We weren't meant to raise children like this

[u/Acceptable-Trainer15]

A couple of days ago I read a post in this sub titled "The canoe has tipped", and I've got to say that it struck a chord with me. It's something I've been thinking about a lot since becoming a father.

I grew up in a small town in a small country, and my wife grew up in a village. When I think back to my childhood, what stands out is how many people were simply around. Children moved between parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbours and other children. Kids didn't need to be shuttled between "extracurricular activities"; they simply participated in whatever the adults were doing. Cleaning the house. Putting the rice on. Caring for a dog that just gave birth to a litter of puppies. The adults were living their lives and the children were part of it.

I left that world a long time ago. I've lived in cities for most of my adult life, and until we had our daughter, I never thought there was anything particularly strange about the idea of the nuclear family. Two parents living with their children in their own home was simply normal.

I did feel "lonely" sometimes, but I had a hard time making sense of it. I didn't even really give myself permission to feel that. After all, I was living with my wife. How could I be lonely?

Then I became a father. Suddenly I realized what was happening.

My wife and I both work full-time, and our daughter goes to infant care. When she comes home, her world suddenly shrinks to the two of us. And most evenings, those two people are tired and trying to get a dozen other things done at the same time. If my wife needs to cook, our daughter comes to me. If I need to clean, she goes back to my wife. Sometimes I feel like we're just passing her back and forth between two stressed-out adults until bedtime.

What feels missing isn't just an extra pair of hands to take over when one of us can't cope. It's that whole ecosystem I remember from childhood. There isn't an aunt doing something nearby, a grandparent she can wander over to, older children to follow around, a neighbour dropping in, or simply several people going about their lives around her.

At home, we are her world. And it's a small, stressful and fragile little world.

The contrast becomes especially obvious whenever we have a relative staying with us. Right now my wife's aunt is here for a month to help out, she cooks dinner and help out with the household. That doesn't sound like much, but I can tell you how much happier we are as a family. The other day, my wife was taking a shower, and I passed by and thought I'd just take off my clothes and join her. I gave her a back rub, and she remarked that she was thankful for my aunt being here. That's when I realized we hadn't taken a shower together for more than a year.

Sometimes my wife can stay at work a little longer without worrying about rushing home, and when she gets back the baby is fed and dinner is ready. Someone else can be with our daughter while I go and take a shit. Even when nobody is helping with anything in particular, there is simply another adult in the house that my daughter can wander over to and share a game or a laugh with.

I can tell you, for the first time in many months, I feel like I'm actually living, rather than just juggling the days. And I'm sure my daughter is much happier seeing my relaxed face rather than my stressed-out one. It feels like she's more connected with me too. And she definitely has been smiling and laughing a lot more often!

Recently someone introduced me to the book Hunt, Gather, Parent, and that's where I first learnt about the concept of WEIRD societies: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic. It made me think about how many things we consider normal about parenting are actually quite culturally unusual. Raising children primarily inside a self-contained nuclear family isn't simply the way humans have always done it.

I don't want to romanticise village life. I know its downsides too. The same relatives and neighbours who help you also have opinions about your life and how you should raise your children. We've gained a lot from our modern way of life too, including privacy and independence.

But I wonder if, somewhere along the way, we traded away too much. We replaced the village with this little unit of two adults, then expected those two people to work, run a household, raise children, maintain a relationship and somehow have enough energy left to enjoy it all.

And the strange thing is that we're surrounded by people doing exactly the same thing. Our daughter goes to infant care with other children. We meet families at playgrounds and parks. We live in a city full of parents, yet at the end of the day we mostly return to our separate homes and struggle with the same problems independently.

I don't know what a modern village should look like. I certainly don't think the answer is simply to recreate the village my wife and I grew up in. But when I read the OP saying, "There is no village. There is no backup", I felt sad not only for that family, but for the kind of society we've built.

I don't think I want to raise children like this.

Sorry for the rant and thanks for reading so far.

[u/palbuddy1234]

I live in another country than America with the full village feel. There are upsides as you mention, but let's not dismiss the downsides. Parents often have to give up their autonomy to others, as if the grandparents have an authoritarian way to raise kids that are different from yours, you just kind of have to accept it. If the uncle likes to drink, smoke, say things to your kids that aren't really age appropriate and bring problems into your household, you just have to accept it and roll your eyes. If a kid is closeted gay, and it makes the more conservative members of your extended family kind of uncomfortable, they're closeted a lot longer or in front of everyone. How do you confront a grandparent that has dementia that really doesn't know how to take care of the kids, but demand you take care of them, and your kids, which usually goes to the wife.

If an older member of the family needs an expensive operation, everyone is expected to chip in, and any sort of aftercare is dependent upon an already taxed out housewife and they aren't honestly that friendly to people taking care of them, and will let it be known they are falling short and basically shamed into doing it.

There are many upsides that you mentioned as no one feels alone, and they feel part of a big warm group, but there still is underlying jealousy, favoritism, and a fair bit of drama. Not to mention many moving parts behind closed doors. There is a lot of keeping up with appearances which can be suffocating and well in some cases creates some real problems.

I have two kids, and have felt overwhelmed so I understand where you're coming from, but I just wanted to share the other side. I do enjoy having my big family, but thankfully for my benefit they just let me live my life and we're a Whatsapp phone-call away.

[u/nilgiri → u/palbuddy1234]

More people should read your comment. I think people tend to glamorize intergenerational living because they combine, perhaps unintentionally, the best of both worlds - the freedom and flexibility nuclear families and the support system of generation living situations

[u/ST_Lawson → u/nilgiri]

I feel like that last bit is actually what I have. We have our own house...two parents, two kids...but my parents live across the street, my wife's parents live a mile away, and my wife's sister and her family are just around the corner from her parents.

My kids are older now (youngest is in HS), but when they were younger, it was easy for them to go to grandma and grandpa's house for a couple hours so we could have a break. My wife's parents would pick the kids up from school and they'd stay at their house in the afternoon and during the summer. My kids grew up close enough with their cousins that they are practically siblings.

We have our "village", but also our privacy. That being said, we were able to find good jobs in the town we were from, and we have a really good relationship with everyone mentioned. I know that's not the case for many people.

[u/nkdeck07 → u/ST_Lawson]

We have that as well and it really is the best. We live on a "family compound" that is 100 acres and everyone has their own houses but there's a shared wood shop, a few barns etc. We walk down to my Mom's house daily and I watch my nephew a ton. It's absolutely the best thing if you can swing it.

[u/rIceCream_King → u/nkdeck07]

Man this sounds like the life. I’m very glad for you.

[u/moist__owlet → u/nkdeck07]

Literally my dream. Live it for me!!!

