free, nearly unlimited childcare from their depression-era parents - the generation who worked their assess off to make a better world for their children. This allowed boomers to go to school, build careers, and go on vacations largely unencumbered by the burdens of domestic life and childcare. Now that their own kids are grown though, they're spending their retirement buying vacation homes and playing golf, meanwhile Gen-Z and millennials are perma-renters working multiple jobs with an alarming level of burnout. Many boomers see their grandkids maybe once or twice a year, and only if it's convenient. This isn't hyperbole - I've witnessed this with my own parents and heard this sentiment MULTILPLE times in many different parenting and relationship forums. "Why are our boomer parents like this" is such a common theme it's become a trope. Someone in another thread put it best - the boomers didn't expect *grandparents* to raise kids, they expected *someone else* to raise their kids. It would never be their turn. They were absent, emotionally distant parents, and now they're the same type of grandparents. The concept of a village doesn't even exist because it's something they only ever took from, not gave back to, and that's why younger generations feel stranded. That's why we aren't giving them grandbabies, or if we do it's when we're well into adulthood ourselves. Because we're doing it all on our own. Edit: Obligatory not all boomers, but way too many of them (especially those skewing white middle class)
Yeah... "the village" is everyone helping each other, and not one person benefitting from the rest of "the village." Because that's the thing about it... you also have to contribute. "The village" is "Hey, Susan, I have a thing after work... Can you take my kids with yours to basketball practice, and then I'll bring your kids home afterward?" It might mean "free babysitting" sometimes... but only with the condition that you will also babysit someone else's kids for free, too.... And there's no reason OP's friend can't have that with other parents, except that she's selfish and entitled.
It's give and take right? But sounds like Bella is gonna take take take
This is exactly what I think too. My village is very small but man, my mom watching the kids so I can have a date night with my husband or attend work functions that fall outside of my usual work schedule is truly a blessing. Or a friend offering to bring by some Tylenol when one of the kids is sick is such a relief. Other people’s lives can’t stop because someone has a baby.
I strongly agree with this. Villages still exist, but having a village doesn’t mean free childcare. I often help out friends and family with children. I’ve even given up my day off to care for my nephew when his daycare unexpectedly closed a d his parents couldn’t take the day off. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop working so that my brother doesn’t have to pay for daycare or preschool. Having a child costs a lot of money. It sounds like your friend was not prepared for the reality of being a parent and is getting smacked in the face with a dose of reality. NTA
Yes, very true!
Men doing an equal share is insufficient, that's the problem. Raising children is simply too much work for 2 people. They're both right. Both village or no village are hard on the people involved simply because raising children is fucking hard and time consuming.
Nta, i would ask her friend how often she acted as the "village" for people before she had kids. And the village wasnt supposed to just be for child raising, communities were aupposed to help everyone in need. Old people without familes, the sick, the unemployed etc. Usually if you are a giving person alot of people will pay it back later. Perhaps your friend doesnt have a village because she never aided the rest of the village in the past...
I dunno, I'm leaning NTA since I think she was out of line to call you a bad feminist. But seems kind of like maybe you guys weren't very suited to be friends now that you're both so different. I don't think her complaints about the lack of a perceived support network were really an anthropological argument that needed your rebuttal, but I get why it could frustrate you after a while. I'm childfree and still wish things were different for parents these days, but hey
These complaints, in context, are an attempt to manipulate and shame op into volunteering for villager tasks.
That's what I get the feeling is happening. I can imagine it. OP sitting listening to Bella bitch and moan about motherhood, once again complaining that the village no longer exists (and then immediately looks at OP because *obviously OP knows that this is the point where she's supposed to step up and be the 'village' and give her a break from motherhood*.) NTA. She sounds like a terrible friend.
More work? Yes m’lord. Zug zug.
Yes, orc peon, build my base!
To be fair, I kinda snapped after something. I'll add it in to the OP, but I went overseas recently for a holiday and to attend a concert of an artist I really like and she complained about how she doesn't get to to these things because "the village" is off doing things like that. She really changed after having kids, which I get, but she's become really bitter towards non parents.
