Do you have a village?

J

jlkuhioe

New member
Curious if those of us who are one and done have villages or not. Personally, I am a sahm who is with my son every single day 6 am to 8-9 pm. Dad gets off work around 6 pm and does help during the nights & weekends.

Other than that we have no additional help.

At first I thought we’d have 3 kids LOL, but both of our families are very uninvolved. His parents are retired, mine are divorced and now it feels like they’re all off living “new lives”. They are completely uninterested in helping us or even being apart of our family. Its like pulling teeth to get anyone to visit which is so sad & discouraging because they’re only 2 hours away.

The weird thing is that our parents were GOOD parents to us, but now as grandparents it’s like they’re completely checked out. I’ve heard this is a more recent issue for ALOT of people.

I’m curious if anyone else is experiencing this and that’s why they’re one and done as well? Lack of village, grandparent involvement etc?

With multiples I would NEVER get a break. I know with one I can relax during naps & at night so it just feels like the best balance for us all! Not what I planned but with more than one I’d lose my sanity lol
 
@jlkuhioe Our village is preschool during the week and my MIL sometimes on weekends. She loves to watch our daughter for a few hours on a weekend day, and my husband and I get a lunch date. She still works full time though, so she’s not available as backup childcare during the week. My parents live far away and visit every few months, and love being involved as much as they can, but obviously aren’t around for day to day childcare.

Anecdotally, most of the people I know who have 2 kids have a LOT of grandparent help (think childcare multiple days per week for full work days) plus they had houses literally given to them.
 
@jlkuhioe Wow I’m so glad to see this post.

We have a 2 year old and we do not have a village, we live across the world from both our families. We have friends but it’s not the same. And my son was born peak Covid so we were totally isolated with no help.

We do want more kids but we keep pushing it off because it’s so hard to imagine doing this again on our own and also with a toddler. Add into that that my husband is gone for work from 7am through 7:30pm every night and it’s really just me on my own a lot of the time.

I keep asking my friends how they do it and they all seem to have more support and help than I do. It’s so hard.
 
@jlkuhioe So true. No village here.

We're older parents, so even though our parents would like to help out with our only, they are physically incapable. We end up spending time helping them whenever we see them. And even then, it's us coming to them, because they aren't capable of the multi hour trips to see us anymore, and can't seem to get the hang of Skype/Facetime or even just anything vaguely technology- oriented.

Our siblings are hours away in different directions, so involved in their own lives that there aren't even birthday calls for our little. He doesn't remember his aunt or uncle on my side because he hadn't seen them since before the pandemic.

It isn't why we're OAD, but it certainly adds to our reasons to be. We can barely manage now, if we'd had a 2nd, we couldn't give our either of then the attention they deserve.

As it is, our only starting school feels like a blessed mental health break for me. In the years before I was basically with him nearly 24/7.
 
@vandientu This describes my situation almost perfectly.

I'm not an older parent, but my parents live far away and have a hard time traveling to see us. We're usually the ones visiting them. They are somewhat involved and do send the token birthday gift, etc. But it's certainly not what I'd call a village.

Our daughter has 5 aunts/uncles between us but a whopping 0 of them are at all involved.

We are also OAD for other reasons than this, but it certainly puts the nail in the coffin.
 
@jlkuhioe I think of this as well.

I’m a sahm, just my husband and I, no help from family.

His parents live 40 mins away, don’t come around much, and didn’t when our son was a newborn and we lived 20 mins away.

I noticed how they were with my SIL’s 2 girls, so I expected the same.

My parents live many states away, and visit when they can.

I’m am only child and I enjoyed my upbringing.

I do think my husband had expected a closer family “village”, as he’s 1 of 4.

Overall, I suppose we assumed it would end up this way, and I’m sure glad we are a family of 3.

It does sting when you know family is making the choice to not be involved.
 
@juliacon I think it’s because my mom has no problem telling me her opinion/what she thinks I should do about things, but would never tell my sil what to do.

My husbands sister doesn’t have kids yet, but I know they will be closer to her kids than mine.
 
@jlkuhioe No village.
No help.
No friends.
No one to lean on.
And a spouse who works too damn much.

Im lonely. Im tired. Im burnt out. I feel invisible. And gosh I just wish I had someone to help sometimes….ya know?
 
@jlkuhioe We have a village, but we built it ourselves. If we hadn't, I wouldn't have had kids; I know myself well enough to know I wouldn't be a good mom if I had to be the only caretaker 24/7. My childhood best friend lives 9 blocks from us, and her wife's childhood best friend lives 5 houses down from them. BFF has a three year old who my husband and I provided part-time free childcare for since she was 8 weeks old. Once my son is a little older he'll go over there a few hours a week.

My husband and I work at the same place and have had an arrangement where we can't work the same shifts since we got there, so we don't need to worry about daycare. Two of the friends in the neighborhood are WFH so if there's an emergency somebody can help out.

We do have family about 2 hours away. I'm not close with mine. My MIL wants to "help" but she actually wants to hold the baby which is not help so we haven't taken her up on it much, but she is going to watch him while we go to a wedding for a few hours next week.

Having a village was the main factor in my decision to have a kid at all.
 
@jlkuhioe No village, our parents are dead or really old. But I do see a lot of young and fit grandparents completely ignoring their grandchildren - they are either still working or retired, but acting like teenagers, running as far from responsibilities as they possibly can. I really feel for those parents, at least in our case there are no hard feelings, only grief.
 
@jlkuhioe Nope. Military family. We'll move every 3 years until my husband retires. My family lives nowhere near any army posts and my husband's family is currently on the other side of the country. Not a huge factor tho.
 
@jlkuhioe Yep, it's just the three of us. It's the most frustrating thing. We moved halfway across the country to our home state as my mom promised she couldn't wait to help us. She does babysit when asked but I have to hear about all the plans she missed that day. She didn't do a single nighttime feeding when he was a newborn even though she said she wanted me to get a good nights sleep. That never happened. We left such a great network of friends too...we're going to give it a few more years here to hopefully let the housing market settle and then we might move back.
 
@jlkuhioe My partner and I are OAD by choice. We actually do have a great network of support though.

My mom lives 3 hours away but is an amazing Grammie. She visits for a weekend every other month and our daughter spends 2 weeks of the summer with her every year.

My partner's Dad lives 20 minutes from us and takes our daughter out for activities frequently. Before my partner's mom passed away last year, his parents took her every Sunday afternoon so that we could take our dogs to the dog park.

My sister and her girlfriend live 15 minutes from us and are the absolute best aunties. They take her for sleepovers and play dates at least once a month for us to have date nights.

We have several close friends who have helped out with our kid in a pinch and genuinely enjoy spending time with my family, kid included.

All this to say that even with a village we're still OAD for our own happiness and financial security. I can't imagine how difficult it would be raising my daughter without help.
 
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