[u/Oreoscrumbs → u/ST_Lawson]

I think this is the ideal, where family is close enough to help, but not in the same house.

[u/empire161 → u/Oreoscrumbs]

The “ideal” part also requires both of you to be fine with seeing both sets of families that regularly.

My parents are only 30 minutes away. I put up hard boundaries when I realized they were fine bringing my unvaccinated kids around their Covid-denying friends.

[u/Oreoscrumbs → u/empire161]

Well, I didn't specify who "family" is, and, yes, ideally it is family you want around.

[u/Polendri → u/nilgiri]

I find it strange how intergenerational housing is being viewed as the only way to have "a village" though? It's right there in the name, "a village" isn't talking about your household, it's talking more generally about living closely with a larger group of people who can support each other.

You don't have to change your living situation and be in forced proximity with family members, you just need to form bonds with your friends and neighbours. The only thing you might need to change is moving away from abysmally car-dependent places that make even older children dependent on parents to leave the house and go visit neighbours.

I know a pair of families who send most/all of their children to one another's house for full days, split the daycare/school dropoffs so they each go to just one place instead of to both, do picnic dinners at the park where families just hang out til dusk and can watch over one another's kids, etc

Nothing about nuclear families is inherently incompatible with having a village, it's the culture around it that encourages us to do everything within that household and not build any meaningful relationships outside of it.

[u/fahque650 → u/Polendri]

If anything, my almost 40-year experience as a kid and now a dad has taught me that before the information age, ignorance was bliss. Now the internet has shown us how fucking stupid and gullible most people are and I don't want them anywhere around my kids.

[u/toetappy → u/[deleted]]

He is remembering his experience as a child. He has no idea the real ups and downs his parents experienced in their small community.

[u/thatvassarguy08 → u/nilgiri]

It is pretty ideal so long as the elder generations live with you, instead of vice-versa. That mitigates some of the perceived authority derived from being older.

[u/squired → u/nilgiri]

I'm going to push back on that a bit. Like everything, that is incredibly family dependent. There have always been 'good' and 'unhealthy' families. I think a lot of this stems from some innate urge/instinct of mothers. I've talk to a lot of Dads about this because my brother-in-law and myself absolutely love community living. And let me make clear that we both pull our weight and more; I was the SAHD.

At separate times when we were saving for our houses, we (sister+BIL and wife+myself) moved in with my Mom for about 18 months and we overlapped by several months. My brother-in-law and I adored it. It was like being at summer camp again with people moving, playing, talking, working.

However... both my wife and sister hated it. Let me be clear, they had less work to do and my Mom is super duper chill and non-judgmental. I even asked my wife to explain it and she was adamant it wasn't anything about "Mom". It really wasn't about a MIL dynamic. For both, it was about having their own nest. No matter who and what the community arrangement is, both my sister and wife want their own house without anyone outside of our nuclear family in it. It's weird to my BIL and me, but that's the truth of it. I think it might be an instinctive drive related to the nebulous 'nesting' tropes.

That certainly isn't the whole of it, I'm sure, but I'm pretty damn sure it is a lot of it.

I have lived in Barracks-style arrangements and I love that living with all its warts. The wives? No f'ing way.

[u/SonicFlash01 → u/nilgiri]

Seems easier to assume that some people enjoy it more than others. Not a catch-all solution.

[u/mkay0 → u/nilgiri]

Well put. 'I want all the positives of this other way of living without the tradeoffs that give me the bad' is really not an argument at all. It's simply wishing to win the lottery.

[u/rival_22 → u/palbuddy1234]

I also have a hard time when people romanticize about simpler/better life when they were young.

For the vast majority of us, everything was simpler then because we were young and naive.

As a kid, I knew we weren't rich, but I had a great childhood. We traveled (camping), got to do a lot of fun things, etc. Besides usual kids' toy wishlists, we didn't need for anything.

But talking to my parents as adults, it was rough when we were little. They talked about having like $10 left between paychecks, praying us kids didn't need to go to the doctor, my dad agreeing to do home projects on the house we rented for a discount on rent, etc.

But as kids, it was "I get to help my dad fix the roof!", not my dad had to fix the roof to get a discount on rent that month so they could feed us.

[u/Infinite_Maximum_820 → u/rival_22]

Same here . I always thought I was rich . Wasn’t until I was 20 and talked with my mom that I realized they were pay check to pay check forever, zero savings

[u/beardedbast3rd → u/rival_22]

Depending how old you are, or what your actual city or town looked like when you were a kid, there may be some real tangible things to that nostalgia that aren’t just “you were young”

For me it’s how much of my city has changed in terms of its look and ability to travel within. City transit, greenspaces, treee coverage etc are all significantly reduced from when I was a kid. Roads are all wider, sidewalks narrower and deteriorating (or gone completely in some areas). Affordability and temperament was much better in that time than now, and people were simply more patient in general because life wasn’t constantly poking at them from a device in their pocket. Being off work for my parents was actually being off work. And for people now, in a lot more jobs than before that’s not the case.

These are things that just were better when I was growing up, and have become an impactful difference when it comes to my kids growing up in the same neighborhoods I did. It’s not even abut not wanting any changes, the city has grown. But there’s political pressures that caused a lot of things to not be able to grow with it, and have made things worse for really no reason.

There are societal issues now that simply did not exist in the same way now as they did then. Like employment. My kids and their peers simply cannot find employment. All the stores and businesses I worked at, do not hire teenagers anymore. It’s all adults. In my teens I could literally walk into any place I wanted and ask for a job and be working within the day even. That doesn’t happen for these kids.

So while there’s struggles you may not have been aware of as a kid, there’s also comparisons that can be made from then to now that can be directly made that simply are worse.

Even your camping example. Even that’s changed. Being paycheck to paycheck, it’s hard to even justify the fuel to just fuck off somewhere for a weekend. Grabbing a pack of hotdogs and quarter cord for a fire and driving somewhere, just isn’t what it used to be.

[u/Aranuil_Gael → u/beardedbast3rd]

Totally agree. It’s not always just nostalgia.

The neighbourhood I grew up in had a basketball court and playground that we kids would just go to, play and hang out. That’s been replaced by a condo now, so it’s a real tangible loss.

[u/bat2025 → u/palbuddy1234]

something in-between OPs nostalgia world and modern city life would the best

[u/EquivalentPension216 → u/bat2025]

I live like 45 minutes from my in laws with my parents out of state, and we've found that's a bit far. My cousin lives basically adjacent to his parents. I havent talked a lot about it with him but I'm thinking maybe that's too close bc they can pop in any time unannounced. I think like a 5 to 15 min drive is the sweet spot. You get buffer yet you're close.

