It Takes a Village

- Natalie is a young pregnant mom of three children under five years old. Her husband leads the worship music in our church and isn't able to sit with her for much of the service on Sunday mornings. One morning recently, their two year old was unusually fussy. In my heart I was praying for them when I noticed another friend, Kelly, slip out of her seat to go offer help.*

- When Rachel was less than a year old, I had a friend named Lena who lived around the corner from us. She and her teenage daughters would come pretty often and load Rachel's car seat into their car and take her to play at their house.*

- Courtney is a college student who lived with us for two semesters and saw how 'real' life is in our home. A few nights ago, she came for supper and spent the night. At supper, she asked if she could cook breakfast for us the next morning.*

These are just small illustrations of "it takes a village to raise a child." I'm not speaking of Hillary Clinton's village, the one of government programs that provide assistance in any area of life. These are  programs that offer "help" that many times in the end undermine the parent's ability to parent.

I'm referring to a proverb quoted by many that spoke of how we all need family and community to raise our children. It is difficult to raise small children! I know! Mothers are often home alone for many hours every day, balancing children of many ages with housework and cooking, and that doesn't mention anything that happens outside the home such as grocery stores and music lessons. What is a young mother to do when she is pregnant, sick, having another baby, or simply stretched thin by her responsibilities? It's impossible to think she can do it all alone.

Years ago, Ray made a comment to me that he regretted immediately. I was complaining about my workload with so many small children. He said, "If my grandmother could do it, so can you. She didn't even conveniences that you have." With great indignation I told him that he didn't marry his grandmother, he married me! Later I thought about that. Why did it seem so much harder for me than his grandmother?

I think it's because of the lack of community. We don't live in a society where the women meet together to wash clothes, make soap, talk to each other, and watch each other's children. Everything we need is in our own homes or we go to the store to buy it. We live too far away for close relatives to just drop by and pick up a child for a little while or offer help. Days are gone when young families live in the same communities that they grew up in and they know everyone in town. Now, a young family can go throughout the course of many days without bumping into someone they know. Here is a very interesting article that discusses why and how we lost this community.

The problem with this kind of isolation is that we are alone. We need help! We need to cry on someone's shoulder. We need someone to hold the baby while we just go to the bathroom. We were created for community and isolation breeds loneliness, exhaustion, despair....

We need community! Since we have moved away from extended family, we have to seek community elsewhere. I think the only place for that is the church. We have a family in the church body that loves us like no other, that sees us often (or they should!), and can see when we need help. How would Kelly have known that Natalie needed help if she hadn't been involved in her life? How would Lena have known that picking up Rachel very few days was so helpful to me if she hadn't been involved in my life? How would Courtney have known that cooking a meal for me would be such a great help if she hadn't been involved in our lives?

I'm busy, too busy! I'm not involved enough in others' lives to see as many needs as I know that there are. But the needs that I do see are overwhelming, not to mention those under my own roof! I don't know how women with small children function well without others? When my older girls were very small their Aunt Amy would take them sometimes or they would stay with everyone's favorite babysitter, Mrs. Wanda. Sometimes they even went for overnights to grandparents' houses. But I still remember feeling tired, overwhelmed and sometimes like I was harming them because I didn't enjoy them as much as could have.

I didn't realize what they needed was for me to rest, spend more energy on my marriage and let others help me. This article explains well what moms really need. I know we need to pray and seek God's help, relying on His strength to do our duties. But it's hard to remember that when you have to go to the grocery store in the pouring rain, get supper ready and your two year old has decided to throw a fit.  There have been many times when I would be thinking something like, "Sure, I know I need God's help, but is it too much to ask for Him to mop the kitchen?" He isn't going to mop the kitchen, but he does give me the strength to when I do it, or he provides someone else.

Now I'm wondering how to further this village mentality...

*Names are not changed to protect the innocent, but to encourage the weary.