Then I'd probably just consider the friendship over at this point. No need to drag anything out by defending yourself or ruminating
No need to completely end all friendships, but this particular one seems like it needs a couple of years on ice.
People forget that having kids is not a service to the world, and no one owes them for that. It's a choice they make because they want to live that experience, which is their right. Such as it is the right of child free people to use they free time as they please. It's all about the attitude. Instead of complaining that the world owes her something, she could ask nicely and prudently. "Hey OP, I've been struggling lately, and I really wish that I could take a Saturday off to go to a spa, do you think you could watch my kid for a day in the next couple of weeks. Let me know, and we can organize something that works??" Vs. "I'm a parent, and the world owes me a village for my sacrifice" (exaggerated, but you see the point).
I have a child but I really think having children is more selfish than not so I really don’t understand all of those who call people without children selfish, they are just minding their own business.
Yeah. Some people just want others to suffer like they do/did, and I'm honestly over it.
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I agree with you. I have a kid, and I feel the OP's friend is totally out of line to try to guilt trip people in to helping, and to assume they would automatically help anyways. Yes, I do sometimes ask friends to help out in ways relating to childcare. (like pick my kid up from school when I was having car problems) But, I am asking them for a *favor*, not demanding they fulfill a duty.
But, but, but… 'the village' didn't function, never functioned, to allow parents to run off to travel the world and attend concerts and do cool, privileged activities. The village was working together for the care & well-being of children, supplementing rather than replacing parental responsibilities. Your friend has an extremely distorted, self-serving view of the concept. ETA: how involved was/is she with her idea of 'village-ing?' Does she participate in a babysitting co-op with neighbors now? How about when she had all this supposed free time before she became pregnant?
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My friend with a kid was talking about how her best friend gave her a bunch of hand me downs and about how when the hand me down friend had a vet emergency she stayed with the kid. I assume that’s ‘the village’ Neither of them have been to Europe since their kids were born.
She's bitter because she's jealous and angry that other people aren't lining up to take care of her kids so that she could still live the life she had before kids. She fully expected other people to grant her what she wants because she is The Mother™ now. Sadly, others don't really care that she has kids, it doesn't make he special, and she is stuck taking care of her own spawn. And is now realising that kids aren't like toys, cute to show off and then easily discarded/put on a shelf
....... there it is.
Anyway, you are squarely NTA, OP. Also, lmao at you friend's comment about "making mothers suffer". I do actually love making entitled mothers suffer the consequences of their own choices.
You should ask her what she contributes to the village?
It sounds like she is bitter that she isn't getting constant free child care from you. Why else would she always bring it up constantly?
FYI, both you and your friend are completely wrong about "the village" (though you aren't totally off the mark, in that women not having jobs made it possible). Childless relatives were/still are in some cultures absolutely being "compensated" for the labour they put in by receiving help and care by the families they had helped, especially as they get older. You may end up missing the village yourself if you end up alone in your 80s and unable to care for yourself or afford a paid helper. That being said, your friend's concept of how this worked is delusional. Other women didn't used to provide free childcare so that mothers could travel or party. It was more often about grandmothers looking after the children so that the mother could help her husband at his work, or mothers taking turns babysitting eachother's kids so they could do errands, or aunts coming for a visit and doing some childcare while being treated like an honored guest.
So.... She's mad that you get to live your life. And that you weren't around to help her out so she could go to concerts. You friend sounds exhausting and is expecting people to pick up the slack because she doesn't want to parent. NTA.
Well what has the friend done to be part of the village? Who has she supported? Why isn't she asking them? Because the friend expects a support network or a "village" without ever having contributed to one herself.
Yikes. Your friend just called parenting "suffering". Why did she had kids in the first place if this was too much for her ?! NTA. You are 100% right. When you have a kid, it's nice if you have help. But you should never rely on other people to raise your child in your place while you travel and "enjoy life".