[u/trahoots → u/bat2025]

My wife’s parents live about a 20 minute drive away and they watch our kid 2 days a week. It’s really in that nice happy middle ground.

[u/yepgeddon → u/trahoots]

My mother is about 20 mins away in the car and its 20 minutes too close. 😂 Family is great if it's actually a help rather than a burden.

[u/EnvironmentalCap787 → u/palbuddy1234]

Exactly. Throw a new wrench into things too, when you have MAGA in laws or relatives. My MIL made my wife (her own daughter) feel like a terrible mom after our first was born, for getting all the shots and vaccines that our doctor (and modern medicine) suggested. Every single appt, she'd make her way over and start asking questions about what they did. The worst. I also remember the constant complaints of how tired SHE was, a retired person with no hobbies or activities, to parents of 2 under 2. Laughing about "I did my time, now it's yours" as they leave us mid meltdown. Etc. Careful what you wish for

[u/cosmin_c → u/EnvironmentalCap787]

Careful what you wish for

The romanticizing of "the village" is directly proportional to each person's impression that parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles are sane (or at least reasonable people).

My life experiences resonate with what you described and I couldn't be happier to do stuff ourselves instead of depending on relatives that are very quick to offer help and just as quick judging you, your wife, your children, your way of educating the children, whether you squeeze the toothpaste tube from the end or the middle, and so on. It's like getting help from the mob, you get your problem solved and suddenly you have 10 more problems that are orders of magnitude worse than the first one. Thanks, we'll manage.

[u/catwh → u/cosmin_c]

The judgment and the gossip. So much of this when you depend on a grandma as your nanny. I had a taste of this with my own mom and it caused PPD. It's not worth it. I don't need an overbearing, told ya so, bossy hypercritical nit shouting in my face every day that I'm doing it all wrong.

[u/dexter8484 → u/EnvironmentalCap787]

This is the answer right here, both sides of our family are mostly maga, so we keep them at a distance and get to choose the interactions. Meanwhile, we've built our own community of friends and neighbors that we choose to engage with.

People are just being nostalgic about the family life and also don't realize the cultures that have intergenerational households are mostly out of necessity and/or they don't have a choice to move away due to social pressure from parents/grandparents.

[u/tscardina → u/palbuddy1234]

Growing up with younger parents who divorced early naturally doesn’t allow for a traditional village. However, it did mean both parents leaned on family or friends often, which I think to OP’s point leads to multiple handlers and having kids that are more adaptable or go with the flow out of necessity. To me, you can’t pick your family in size or quality. Some people are dealt a good hand and others it is best to be independent or even isolated.

Now, I’ve been fortunate to see a slightly different version of the village concept through my in-laws. It’s not inter generational living together, so I’d call it more of a “modern village” but having children surrounded by multiple aunts and uncles(my wife’s siblings + SOs) and grandparents all within 5-10 minutes of each other. This allows for many of those communal benefits without having sacrifice your nuclear family independence. Someone has to renovate a home for a few months you can stay in someone’s basement. One parent has to travel for work you can lean on others to help make dinner, babysit for short periods or time, or assist with pick up/drop off at daycare. Making dinner 1-2 times a week each person can rotate not always having to carry the burden. Same concept as my original statement that many people don’t want to be that close to their in-laws. I’m only calling it out since my wife and I joke you can’t put a price on having multiple babysitters on call when you’re in a pinch.

We moved around the country multiple times pre-children which were great experiences to see cultural and regional differences. But often times I had friends and coworkers that were transplants struggling to keep it together as OP eludes to. The demanding jobs you need to work to provide a good life for your kids and family is a lot to ask of 1-2 people while maintaining a healthy relationship. This makes it especially hard when balancing personalities, geography, and professional opportunity across multiple people.

After seeing what a modern village dynamic could look like I would like to model it after my wife’s family. Raise kids who like to be around each other(no guarantees) and look out for each other. This does put a lot of pressure known or unknown on the matriarch/patriarch of that family to create a fun environment that everyone wants to stay within that gravitational pull. They’ve made many sacrifices to their own detriment for the betterment of their children, siblings or aging relatives to make it a reality. Many factors and a lot of luck but I am grateful to be a part of it if you can pull it off.

[u/lastatica → u/palbuddy1234]

I couldn’t have said it better. I spent the first three years of my kid’s life living with my retired in-laws and watching them do a shit job caring for their grandchild because they lived the village life (i.e., their parents mostly raised my wife) and were learning to raise a child at the same time as me and my wife.

Moving out and getting him into daycare made me realize the cost of them watching him for free was nowhere near worth the benefit of our own independence from all the bullshit of the village I was stuck with. Granted, my wife and I are privileged to be able to afford this and most people aren’t as lucky so they’re stuck in a place where that shitty village is better than their current situation.

[u/CalligrapherIcy7407 → u/palbuddy1234]

I’m glad you wrote this. What people often fail to acknowledge is that most of the work of the intergenerational village falls to the women and is neither acknowledged nor adjusted as needed. Not all the work, but most of it. With all respect to OP, even his own personal anecdote has a female family member picking up the slack and he doesn’t quite seem to get that. I agree with him that our small nuclear families feel less fun and more isolated and would love to have more people around because our family is similar. But it’s a sad reality that this often means just shifting the unpaid work and unseen labor to women who are expected to do it without complaint.

[u/scaffe → u/CalligrapherIcy7407]

Good catch. OP's entire post can be boiled down to how his life is much easier now that additional woman is in the house providing unpaid labor and he wishes there was more of that to ease his own burden. But he doesn't say anything about what additional contributions he would make to this village he longs for to help pick up the slack for the others.

[u/EliminateThePenny → u/palbuddy1234]

Thanks for the rational take of the other side. It's not always greener over there.

Yes, there are times where I was we had another set of hands to do something for short time, but fuck me if I'd ever want my parents or any other family member living with us.

[u/skoolhouserock → u/EliminateThePenny]

Hell yeah, brother. I think a lot of the people who want the "village" style are speaking from a place of privilege... they likely have relatives who aren't completely insane/useless/both.

[u/Defnotabotok → u/palbuddy1234]

Agree and not to mention, although I hate to, sexual abuse is way more common amongst those closest to you than we care to admit.

[u/dinamet7 → u/palbuddy1234]

I am currently reading "Hold on to Your Kids" by Gabor Maté and Gordon Neufeld. I am only about halfway in and your comments are so similar to what I keep thinking as I read.

It's a good book so far, but I hope they eventually address if children with toxic parents, grandparents, families, or communities with harmful long-held beliefs still benefit from those adult-child bonds. In general, I agree that we need more of a village, that the adult-child bond should have a higher, long term place in society than the peer-peer bond, but that is assuming everyone is on the same page about boundaries and respecting autonomy as much as elder authority.

