It takes a village...

Village, community, society, group, parish, township…what does this mean to you?

Probably not a whole lot! I understand those words, I’m sure you do too. But do we REALLY understand them? Do we feel them? Do we rely on them? 

What does that mean for us mothers? How does this impact our mothering and ultimately how does this impact our babies and how they grow up?

If we look back in ancient times, as anthropologists do when they study hunter gather tribes, we can see the real village. We see what the word ‘community’ really means and the impact this has on raising children. We see that the care of a new-born baby is done by the whole village. If we really think about it, it totally makes sense doesn’t it? When we look at how complex the care of a new baby is, it was never designed for just one (or two) people. The intensity of the feeding, caring, carrying, loving, stimulation, THE 24 HOUR CARE they require, it is no wonder that this is done by so many people in the village. This is called alloparenting. 

So why do we do it on our own?

Anthropologists have found that newborns in a pygmy tribe are passed from one carer to another about 8 times in an hour. Babies are cared for by over 14 different adults in an 8-hour period and are only cared for by their biological mother about 40% of their time from a very young age. This challenges our societies idea that the mother and baby should never be separated. It also challenges the idea that it is only the mother that can provide the true love and care for her child. If we know that it is perfectly healthy for a baby to have strong relationships and bonds with other adults besides their mother,

Why do we do it on our own? 

Given this information we can now say, guilt free, that it is perfectly ok for mothers to have time for themselves, to eat, to sleep, to exercise, to have a career. If we know that our baby is being cared for by those who love them and have the best intentions for them, why does our culture insist on the framework of ‘intensive mothering’. There is a pressure within our society that mothers need to do it on their own. To prove to others that we have it all together and that we want to be independent. Our society and culture insists that mothers need to sacrifice ALL their time to spend caring for their baby and children.

So why do we do it on our own?

Because we have lost our villages.

Due to colonisation, urbanisation, industrialisation and all the other tions, people move away from their families. We move away for work, for better opportunities, for housing etc. Families now often consist of 1 working dad and 1 caring mother (big generalisation I know!). This change in our society's structure is a very recent thing in history. Over time women started caring for their baby by themselves. Women stopped turning to their mothers, to their grandmothers, to their aunties and to their neighbours. The scariest thing about this is, when new mothers don’t have this support of other women around them, we turn to books. These books often taken the ‘mothering’ out of being a mum and turn it into a science. This doesn’t help us.

When we look for answers on how to parent alone, the answers will never be found. When we mother without a village, babies fail to thrive.

I truly believe that we need to understand a newborn's mother's needs. We need to help a woman to be the mother she wants to be and to meet her baby's needs, while still allowing her to meet her own needs.

It is ok to ask for help. It's ok to spend time on yourself. Reach out to your village. You are not alone. If you don’t have a village, it’s not too late. Create one. Life as a mother will be so much more rewarding when you have a little (or a lot) of help.

And as always, be kind to yourself, you are the best job you can!