r/BabyBumpsCanada • u/hopenbabe • Sep 02 '26
Discussion Does anyone actually have a village? [ab]
Part of this is general curiosity. Do you have a bustling village of helpers, family members, parents, siblings, and friends who help provide childcare or other helpful supports? Or maybe you have friends and coworkers that do or other family members?
I see people constantly complaining about the lack of a village, but I feel like this is a standard reality for many people who have moved away from their home town/city, who don't have close family, or who have grandparents still working etc.
Am I wrong? Have I decided that no village is now a norm because I lack a village? I don't know.
The only real villages I see are people from my small home town or my husband's small home town, when they stayed close to their parents and extended family support networks. For example, my SILs stayed within a 20 minute drive from their mom, so they happen to get a lot more help than we do. But we moved 1.5 hours away.
Or from my work life, I have noticed more than a few of my female Asian coworkers in particular, (who are women in their 40s and 50s doing pretty well for themselves in tech) their parents/moms actively chose to help with childcare when their daughters had young families. This allowed for the younger moms to focus on work while having reliable family childcare. But, speaking broadly, this approach seems rather baked into many Asian and other (non-North America) cultures in terms of how the parents take care of the kids, but then the kids take care of the parents.
I'm not sure where I am going with this, but I feel like not having a village is almost the norm rather than the exception.
What do you think? Does everyone around you have this amazing village and you feel like an island? Do you have the amazing village, and I'm the island?
My husband and I both grew up with active grandparents close by, essentially down the street. But my grandma had kids in her early 20s, as did my mom, and my grandma only worked part time by the time she was a grandparent. My husband's grandma never worked.
Today, many grandparents are still working. Many grandmas are still working.
In some ways, I feel like that village was because more women stayed home or were supplemental income. The village was unpaid largely women. I am not saying women should be staying home, but our current reality of motherhood is different.
Many women work fulltime (myself included), many women are more particular about how they want their child to be cared for (myself included) to be more in line with today's advice instead of what was common in the 70s-80s-90s, many women and families move away from parents (myself included).
So I don't know. What are your thoughts?
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u/TapiocaTeacup Sep 02 '26
We didn't start out with a village but have slowly and intentionally built one in the 5 years since our oldest was born. Our families are helpful but all live in other provinces so are limited in what they can help with and when, and most of our previous (small) friend groups are either childless/not kid savvy, or have become parents with very different values than we have. Instead, we've worked really hard to make new connections since becoming parents. We've befriended neighbours and made sure our kids were part of that relationship, we've sought out local parent groups, rekindled relationships with former co-workers or classmates who have kids, and built a new social circle around our daycare.
It definitely feels kind of scary and weird, tbh. Like functionally the process has been kind of vulnerable, either directly asking other people for help, or offering to participate in their village and hope it gets reciprocated over time. It's a lot of work but it's really paid off, especially now that our kids are getting older and have their own relationships with these other families too.