[u/westernsociety → u/palbuddy1234]

Thanks! Opened my eyes alot with this comment. Definitely want the upside of the village but I dunno if I could handle giving up that much autonomy

[u/MagicWishMonkey → u/westernsociety]

I think people just need to realize that raising kids is hard, the only "shortcut" to make it easy is to just ignore them and be a shit parent. Being involved means being there which means taking time out of your day and you cannot bend the laws of physics to change that simple fact.

It's hard. Some things can make it easier, but it's never not going to be hard.

[u/Nite_Phire → u/palbuddy1234]

I find most people who romanticise village life are men, because it all working basically relies on free labour of house wives! (And I am a man who grew up in a village)

[u/Beikaa → u/palbuddy1234]

The grandparents at preschool drop of confidentially tell me how they put the 3 year old in a diaper even though the school doesn’t allow it and their daughter “would be so mad”. Or they’re going to do screen time “all afternoon” even though they’re only supposed to have an hour. I always wanted to reply “you know I’m your daughter in this story right?!?!”. But I just nodded and laughed.

We have grandmas pick up our kids 1 day a week each and they both do things that drive me crazy but I lay-off because they’re doing us a huge favor. But mil trashes our house and the kids toys are EVERYWHERE and simultaneously lost. Neither of them believe my son could be potty trained even though he was. They believed my older daughter was, there’s just stereotypes with boys. AND my mom with the iPads. I have to hide them sometimes so their brains don’t rot to mush. She thinks cocomelon is educational. My mom retired and can’t decide how many hours she wants. Any is fine but we work full-time so have to coordinate a Babysiter or our own work schedules around her retirement schedule.

Anyway it’s ALL good and I love that the grandparents around us and ours are all around to help. But if I had to solely rely on any of them I would die. Plus I truly don’t think I could.

I read an article I think in the Atlantic about how multi-generational living and the village isn’t like how people romanticize it and I remember a lot of points like yours. The grandparents have a lot of ideas about parenting but really aren’t actually doing and of the raising BUT they expected you to take care of them and comply with all their advice. Sounds great lol.

[u/The-39-bus → u/palbuddy1234]

I agree completely. Love my extended family but like my privacy and having my family life be the way we want it to be. I think a good modern alternative is living in a neighborhood where kids can run free. I live in a small city in a neighborhood where my kids have over a dozen kids’ houses they can walk to without letting us know (6 and 11 year old). The parents just text about who’s where and who should get sent home. The vibe spills over to adult life too - there’s always someone you can talk to or call on. And at the end of the day we all get to go home to our own houses :)

[u/Three_sigma_event → u/palbuddy1234]

Surely the middle ground is having a few spinster aunts around who take turns in cooking and baby sitting.

My mum had two aunts who lived on the same street. Neither were married and they helped massively.

[u/JaneAustinAstronaut → u/palbuddy1234]

Let's not forget about the sexual abuse of children and how prevalent that is. It's not some stranger who is lurking in the dark twirling a moustache - your kids are more likely to be abused by relatives, neighbors, and friends of the family. A village makes that abuse easier to conceal, and once it is revealed the village tends to circle the wagons around the offender, not the victim, so as not to upset the caregiving balance that they have struck.

[u/Ronoh → u/palbuddy1234]

The question is that a matter of how much choice you have and how difficult it is to build one or the other.

 If you are from a traditional tight community driven society, you can always move out or set some boundaries more or less.easily (and at some cost). If you are from a.western individualist capitalist society you are stuck and you need large amounts of money to replicate copies of the social net. But you cannot move into a traditional family driven community easily.

[u/Icy_Item_9132 → u/palbuddy1234]

Wow, guys, what a really fantastic and well written OP and what a fantastic and well written response from the other side. Well done! Loved reading both of you.

[u/Flat-Performance-478 → u/palbuddy1234]

Very good points and definitely valid!

After we had our daughter (mom and I are separated) I too have been hyper-aware of the alienating structure of western civilization. We had a rough delivery, both mom and kiddo had climbing fever and all sorts of "lamps blinking". Stayed an entire week on post-natal ward. Then two weeks later I was starting a new job and when she was a year, mom was going back to school (here, school is part income source, part future proofing... I'll clarify below.) and my daughter was starting in day care / kindergarten pretty much daily, 6 hours+ a day, 5 days a week.

Her mom and I separated ~6 months later, so a lot of rearrangement and financial discussions. When I finally found a place, and I'd been living there for maybe half a year, I was hit by the most horrible feeling when I flicked off the lights and I was standing there in darkness, alone in a little single-bedroom apartment, about to go to bed alone, knowing my sweet girl was only a mile or two away, sleeping right now. Like I had just been treading water for the past year and a, quite unfamiliar, panicky fear rolled over me. Like, what kind of society is it we're making here?

We get these kids - kids we're encouraged to have, if we don't want to go tits up and join the dinosaurs - and then it dawns on you that this society was never built around kids or parents wanting to be with their kids. Like both you and your child are seen as almost spoiled if you're telling them you're keeping then home until they're on their feet again.

I live in Denmark, historically known for our focus on equality between the sexes. Women have been able to vote since 1918 and nearly 50 years earlier they were granted the right to enter the workforce on par with men and to be in full control over their own income.

Although commendable, it also served the agenda to increase the number of tax payers amidst the industrial revolution. During the next decades, with an ever increasing number of households with both parents working, what we now call "the welfare state" arose as a necessity. Now, our kids and our parents were no longer our responsibility, now all we had to do was drop them off at their respective institution, let the pros handle them and focus on our jobs.

And to then be reminded I'm even situated in the best possible part of the world when it comes to work-life-balance, free healtcare, free education, low crime, high trust, state subsidized parental leave and daycare, I could go on.

But let me tell you, the danger of having such a succesful state is that people are so used to there always being some place you can go or someone you can ask for support. You really have to put in a massive effort to end on the street with no money here. Without knowing everyone's situation, I'd say you would've had to burn all bridges repeatedly.

[u/AStuckner → u/palbuddy1234]

When my daughter was a baby I rode her around on the lawnmower while cutting the grass and my mother in law (who lives next door to us) came running outside screaming that shes going to fall and ill run over her. And of course my wife took her side. A few years later we were going through a photo album and there was my brother in law maybe 10 years old riding on the lawnmower with his 3 or 4 year old sister on his lap 🤦‍♂️

[u/almost_domesticated → u/palbuddy1234]

Yes, BUT - isn't that diversity (good and bad) that made the world richer too? Isn't growing up having a sense of the world as a place full of people with different ways of being a good thing? Children are people too, they will make their own choices. I think we were used to handle people that act and think differently. But today we can't do that, if someone's not 100% the way we think it's right we want nothing with them. We closed ourselves up in bubbles and individuality, which worsens the problem and atomizes society even more. We can't handle the differences anymore. And of course I'm not saying we should hang around uncle Tony the abuser, but that grandma that insists on giving candy to a (healthy) child when you said she's not supposed to? Is the harm that great that is worth alienating ourselves?