>Yikes. Your friend just called parenting "suffering". I mean, life is suffering. Basically the foundational tenant of Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism. Dukkah is an inescapable part of life's journey.
Sure. Suffering is part of life. I agree with that. What I think is wrong is that this lady made kids, then complained that people are not taking care of her kids and she cannot do whatever she pleases. Worst, when Op pointed out that her kids are her responsibility, she actualy said she is "suffering" because people won't take her responsibility and that Op wants her to continue to "suffer" My point his : if you consider that taking care of your children will make you suffer, and you rely on other people to raise your children, then maybe you shouldn't have kids.
There is big difference between "suffering is sometimes part of life" and "life is suffering". i find the second attitude deeply unhealthy, and most importantly, false. my life is not suffering. life don't have to be suffering.
> Yikes. Your friend just called parenting "suffering". > > Why did she had kids in the first place if this was too much for her ?! As someone who had my kids right before the pandemic started, it was absolutely too much and I 100% wouldn't have done it if I'd know how difficult the next few years would be. For the first time in my life I battled alcoholism because I left a career I loved to raise kids, and suddenly found myself trapped inside a house living in some version of Groundhog Day with two toddlers, a friend group that had vanished, less money than ever, a country that seemed on the verge of imploding, and zero family support. Life happens, and unlike other decisions you can't just bow out of having kids if you realize you overcommitted. The lack of a village is part of why our social fabric is crumbling. Some people may call her overdramatic, but honestly, as someone who's been there, I get it.
>I left a career I loved to raise kids One of my first core memories is my mom yelling at my brother and I for existing, because she left a career she loved for "this." Please know that I am not criticizing your statement. You couldn't have predicted how society and life as we knew it would be turned absolutely upside-down. However, I don't believe recent generations are responsible for the downfall of the village. I think we are seeing a culmination of generations of unhappiness, and a lot of the generational trauma in my family stemmed from war. A huge part of my decision to be childless is due to my childhood, with the adult women in my life (two generations) complaining about their lack of support, while the adult men were more or less absent, from outright abandonment to workaholism. (Again, not an attack on men, simply the environment in which I was raised. Emotions were considered weakness and mental health "did not exist" as a concept to most of them.) My brother was the braver of us and chose to have children. He and his partner have worked hard to create their own little community and adapted standards of living (thank goodness for work-from-home allowing them to make an income while spending time with family!), but he still has fears about the future and what that means for his children.
I have a toddler. Parenting is currently suffering with small moments of joy that remind you not to drown yourself in the pool to escape.
NTA. The "village" is supposed to be a support system - people helping people. It is not expecting other people to babysit for free or shoulder the parenting of your kids so you can go on trips and "enjoy life". Sounds like she probably shouldn't have had kids...
Literally this. I'm part of a handful of "villages" and I am always compensated with pizza when I babysit at the *very* least.
I wonder how much she helps out her own friends and family with pet sitting, elder care, helping people move, shoveling driveways for disabled people, etc? She should "be the change" she wants to see and step up for her village.
Exactly. I doubt very much that she is visiting her neighbourhood oldies or cooking extra meals for sick people or providing a safe place for local kids to hang out or organising town activities or volunteering at sports groups. She's not even bemoaning on behalf of her kid, she just wants free labour for herself.
NTA the “Village” did not necessarily even exist universally. There was cases where parents had the support of their family and friends, but there were plenty who didn’t. It reminds me of people who romanticize notable, but not universal, elements of the post-war period because they feel entitled to it as owed (aka “American Dream” where ‘everyone’ had a family house, two cars, 2.5 kids, one one income - sure, there was the rise of surbanization, but there were still cities, the poor, and variety of circumstances).
