Dr Gillian Riley

I’ll bet you’ve heard that said more than a few times.

Or, you’ve heard someone tell you, as you ask, “how do I manage this? How does anyone do this?” That you need to ‘build your village’.

And then… the suggestions will be .. you need a cleaner, you need more days of childcare, you need someone to do your washing ironing etc etc. And it all sounds, easy when someone says it, or types it in a Facebook comment.

But let me gently challenge this…

who organises the cleaner/ironer/more days of childcare?

will this very general advice fit every family? Can people afford to outsource? Do their children go to other caregivers easily?

Is this what they were actually asking when they said “how does anyone do this?”

Sometimes it is. And if it is for you, then absolutely. Let this be your solution. Remember – care tasks are morally neutral, function is the aim of the game, and outsourcing them is sometimes necessary and reasonable if it’s affordable for your family dynamic. (To read more on reframing care tasks for function and without shame, I recommend the work of KC Davis, and the excellent book, how to keep house while drowning).

But I guess I really challenge this modern reframing that this is a village. Because, well, it’s really not. Not the way I see it anyway.

Raising babies, and toddlers, and kids, and teenagers sometimes feels hard and isolating at this stage in history, because it is isolated at this stage in history.

And this goes for people who aren’t raising kids too.

Humans aren’t designed to live such lonely lives. We’re supposed to be… in a village. In a family/extended family/extended kinship group.

Babies are meant to be held. By a whole pack of Aunties, related and honorary related and grandma and grandpa, and Uncles when they’re back from killing wooly mammoths or whatever (idk for real I catch pokemon all day. Ask me about kanto). Instead, sometimes it’s literally just YOU, until your partner gets home from work. And sometimes, it’s just YOU, all the time. We’re meant to have people around us who care for us when we’re sick.

sometimes it feels hard, because it is, well, hard.

and that’s ok. It doesn’t mean you don’t love your babies and your kids. It just means, that, well, it means I see you. And I see that sometimes these suggestions that it takes a village, even though very well meant, feel flippant and impossible , when you’ve moved to Canberra for work, like so much of our population, and your personal village is a long way away.

am I advocating a return to wooly mammoth time? ( or elk or lions, or ibex or whatever). No, obviously not. Firstly because I clearly know absolutely nothing about hunting or gathering and would die of starvation in ten minutes, but also because vaccines, pain relief, low infant mortality and Pokémon.

it’s just important, I think, to remember that, while some things, many things are great about living in a modern society. Babies don’t know that. And your brain, deep down, doesn’t always, know that.

Getting through without that village can be done, because primary carers, usually mums, dads too, or whatever name your kids pick for you, are amazing, and adaptive, and experimental, and remarkable. It just needs to be acknowledged more often, that it’s not entirely normal to do this with so little support, like so many of us do.

and I literally stand in awe of all of you for getting up and doing it.

ps if you didn’t know – I have a special interest in breastfeeding, (but all infant feeding really), infant and toddler sleep, and small humans in general. Although bear in mind this is the kind of rant you will get…

pps don’t get me wrong, if you can afford it, hire the cleaner…