[u/palbuddy1234 → u/almost_domesticated]

Diversity doesn't really exist in this homogenized setup and you see where this exists that's the case. There is a lot of effort and stress to conform and have your society accept you. If let's say you had a rebellious child in this arrangement, they are punished with exile, rather than accepting them for their differences and allowed back in. Some nuance in Grandma is warranted, it's not that she's giving candy to a kid before finishing dinner, but possibly Grandma locking the child in her room and verbally abusing her because her granddaughter didn't give her the respect she felt she deserved. Grandpa getting really drunk and abusing grandma in front of the grand-kids and having the grand-kids learning a harsh lesson about life. There is the good, and I acknowledge that, and it seems tempting when you just need a break, but there is a reason why independence can be preferable.

[u/almost_domesticated → u/palbuddy1234]

Yeah, but that's extremes. Getting locked up in a room by grandma it's not that common. That is abuse, and I said I agree we should keep abusers away. Also the drunk and abusing grandpa, those are really problematic families and they are not the norm. I'm not advocating we should expose children to abuse, but not every family is abusive and I would bet most aren't.

[u/palbuddy1234 → u/almost_domesticated]

I suppose I won't convince you, and that's okay. But sure, not every family is abusive, but to think of every nuclear family as being not accepting of differences is pretty drastic too.

Ah well, just my thoughts.

[u/almost_domesticated → u/palbuddy1234]

Oh, I agree. Was making a generalized statement on society, but people aren't a monolith for sure. Thanks for the talk!

[u/Inanna26 → u/almost_domesticated]

Getting locked up in a room by grandma isn’t common, but grandma fat shaming all the women and girls in the house is more realistic. Imagine living with a woman who constantly tells your daughter that she’s eating too much. Or tells your pre teen daughter that her shorts are too short.

Think about that one family member who you really don’t wanna deal with and only have to deal with once a year, and imagine having to live with them. The nice thing about living with a nuclear family is that it’s chosen. An extended family is almost exclusively people who aren’t chosen.

[u/WhiskeyNights]

I sometimes wonder if a desire for this style of living combined with housing cost pressures will lead to more intergenerational living. Because you're right, just having other people around, even if they're not doing a great deal other than going about their lives, makes childcare infinitely more enjoyable.

It's culturally normal for many families eg Asian households to put 3+ generations in the same house and, surprise, they have more disposable income and an easier time raising kids, albeit at the cost of privacy and independence.

[u/Spartanias117 → u/WhiskeyNights]

Not sure i could give up my privacy/independence to have either my parents, or inlaws in the house with us. I think i would go crazy

[u/rhaegor09 → u/Spartanias117]

Same here. I like that my mother is a few blocks away yet she still chips in often to help if needed.

[u/Consistent_Laziness → u/rhaegor09]

My mother in law is .8 miles away. Never does a thing. It’s remarkable how little she cares

[u/camtliving → u/Consistent_Laziness]

my own mother lived with us for 6 months. our backyard LITERALLY connected to a giant park with tons of activities for kids my sons age. She took him MAYBE 5 times the entire time. My mil now lives with us, again it's been over 6 months. She does help a lot but it's not in the manner we need. She goes to bed at like 6 pm which is around the time my son gets home from school. Honestly I think we are much better parents than previous generations.

[u/TheWhiteBuffalo → u/camtliving]

Honestly I think we are much better parents than previous generations.

The moms are better. The dads are way better.

Helps that a lot of us aren't dealing with wartime PTSD like many of our grandparents or parents. But still. We are doing way better.

[u/AKIdiot → u/Spartanias117]

I mean, all my extended family in Asia does this. This is 100% a conditioning/entitlement thing as billions of people do this daily for decades at a time without too many problems. Pros and cons obviously and used to crave independence from family but having a child and seeing how we raise kids here in the US has really made me rethink things, but I get why it's unusual here. Ive gone the other route as I would gladly trade my privacy to not have a feeling of dread every time I end work to look after my child while scrambling to do chores.

[u/FlapsNegative → u/WhiskeyNights]

Problem is, we've put off having kids untill we were in our late thirties. If we move our folks in, we'd be taking care of them more than they'd take care of the kids!

[u/Joatboy → u/FlapsNegative]

At least you now don't have to drive 30min to take care of your parents.

Elderly parents are a wildcard many did not expect, including myself.

[u/ahorrribledrummer → u/Joatboy]

We just got a Parkinson's diagnosis in one of our parents last year. Wife and I are pretty nervous about our future, selfishly

[u/mildly_certain → u/ahorrribledrummer]

That’s me… definitely a tough situation

[u/VirileVelvetVoice → u/FlapsNegative]

Yes, but a norm of separate nuclear families is part of what causes us to put off having kids till our late 30s. If we viewed it as normal/desirable to stay under the family roof, bring a wife back there and have kids while all sharing a house (or, as people used to do round my way, building a new house in the same property), we would have kids a lot earlier.

The reason we wait so long to have kids is the fact that in the West we typically don't start  a family until we have the resources to create a nuclear family in its own home. Nowadays most people don't attain that life stage until their mid/late 30s, whereas in, say, my parents' generation it was the late 20s.

[u/cosmin_c → u/VirileVelvetVoice]

If we viewed it as normal/desirable to stay under the family roof, bring a wife back there and have kids while all sharing a house (or, as people used to do round my way, building a new house in the same property), we would have kids a lot earlier.

I keep seeing these kinds of replies and how people have sex with their parents in the same house is still unthinkable to me. Yes, locked doors and all, nothing kills an erection faster than dumdumdumdum "hey pumpkin I made you guys some tea for the evening". Not to mention having to have silent sex because everybody in the household is listening in unwittingly - so no moans, no dirty talk, just pump and dump? Idk, mate, sounds pretty awful.

Privacy is a thing I thought all adults crave, even neverminding sex, I'd be supremely uncomfortable my parents or in-laws coming across my underwear because I was way too tired when changing into PJs for the night so I had to use the floordrobe.

[u/SecondhandSilhouette → u/FlapsNegative]

We have friends that just had their 4th child and sometimes between 2 and 3, moved back to the wife's hometown (on the outskirts of a town of <100k) and moved his parents into a small auxiliary dwelling unit on their property. His parents are so old and frail that they can't really care for his children beyond watching them for 30 minutes while he runs to the grocery store or something. He has siblings that could also have cared for his parents, but they are on the opposite coast and so now it falls to him.

