The Village... Is a Place
Everyone longs for a metaphorical village. Too often it's presented as a list of chores or obligations, which is only half right.
Commentary on “the village” or lack thereof, is ubiquitous in the media landscape I, as a 40 something working mom, am part of. This expression comes from an African proverb, “it takes a village to raise a child,” made famous, funnily enough, by Hillary Clinton, who adopted the phrase as the title of a book she wrote decades ago.
“The village,” in this parlance, is meant to symbolize a community of people who can be relied on to help, a support system. A lot of moms in particular feel a loss here, for a lot of complex reasons.
I don’t dispute this concern, for the record, about loneliness and isolation in the least. Major damage has been done to our social fabric during the last half decade, part by covid and associated policies, part by partisan political rancor (that is partly psych ops by rich guys imo). I think this dislocation people are feeling is the most important social phenomenon/problem of our time.
Anyway, lately, the way the conversation is typically framed in my channels seems to have shifted. What I see more and more is this posture that kind of blames people for the problem and suggests it could be solved if only individual people were more generous with their time or pro-social. This example from NPR, which came across my feed AFTER I had already written this headline in my head, is a perfect example.
Again, I don’t dispute that it’s a very good idea to host a party at your house. It’s a lot of work, but I try to do this a few times a year myself. I do think we’re doing this less and less of this these days. The Atlantic had an article recently about how the parts of people’s houses meant for gathering, like dining rooms, for example, have been shrinking.
I go to birthday parties all the time with my kids. One thing I notice, they have become pretty impersonal affairs. Typically, they are held at third-party locations like trampoline parks. Almost never am I invited into the house of the kids my kids go to school with.
Which is fine. I get it. People are busy. Many people have two working parents now. I think that is a WAY, WAY bigger deal for not hosting dinner parties than less people having dining rooms. When women stayed home all day, hosting a fancy dinner party with fine china was a lighter lift.
Still, I sorta hate these birthday parties. For one, they’re expensive. I was shocked at the price tag when my son talked me into doing a party at a fun center. Secondly, trampoline parks just aren’t a very comfortable place to hang out. It’s fine and it’s not a big complaint for me.
But the party I enjoyed a lot more was one my neighbor hosted in her back yard that felt very 1990s. She even offered us dirt cake (the BEST omg). She didn’t even really have us inside her house, since the weather was nice. The kids just ran around in the backyard.
I agree that we need to drive people to the airport and offer people favors and that is an important part of building a support network. Carpooling is a big one for me. If you are going to pick your kid up and a neighborhood kid is there also, just offer to get the other kid, FFS! It is wild to me how many times now that doesn’t seem to occur to people. Those kinds of interactions build trust among neighbors, and create that kind of community so many people are seeking.
At the same time, the whole beauty of a traditional village type of living environment is that these interactions would happen automatically. People used to grow up and live their whole lives among small tribes, maybe 100 people. Those kinds of bonds are going to be hard to replicate simply by hosting dinner parties, even though that’s maybe a good start.
Families and whoever these days are lacking functional third places. In the recent past maybe, people found this community at church. That kind of institution would facilitate repeated interactions with a supportive community without a great deal of organizational impetus put on an already overburdened mother. And without a great deal of cost.
Even better, a traditional village would probably have a real commons. Think of — sorry for this example — Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. She knows everyone in town! She’s running into them every day when she walks to where ever to buy eggs or books or whatever she needs.
Belle is very second wave feminist I guess because she “wants more” than her village. And honestly I relate to that impulse as well. I wasn’t the type who never wanted to leave my hometown. And by the way, my hometown, is a hastily thrown together 1990s suburb that didn’t have much of a commons anyway.
Still, we need to be real about the tradeoffs involved.