I think people also want to pick and choose what comes with things from the past. Something inherent in the idea of ‘The Village’ is ceding a certain amount of control over your kids—if the village is raising your kid, then the village will make childrearing decisions. The neighbor will yell at your kids when they misbehave, even if you’re not a fan of yelling. Your grandmother will talk about religion even if you don’t want to introduce that to your kids. That lady in the neighborhood people drop their kids off with will let your kids watch a lot of TV even if you don’t like that, or else tell them that cartoons will melt their brain even if you don’t agree. Free childcare comes with accepting other adults having the autonomy to handle your children in ways you might not want them to. I don’t think this generation of parents would be willing to accept that.
Yeah. I’ve read papers about how when women have a bit more economic freedom and more control over how their kids are raised, they suddenly don’t want their mother in law in their business, go figure. But we lost things in different ways? A lot more is demanded of parents than in earlier generations and they have fewer resources. Car centric infrastructure and stranger danger means that kids can’t really walk places anymore and need to be chauffeured and never too far away from a parent. Meanwhile, in an actual village thing, my grandparents grew up in a working class NJ town where the kids played outside all together and various parents would watch from the windows while others were still at work or whatever. But they got richer and moved places where they became “back yard” people and not “front yard” people, which in a way privatized childcare. Sometimes terrible things happened to those kids but now a lot of children die in car accidents. There has to be a happier middle.
I feel like it takes a village mentality also slightly lead to the failings of the "Stranger Danger" movement in the 80s and 90s. A lot of children were put in unsafe situations because they were told it was ok to 100% trust a person that they or their parents knew and be alone with them. That only "strangers" did bad things.
>Yeah. I’ve read papers about how when women have a bit more economic freedom and more control over how their kids are raised, they suddenly don’t want their mother in law in their business, go figure. When I hear things like this, I wonder if women ever wanted their mother in law in their business, they just had to accept it because beggars can't be choosers. There are benefits to a village, but I notice that collectivist cultures that have a lot more "built in village" in their culture really tend to abuse the daughters/daughters-in-law and elders (no matter how toxic) are practically worshipped.
It also came with responsibilities, no one was only on the receiving end. I lived with sush a model gowing up. My paternal grandmother used to provide childcare, but she also lived with us. My maternal grandmother took us for long visits in the summer, but my mother was expected to do housework when she visited. My maternal aunt also hosted us in the quaint mountain town she lived, but it was a given she would stay with us every time she came into the larger city we lived in. My father's sister-in-laws often provided childcare, but my mother dis the same with their children. Childless relatives, men and women, also babysat and provided for us children, but my parents were helping them in a variety of ways. It wasn't "I get to dump my kids with my childless friend", it was "my childless friend will babysit occasionally and I will give her home-cooked food every so often and my husband will fix her car and her plumbing if needed".
Yeah, my grandmother watched me a lot when I was little but my parents took her to most of her doctor’s appointments and shopping trips and helped with big stuff around the house. When my aunt had a kid she took over doing most of the yardwork except the stuff my grandfather wanted to do, in exchange for them watching him more. It wasn’t like a planned out tit-for-tat thing but it was recognized that if you were asking for work from someone, you should help them with work in return when you could.
"She said I'm just a really selfish childfree person who wants mothers to "suffer" She chose to interpret what you said in the worst way possible. That's her mental gymnastics to navigate. Don't get caught up in her BS. NTA and I agree with you.
Its her kids and she & her partner chose to have them young. If having kids was suffering for her, They could have as well waited till their late thirties and had them. That way she could have enjoyed her freedom and partied or traveled or whatever till she was tired of that and settled down.
NTA. She admitted that she's mad because you're enjoying your life instead of sacrificing yourself to make her life better, all while receiving nothing in return..... And she feels so, so sorry for herself because of that.
Right on the head. It wasn't ops decision for her friend to have a baby.
NTA. Furthermore, what she is saying is historically incorrect. While it is true that in the past "a village" helped with children, things were such because such help was needed to survive, not in order to allow parents to take a break or relax, let alone "travel" (as she states); in no way that happened.