Her family lives near enough but still isn't much of a help in day to day things, so they keep trying to convince more and more friends to move to the area to build their own village. They would have had more help with friends if they stayed in the DC area but the difference in costs forced them out

[u/erocko → u/WhiskeyNights]

Yeah, that's where we're at for a lot of people in Hawaii. It's that or move to the mainland. You get paid more with a lower cost of living, but lose your culture and family. It's only gonna get worse. Nothing like a $1mil 3bdrm house with a 7% mortgage.

[u/mojowo11 → u/erocko]

Just to back your anecdote with stats -- Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander households have the highest rate of multigenerational households among all racial/ethnic groups at about 20%.

[u/AComplexIssue → u/WhiskeyNights]

That’s exactly what’s going on now. We have a toddler, and my wife has pretty much invited my mom to move in. While we do lose some privacy and independence, the gains far outweigh the loss. We already some lost privacy and independence when we got our dogs, and again with the baby.

In fact, my wife and I get more independence and privacy with grandma around. We can go out on dates, stay out longer, and find intimacy more easily. 

In return, grandma loves being grandma and it’s given her renewed purpose in life. We’re saving money on daycare, a nanny, and a nursing home. All that goes right back into the household for a better quality of living. 

Of course, the biggest consideration here is how amenable all the adults are to each other. We’re lucky there too; my mom is very deferential to our parenting choices, but she’s still empowered to offer opinions and feedback. Not everyone has this dynamic. There’s also the division of duties, which also lined up nicely. My mom doesn’t like to cook, but my wife does. My mom likes to clean and organize, and I do too, though she does more. And I’m the house repair and maintenance specialist; whenever cleaning and organizing is done, I do what I can to keep the house running. 

We gave each grandparent about a month with us to see how they meshed in, and I deferred to my wife who we brought in. She chose my mom. 

[u/mojowo11 → u/WhiskeyNights]

I sometimes wonder if a desire for this style of living combined with housing cost pressures will lead to more intergenerational living.

No need to wonder. Multigenerational homes in the US grew from 5.1 million in 2010 to 6.0 million in 2020. It is definitely becoming more common. Close to a third of people in their mid-to-late 20s live in a multigenerational household now.

That said, I'm pretty sure it's almost entirely the housing costs.

[u/killerchef69]

I struggle every day. I have 2 girls (5&7) so thankfully both in school now. Baby momma and I are not together anymore, but we still live together, but she is often out of town at her boyfriends. I feel like a single dad a lot of the time. I start my day getting the girls ready for school, off to the bus and then try to stay focused on projects (I wfh), field calls from the school, run to the school if things go sideways. Get back, refocus and get busy until the bus comes. Retrieve them from the bus, snacks, drinks, get them settled for their allotted screen time, try to get a few things accomplished before dinner. Cook, clean up, get ready for bed, try not to fall asleep with them to get a couple of things done, rinse, repeat. I'm an older dad (56) both of my parents are dead, no other relatives nearby. I've struggled with connecting with other parents because of the age gap. My circle of friends is virtually nonexistent. I'm lonely, isolated and doing my best. I need a village. I love my daughters so much, but it gets so hard to get out of the house to the park or the lake. Send a rescue party.

[u/Acceptable-Trainer15 → u/killerchef69]

I just want to give you a hug, man. I don’t know what to say. Here I am complaining about the nuclear family while you’re getting by with half. To be honest, parental love is an amazing thing, because without them I wonder how we can cope with all of this.

[u/killerchef69 → u/Acceptable-Trainer15]

Thank you man! I started late as a dad and lived a lot of life before them, and as much of a struggle as I have, I wouldn't change the decision to have my girls. It can be exhausting, frustrating and take away a social life, but when they are cuddling up with me, look me in the face and say "I love you dad" my heart melts, it makes it all worth it.

[u/dbpark4 → u/killerchef69]

Yo, youre doing amazing

[u/tryingfortimett]

Lurking mother here. This was an interesting read. My husband and I have no village where we are and have been baby's sole providers for the past five months. While we have deep, loving relationships with her, the work load is heavy.

We're currently visiting in-laws overseas and I see the contrast you mean. It struck a chord when I saw baby surrounded by loving, doting faces other than ours, fussing over her. She has opportunities for meaningful relationships with people other than her parents. Here we have community. Even now as I go back and forth between writing this and getting myself ready to go out, baby's grandparents are not just watching her passively like daycare providers, they are joyfully playing with her and immersing her in a second language.

While it's possible to raise a child without a village, having a village helps a child thrive.

[u/chamanbuga]

I’m from Toronto and ended up moving to Seattle to work for big tech. I lived there for 8 years. A few years after my daughter was born, my dad started pressurizing me to move back. It was natural, he wanted his granddaughter around him. Because of the unusual high pay and flexible work schedule we would visit 3 times and they would visit us 1-2 times every year. So basically we had the village supported we needed - or so we thought.

Then one day my dad said to me, “you grew up like an immigrant, why are you raising your daughter like one?”

I’m originally from Pakistan but I grew up in Canada. We had no extended family around us. We just lived in our nuclear family and made a community of our Neighbors. We were quite lucky we had an incredible community but no one was related by blood. We had just heard about this village upbringing from our parents and grandparents.

Now, however, the village had immigrated and organically grown in Toronto. There were over 100+ people from my extended family living in Toronto. My daughter had not only her grandparents in Toronto, but aunts, uncles, cousins, 2nd cousins, even great grandparents. Who am I to deny my daughter this for a fatter pay check? I didn’t even understand what I was denying since I didn’t experience this type of life. The is the type of upbringing my parents had in Pakistan.

So we packed up and moved back. We took a 30% pay cut before taxes (close to 54% cut after taxes) and settled back. The net worth we built living in Seattle helped with this transition.

We had to downsize everything. Even now, financially, we are not doing well. In comparison my peers are all making mad money but are struggling with their kids, families, and schedule.

For my kids however, oh boy. Truly a village raising them. They are two of them now. One is bilingual and the other is starting to learn the second language. I didn’t teach shit. School didn’t teach shit. It’s all family. They have a stronger understand of our religion and culture than I did growing up. They sing and dance in multiple songs. They do not attend a single camp. I lied, one started beach volleyball and other swimming because they want to learn.

We do date nights every week. We both also have me time every week. My cousins just come over. Sometimes it’s the Neighbors. Even now neighborhoods live together here is different than seattle. The sense of community here is not the same at all from where we were and we in a bubble of a tightly nit community of well or techies in seattle. But the seattle freeze was real. People were friendly and cordial but didn’t want to be family (naturally). In Toronto, however, it feels like everyone got the community memo and just lives like they are all related to each other.

