Where’s my Village?

An old African proverb tells us: “It takes a village to raise a child.” In our insanely busy western culture, we need our villages more than ever. But where did they go?

When I was a child, back in the sixties, most parents didn’t worry that much about the safety of their children. They didn’t drive us to the park, keeping a vigilant eye out for lurking strangers. We didn’t carry cell phones. We would take off on our bikes, and Mom knew we would come home when we got hungry or hurt. We came in for the night when the streetlights came on.

We knew our neighbours. Pretty much every parent on the block was a block parent. We respected adults, called them Mr., Mrs., or Miss. If an adult other than your parent told you to stop throwing rocks at the trains, we wouldn’t swear at them or display rude gestures (At least my sister and I wouldn’t – I suppose there were some rude kids back then too – but I’m sure their parents would get a phone call!). I don’t ever remember my parents paying a baby sitter – that’s what Grandmas were for. We had lots of aunts and uncles and cousins, and most of them lived nearby. Almost every Friday evening, we would all meet at Grandma’s house. Relatives didn’t have to call a week ahead of time to plan a visit – they just dropped in. If it was mealtime, we would set more plates.

Our friends, neighbours, and extended family were our village. Most of the moms were “stay-home” moms. If a family needed help with small children, or if the mom was sick, there were usually relatives available to help out. When someone was building a house or doing a renovation, everybody helped. The women got together to do canning, make pickles, or sew quilts. If they were butchering chickens or pigs, I personally would offer to baby-sit instead, but you get the idea.

It is so different now. Most families have two working parents. (Not that moms didn’t “work” before, they just didn’t get paid for it, and no one thought they were lazy or selfish for staying home.) These days, even most grandparents are still working – or they have moved to Florida. Extended families are not so big anymore. Family planning has changed the average family size from 7 or 8 children to 1 or 2. Children are considered more of a liability than an asset. People move a lot more, so extended family members often live far away. Divorce, single parenting, and blended families have become the norm. Family just isn’t a village anymore. Husbands are feeling more pressure to help out at home because wives don’t have a support network of extended family to count on anymore. Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, has noted that marital tension stemming from wives who feel frustrated that their husbands don’t help more with the household chores, is a relatively new concern. In past generations, most wives didn’t expect their husbands to wash dishes or change diapers. If she needed help with big chores like washing walls, she could call a neighbour or sister or her mom. Also, children were expected to do their share of the chores. Parents were not expected to chauffeur their children to soccer, piano lessons, karate, etc. every evening and weekend.