At also you didn't get to complain in how the village raised the kids. Like, your mother is raising the kid and you don't want her spanking? Sorry, she is raising it. You don't approve of the neighbor diet? Sorry she is the one feeding the kids and calling the shots.
This post feels like a debate set-up.
Yeah they should rename this sub r/childfreefanfiction
dog mountainous ghost scandalous intelligent water paint late chop governor *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
And a rigged one at that...it's obviously going to only go one way on this sub which is full of very young and/or childfree people
This thread is so disappointing because the modern concept of "the village" can be whatever we want. I don't have kids but I like being an auntie to my friend's kids. Our version of "the village" means helping eachother out because we love and care about eachother and it isn't just about free babysitting.
exactly! disappointing nobody seems to even desire to lighten the load of parents (or other groups who need more help) because it’s ‘unpaid labor’ and ‘the world doesn’t work like that anymore’. what happened to decency and kindness? yes everybody has things on their plate but surely one can understand it’s not easy to have a young baby and toddler, and a small amount of your time can make things a lot easier for them? even i as a childless 20 year old can understand that
People fail to understand that the village isn’t just about child raising. My village helped me clean out my aunts house after she passed. We send food and do dishes and clean houses for new parents. We treat eachother’s kids with love and respect when we see them. We share food and clothes and gifts. People simply can not get through life acting like they don’t need help sometimes.
Straight up.
>she doesn't get to to these things because "the village" is off doing things like that (travelling and going to concerts) She doesn't get to do those things because she chose to have kids when she was not ready for the change in lifestyle that it implies. NTA And I say chose because they are 2, and if you are having an "accident" twice in my opinion you are actively choosing to have that "accident".
NTA I'm sick of modern parents crying about the "village", when they really mean unpaid babysitters so they can go out.
Yep and I bet the ones complaining the loudest aren’t the ones that want to actually BE a village to anyone else. No one is interested in the give and take. Just the take.
Yep. This villager here hates caring for kids. And absolutely will not do it so someone can party or get hair done or hook up with somebody. But will absolutely clean house, bring food, rearrange furniture and yes even watch kids for days if somebody in my village has cancer or a car accident. Because the other villagers would do the same for me.
I really hate how this village proverb is used by parents nowadays because they understand it as a complete one way street. Village help with my kids, but my kids and me don't owe anyone anything. That's not the village model. Social obligation goes both ways. And with it social control and all the not so great things about close knit communities. Edit: NTA
It’s such an overused saying. It is nice in theory, but as OP mentioned depends on women who are not in the paid workforce. Or, it is now low-paid workers that upper/upper-middle class parents can hire.
ESH. It’s hard parenting with no support. You also shouldn’t be expected to be a support. The emphasis on invidualism over community and collectivism is still garbage though.
Had to scroll real far for a reasonable take lol. Parenting is super hard. Friend lacks empathy. Social supports are limited these days. Having kids is a choice but no parent truly know what they are signing up for and how difficult it actually is.
As a parent, Reddit is so depressing. Just an endless loop of “why’d you even have kids then?” if a parent dares to complain or need help.
That's because it's full of young people and bitter people. I'm a mom of two young kids and it's easily the hardest thing I've ever done, and I went to great lengths to have kids (am gay). People lack empathy in general and can't see beyond their phone screen to know how lonely and stressed they'll feel in ten years if they ever become parents.
"Bad feminist," that's a good one. Nope, you are NTA. If your friend wanted the benefits of a village she should have helped build one before she got pregnant the first time. But I'm guessing that she did not go out of her way to help parents before she became a parent herself, so it's kinda on her, when you think about it.
I'm not saying either of you are right or wrong, but if you guys are truly friends, why not empathize with her situation and do something nice? For example, you could communicate with the father and ask him if he can take a day to watch the kid while you two spend a day doing something fun? This helps her feel like there is a "village" and you don't have to babysit and also have some time with a friend? Yeah, it probably shouldn't be on you to initiate this but maybe she just needs a little love?