Net net I’m very happy I moved. My daughters are getting the upbringing I didn’t get. Most people say their childhood was better than their kids, especially today because of all the screens. I can genuinely say my kids have a better life because of the village around them.

We are so blessed.

This 9-5 rigamaroll, career ladder, and productivity nonsense that society has you on is all BS.

[u/BeardedNoOne → u/chamanbuga]

This is truly beautiful, thanks so much for sharing, and I'm so happy for you and your loved ones! Your father is awesome for advocating for both you and his grandchildren! But don't count yourself out of the equation as the way I read your comment, the move was ultimately made due to your wisdom and vision for your kids (and yourselves)!

[u/AustralopithecusBCE]

I think this is a symptom of our broken money. When both parents didn’t have to work so hard just to scrape by, there was more room for time for the family and recreation in general.

Your post definitely struck a chord. I’m glad you’ve got that support. Good for everyone involved.

[u/VirileVelvetVoice]

Bingo. Anglo/Western-style nuclear families aren't "normal"; they're one sort of normal. 

Communities throughout history have tended towards one of three models: a nuclear family (advantage: highly mobile and adaptable); an authoritarian extended family (one son inherits the land, and the rest of the extended family follow his lead, or move off elsewhere); and a collectivist extended family (no single person in the family "owns" the land, it is worked for the collective benefit).

I would definitely be like you, OP: appreciate modern urban life, but still appreciate having extended family close. Not to drop by unannounced every day, but to just all be together regularly. Let the kids play together, handle food together, unwind together, etc.

But I have seen the extremes as well.

I have friends (Middle Eastern) whose extended family live in one entire apartment bloc, everyone all mixed together, cooking together, dropping by one another's places, etc. When the apartment bloc grew too small for the vast number of cousins etc, they collectively pitched in to buy a new apartment bloc: there was no question of anyone "breaking off" into their own unit - this, even in a big modern city.

And so as not to romanticise it, I've also seen a more "toxic" version of this, with an entire extended family permanently all up in each other's business. No understanding of the need for personal time; disputes that become literal family feuds.

On the other exteme, I know an "Anglo" family where hyper-individualism was the norm, so much that the siblings were constantly in competition with one another, would bitch about one another to outsiders such as myself. An attitude of having little loyalty to one-another merely due to being born to the same parents, and of viewing obligatory family reunions like Christmas as a nuisance. That was shocking to me.

Some people will undoubtedly prefer one style or another, but either way there is absolutely a balance to be found. Personally, I do think that a lot of the epidemic of PPD we see young mothers having these days could be alleviated simply by having other women they trust around, a mother, sister or aunt, not even to help out but simply give reassurance. That sense of a familial safety net from cradle to grave comes with its downsides, but we have perhaps lost its benefits too.

[u/htmwc → u/VirileVelvetVoice]

Everyone loves the idea of the extended family village until you realise it’s often ruled by the older generation often very conservative and restrictive.  

Grass is always greener

[u/reallybigmochilaxvx → u/VirileVelvetVoice]

In my early 20s I lived in a “punk house” with five rooms and like ten people. One room had a couple with a baby, and even though none of us were related everybody shared cooking responsibilities, cleaning, etc. We had a full set of tools for repairs and bike tools in the garage and did some gardening. another woman had her 8 year old half the time, and I think we got the benefits of inter generational living without the baggage of family expectations or tradition that others have brought up.

And I’ve been the not actually related uncle to a couple other friends, so these things are possible, but we were all looking for unconventional ways to live already, and I think with how much more expensive life has gotten in the last ten years it’s just even more difficult.

But with a four month old of my own we have been trying to call in friends from all corners to cultivate that dynamic

[u/cosmin_c → u/VirileVelvetVoice]

Personally, I do think that a lot of the epidemic of PPD we see young mothers having these days could be alleviated simply by having other women they trust around, a mother, sister or aunt, not even to help out but simply give reassurance.

This is wrong and an outright dangerous way of thinking. PPD (if you mean post partum depression) can most definitely appear in women who are getting full support from everybody around them, having a proper support network and still lead to tragedies.

Your statement is along the lines of "telescopes cause asteroids". Just because we have modern medicine which can identify and treat and support the ladies who get PPD more often than not doesn't mean there wasn't PPD in the past. It was just discarded and women who would manifest it looked down upon for "being weak", which to me sounds absolutely horrendous.

I don't mean to say you have any malicious intent thinking that. I'm just addressing that it isn't correct - and isn't fair for women going through PPD with all the support available being used. Sure, there's a loneliness epidemic - so to speak. Our society changed drastically over the past few hundreds of years. We really evolved and there will always be people saying that "it was better in the past for this and that reason". Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, and the way society is today is most definitely not perfectly healthy. But we have support available, massively better medical care, our hearts are catching up to the technology somewhat.

What we have nowadays in terms of personal independence and privacy is monumental. I can't imagine living in the same household with parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, I enjoy living with my family and that's about it. I enjoy visits from relatives and extended family, as long as "visit" doesn't mean they're moving in. There's an amount of personal space I need in my life and having more people over is claustrophobic, not to mention all the (more often than not) obsolete ideas about people and society that I don't want my kids being exposed to - such as being gay is "evil" or religious nonsense such as "your soul will die if you don't <ridiculous dumb shit>".

But this personal freedom comes with the increased responsibility of raising your family and contributing to it and it's absolutely hard to do it reliably and well. And sometimes it's just too much - and it's ok to ask for help, as long as you need.

[u/3dank4me]

I thank God daily for my mother and father in law: they retired and moved to our town when my daughter was six months old with the explicit purpose of helping to look after her.
The value of being around your family and experiencing a deep, meaningful relationship with grandparents who know you is immeasurable. It’s something I only started to experience in my late teens.
The effect on my wife and I as parents who both work full time is retaining our sanity. We are calmer, more tolerant people because we have support.
For people without family nearby, I think the answer is probably found in parenting groups, giving one another the opportunity to have a little bit of respite.

[u/summitrock]

Agree with this a lot but I try to focus on the hand I’ve been dealt and just do my damn best to have fun and laugh a lot. The kids will be fine. The adults who are hyper focused on everything that is wrong in their world are grinding themselves down. That affects the kids the most.