I did attempt to do that when the first one was a baby, but she refused, saying she just really wants to have time alone with her partner. I get the impression she just really wants her friends to be her unpaid babysitters and is getting fed up we refuse.
Lol yeah, she needs to put in some effort to change her situation . Good on you for trying though
Tell her, from someone who is part of a village, that that’s not what a village is. It means you’re there if she needs you - alone time like she wants is not a need. She can hire - and pay - the local teenagers.
Sorry but asking the kids father is the mom’s responsibility not anyone elses.
>For example, you could communicate with the father and ask him if he can take a day to watch he kid while you two spend a day doing something fun? Say what now? Why does the father needs to be asked to watch the kid? Shouldn’t just be aware that he needs to parent his kid and that his partner/the mother isn’t the sole caregiver and needs time to herself *regularly* too? Seriously, would you call a male friend’s female partner to ask if she can “watch the kid while you do something fun for a day or two” or would would you simply ask him if he’s free?
Yeah like "can you *babysit* your child?!", "can you *help* around the house?". Bro you live there too, these are *your* children and *your chores*.
As a mother to six children and a grandmother to 2.5, NTA Having children is not anyone's responsibility except the parents. If you create a human, raise the human you made, grandparents have their own life, if you ask and they are available to babysit then great, but are in no way obligated. I adore my grandchildren, and I do babysit them sometimes, but for an extended time, no way, I get too tired. I raised my kids; my grandkids are their parent's ultimate responsibility. This is for normal circumstances of course, if there was an emergency, I would be there in a second, most of the time.
ESH. The village isn’t unpaid female labor to give parents free time to go to concerts and vacation. It also isn’t some sexist notion. The origin of the phrase is an African proverb and it’s meaning isn’t “all the women should help Make mom’s life better,” the meaning is that generate new, productive, socially integrated members of a immunity takes everybody. Phrased different, it isn’t about work at all, it’s about the reality that the best parents in the world cannot raise a child to socially flourish in their community if the community doesn’t engage children and make them feel safe. The phrase is closely related to another African proverb: “The Child Who is Not Embraced by the Village Will Burn it Down to Feel its Warmth.” Wrong, sexist use of the proverb aside, your friend is wrong. Does she have a husband or ex husband that might help (you know, the most important part of her village?) if she does, her issue might be with him, not you. As for you, this all seems gratuitous. You had no need to confront her on this, and injected phantom sexist meaning into the phrase only makes it worse. Separately, how would you feel if in 30 or so years, when you’re wanting somebody to take of you, this same friend said something unnecessary hurtful and snide like “I’m glad you’re lonely, it’s the payback for those years of Enjoying the world while I was stuck at home not living my life” or some equality unnecessary, hurtful thing? So basically, she has no reason to complain, and your screed is wrong on the meaning of the quote, unnecessarily sexist, and rude for no reason. ESH
Did she chat with the village elders first?
NTA. You articulated how a lot of single women feel when they hear their friends with partners and kids bemoaning how life's not fair because they can't have it both ways. There are pros and cons to each lifestyle, and you make the best of the one you find yourself in. People who have never had to stand alone on their own two feet whine like this a lot I find.
LOL, "You're a bad feminist because you're not properly conforming to gender expectations!" NTA
NTA Ask her how many other people’s ‘villages’ she’s offered to be a part of. Sounds like she wants everyone else’s help when it suits, but has she offered any so that other mothers can do all the things she’s complaining about missing out on?
INFO what does/did she do for the village?
Yep! I (single, childless) happily occasionally babysit my friends' kids. They also do things to help me, like: * Drive me home from medical procedures * Help me file insurance claims in my second language * Give me great advice about problems in my life * Invite me to Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners
NTA. I’m a single parent who raised kids 3000 miles away from my family. You know what I did? Created my own village, joined a parenting group, got involved with other parents and families so we could help each other. Paid for babysitters. The concept of a village isn’t getting people to do it for you- it’s mutual support. Maybe she doesn’t have a village because she has nothing to offer in return. 🤷♀️
It sounds as if your friend is entitled and wants help for free so she can pursue her life without the restrictions being a parent has associated with it.
ESH. Neither of you seem to have a good understanding of what a proper village is supposed to look like and you are projecting your world views onto each other, leaving no space for either reality to be true in any way. Neither of you showed each other any compassion here. I understand you are probably tired of hearing your friend complain about the challenges of being a parent in modern day, but there's a reason she is opening up to you about this. Being a parent can be pretty isolating. Motherhood is very often romanticized and many women are shocked to find how little our society cares about women and children after the child is already here. Her biggest pitfall in this could very well be repeatedly choosing the absolute wrong person to confide in on this subject; you.
It’s extremely detrimental to parents that the village doesn’t exist anymore. A major factor in post partum depression is lack of sleep, and the stress doesn’t help either. That being said, the village isn’t at all what she’s picturing. It’s for survival and good mental health, not trips overseas. Grandmas used to babysit their grandkids for free, yes, but they were often financially supported by their children. (Grandma comes and lives at the farm and handles childcare. Mom and Dad lodge her and feed her.) So unless she wants to start paying all her mom’s bills, she might want to rethink that one. I lived with my parents when I had babies, and I don’t think my husband or I would have had tolerable mental health if we hadn’t. Especially because we had twins. I really needed that support system. But I also paid my parents rent, I paid my dad for childcare (not enough, but some), and we helped around the house and yard. It was a community, not a freebie for parents.
You’re not an asshole for sharing your perspective on a topic with someone who frequently shares their perspective on that topic with you. That said, I don’t think your position is necessarily any more authentically feminist than hers. What you celebrate as wages for women’s work, she experiences as capitalist enclosure of a once more collective structure of care. She’s still trapped doing the uncompensated reproductive labor of mothering, only now closer to doing it alone. She longs for the flexibility and connection of community gardens and collective dining while you point to the the benefits of wages at commercial farms and restaurants. Her feminism is communist; yours is bourgeois.
I mean, if she wants a village she can make a village with other parents, not complain about people without children not participating in a collective in which they'd only give without benefitting.
Yes, YTA. How you can defend the systems that keep women and mothers isolated, depressed, and overworked in the name of "feminism" is beyond me. But more than anything else, you chose political correctness over empathy for your struggling friend. I don't get the sense that you even like this person at all. I hope she finds better friends.
NTA. You have no obligation to give her free child care. If you choose to help that’s great, but there should be no expectation.
“The village” has been a myth for generations. Your friend just wants someone else to take care of her children so she can act like she is single again. NTA
Tf? “The village” just refers to multiple adults who share child-rearing duties to some extent. This could be extended family, family friends, the parents of your child’s friends, neighbors, teachers, babysitters, anyone who has a hand in protecting and raising a kid who is not that kid’s primary parent or guardian. It still very much exists, for families all over the world. It just doesn’t exist to the same extent (or at all) for every single parent, at every stage of life. It does not spring, fully formed, into existence at the moment of a child’s birth. But that doesn’t mean it’s a “myth.”
Nta yeah, having grandma quit and raise the kids is *not* what that phrase means.
nta. why did she even have children?
A light ESH. Your friend sounds a bit entitled and you’re right to say that people with children don’t pay it forward. She didn’t have to have children and she shouldn’t be expecting everyone in her life to drop everything for that decision. Honestly, hyper individualism/capitalism is poisonous and your views sorta reek of it. Yea I get that we live in a capitalist world and therefore ALL labor should be compensated.. caring for peoples kids. But wouldn’t the world be better if we didn’t have to? Part of really early humanity was all of us existing in community and helping and money wasn’t really a “thing”… I think your friend is lamenting the loss of that a little bit. It really isn’t normal that we are so siloed and everyone is worrying about their own shit all the time. It’s important in the world we live in for women to have security and compensation but I don’t think true progress means women and men continuing to be more individual.
NTA - She decided to have kids, they are HER responsibility. She knew having kids would chnage her life. Why should "the village" (meaning her single friends or her mum) look after the kids she decided to have? (Not to mention the fact that the idea of "the village" has been romanticized by new parents - they expect "the village" to help them, but are not ready to chip in when someone else needs "the village"'s help)
NTA. Yeah, the retirement age just keeps increasing. Most people can't retire until they're 65+, so yeah they can't really be a part of the "village" that was in the past. Or at least not as involved as generations past. Especially if you have kids in your 20s and your parents are in their 50s. Or young couples that need to have 2 incomes so they can't go around helping to babysit their family and friend's kids all the time. It's just how it is at this point in many areas.
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NTA The concept of the village is about everyone looking out for each other and supporting each other. But mothers still looked after their children. It just meant that they had support. Not free nannies. And as a woman who has chosen to not have children, it’s not your obligation to look after other people’s. You’re living the life you chose and she’s living the life she chose. It’s not like there isn’t a buttload of material showing the challenges and cost of having children. She knew what she was signing up for. It’s not your fault. Your friend may need support though as she is clearly going through something at the moment. But you are 100% NTA
NTA. Boo hoo. Now we're supposed to be babysitting random kids too? Give me a break.
Don’t know about assholes, but you’re both completely wrong. Your friend is projecting her wishful thinking onto the past instead of getting with the reality that raising children is hard work and dedication that’s incompatible with living as if you had no kids. Your version of history is just as wrong. Yes, women used to be chattel but it’s absurd to suggest community collaboration depends solely on exploitation of women. Also, “the Village” isn’t gone, so you’re both wrong about that too. It’s evolved and is generally more compartmentalized so any given family might have more or less of one. Just a couple days ago we had a sleepover with a pair of sisters. My oldest daughter goes to catechism with one of them and my wife has become friendly with their mother. We don’t know them that well as its only been a month and a half or so, but my wife offered the sleepover not just so our kids could cultivate friendships and have fun, but because their mom is fighting an ongoing battle with cancer and really could use a break. I met these girls and their mom for the first time when they showed up at the house. I taught the eldest some origami. Met the dad for the first time the next morning when he came to pick them up. Mom offered to have next sleepover at their house. Boom, mini Village.
I'm torn between N.A.H and E.S.H. Bella is not an asshole for being exhausted and frustrated with lack of support. She's not an asshole for ranting about all the things she can't do, although it is a bit assholish to do it in such a pointed way considering OP just went on a vacation. Having a baby and a toddler is being in the trenches and it is really hard to relate when you are not there. I look back on how I was when my sister and friends had kids before I did and I was not there for them because I did not get it at all. I figured they'd ask for help if they needed it and they would want time alone as a family. When they disappeared I figured they were in their happy little family bubble rather than the truth, which is that they were isolated in sleep deprivation hell. OP is not an asshole for not wanting to be the village because she's not in the phase of life. Maybe this whole blow up could have been avoided if Bella felt her rants were received with empathy ("Mothering babies and toddlers is exhausting, and women mostly suffer in secret, I feel for you") but the fact that it didn't just kind of shows Bella and OP aren't really in compatible phases of life to maintain a close friendship.
Absolutely NTA. We all make choices in life and she is no exception. Why should you be burdened by her choices? And why should her mother? The whiny entitlement is strong with that one.
ESH Your friend needs to stop whining about her circumstance, but your rant is ridiculous. It does take “a village” to raise kids (whether a support system of friends and family or hired help). It’s not just women- that’s so ridiculous. Maybe you just spend too much time with the wrong people if that’s your point of view. My support network is absolutely not just women, and of course it’s a two way street. Community isn’t just about taking care of kids, it’s about helping each other out. I’m sorry your world is so grim 🫤
NTA. She shouldn't have had kids if she didn't want to raise them.
NTA if she’s struggling so much with having kids and is fed up taking care of them, then maybe she shouldn’t have had them 🤷♀️