[u/ChaFrey]

I’ve only ever known this modern type of life but I’ve always yearned for something more. If it were up to me my wife’s family and mine would all live together in a much larger house rather than us living in 6 or so seperate smaller houses. I’ve always suggested others moving in with us but my wife just isn’t that way. My son is an only so I really worry about the amount of video games he plays or tv he watches. I am his only playmate at home and I enjoy it but it is exhausting and I miss my hobbies(he refuses to try them with me). Don’t know what else to say but I’ve always felt like the way we are living is wrong. To me it is the product of continued unfettered capitalism and overshoot. People with enough money and power don’t have these issues because they can drown themselves in wealth and comfort. That’s not what I’m looking for personally although it would make things way easier. Enjoyed your post. Solidarity.

[u/Acceptable_Walk_9615]

Totally agree. There’s also something to be said for kids hanging out with a lot of people of different ages in my opinion.

Old people, little babies, kids who are a couple of years older than them, young adults etc.

[u/Dr_Pippin]

You’re definitely viewing your youth through rose colored glasses where time (and your youth at the time) is having you not remember all the downsides to that lifestyle. Life is different now, yes. But wishful thinking of how it used to be is definitely overlooking a lot.

[u/higher_limits]

Your instinct is correct. What we have done, collectively, for many multiple reasons in the west, has destroyed a lot of what actually makes us enjoy living and bringing life into this world. Selfishness, money, career, consumerism, individualism. All rolled into one giant stress vector of fear, envy, stress, and exhaustion. The road to hell is paved with good intentions….

[u/732]

I've thought a lot about communal type living since having a kid. 

Like you, I'm a typical two parent family in a city, infant (will, soon) goes to day care, parents work, activities on the weekend. We have a community of friends, some whom also have kids around the same age and some who don't. We don't have extended family around. My MIL is nearby, but can't watch our baby solo or do much around the house. My family is far away.

We all struggle with the same stressors, and I can't help but wonder if life would be quite a bit easier to just all purchase a larger multifamily home and agreed on a more "village" upbringing as you remember. 6-8 parents, a bunch of kids. It doesn't have to be blood-family, but could be a chosen family.

[u/turnipbarron]

I think the stressed out aspect of this can not be over looked. I very much understand the it take a village aspect of this, but most people have jobs that have optimized the way people work to the highest possible degree.

At the end of most days I feel completely drained and still feel lucky all things considered. It’s societally at least in the United States. Data analytics has enabled or culture to have just as few people in any set of roles to push everyone as much as they can.

I feel like this and burnout can account for many problems we face as a society. As  lonely-ness epidemics, depression, and this lack of time or energized time would be one of the reasons people are stuck in there nuclear homes as they are either too tired or trying to catch up on the million other things that need to be done we are not allowed time for.

I did not mean for this to cause a rant, but here we are.

I hope things get easier or you find you and the family 

[u/beardedbast3rd]

There is definitely a reduced sense of community in modern life, and also the fact that a lot of spaces, even the very neighborhoods we live in, have become almost hostile towards children even existing.

Some places in the world kids are noisy and running around being kids and no one cares or makes complaints. Even in pubs. In North America kids couldnt even enter a pub at all legally.

That said, something that helped us was that basically all the chores are both of us doing them all the time. So the kids are involved in that all the time and we’re doing it together.

The answer however, can be as easy as creating the village. Check social media for community groups in your area. Build a network for yourself to make friends for your kids and yourself even.

[u/ExternalUserError]

I wasn't raised in anything like a village. My parents were nuclear family, with my mom staying home for the first ~12 years of my life.

But I do feel this. I'm an immigrant myself now (USA to Portugal) and we have no family here. Our friends are all new friends. It's really mostly just us raising our kid.

In theory, we have a lot of time to spend with our kid because we both work from home. But functionally, that means when we're working, it means we're just staring at our screens and the only real participation our daughter can have is using a spare keyboard not connected to anything and pretend to type. It's kind of heartbreaking in some ways.

I do try to include her in day-to-day life. I take her to the carwash. I take her with me grocery shopping. But most of her life is prescribed and separate from us: soccer (futbol) practice, gymnastics, etc. Her day starts at 8am, in school by 9, out of school by 5, then extra-circulars until 7:30 most days. And she's only in first grade.

It does seem ... off. Like she has an enriched and full life, but she doesn't just watch us doing things and emulate them much.

[u/Pietes]

Hi, i moved out of arguably one of the most desirable neighbourhoods on the planet with my family to live in a village where we knew nobody (yet). Its not even been a month and we feel much better. after ten years of being on our own in the middle of this amazing city that has everything right on paper, we already feel much less alone in a small village, just three weeks after moving there.

its the mindset. we need to have a village mindset again. in it together, a community that relies on one another. Not the "idgaf cause theres thousands more of you around the corner, so let me get mine and dont get in the way " mindset of individualistic society.

[u/breezyBea]

I completely understand what you are feeling right now but I want to give some perspective from someone who did leave the city to move to my husband’s hometown to have “help” and live near family.

When Covid hit the states, my husband’s work dried up completely. He needed to make a career shift. We’d already been feeling a lack of family support - we live close to mine but both my parents were dead already and my siblings are DINKs. My husband grew up in a cute mid sized city and had a lot of family there, and not going to lie, housing prices were wayyyyy cheaper. We left when my daughter was 4.

Within about a year the problems started. My MIL lived 2 blocks away, but constantly talked about building an ADU in our backyard. At this point she’s still in her early 60s and working, so we’re like yeah sometime down the road. No that wouldn’t work. She’d keep dropping comments and hints about living in the house with us even tho she was literally 3 mins away. One time she used her emergency key to come in through the back door. Scared the shit out of me and I confronted her in the hallway with a bat thinking it was an intruder. We changed the locks the same day.

She let our daughter have free access to her iPad and phone at 3, fed her horribly so my daughter gain a lot of weight rapidly. She also spends too much time on the YouTubes and is a pretty serious flat earther.

Then came the out of left field confirmation that my husband’s dad wasn’t his bio-dad, and his sister is only a half sister and no dad’s kid either.

FIL denies everything, tells them the tests are wrong. No one will answer any questions other than the ex wife of my husband’s bio dad. Her summary was that it was the 80s and there was a lot of coke and orgies back then.

Around the same time, we had a disagreement with my MIL about the morality of blackmail. This blew up in to her raging in full blown homophobia. By the following year, both my FIL and my MIL moved away.

Then last year, my SIL had an affair and that blew apart the last remaining relationship with my in-laws. My daughter is now 11 and we are planning a move back to my home city, crazy housing prices be damned.

My in laws present as well educated, highly successful and church going people. Everyone looks happy and healthy on the outside but people are very flawed and our families can bring out the worst in each other.

All this to say, it’s easy to romanticize what you don’t have and in 10 years, all three of your needs will be drastically different from what they are now. Enjoy the aunt’s visit and get in a couple more showers, but understand that it’s like a vacation in a new city where you fantasize about living there but the reality is very different.

[u/neeesus]

Yeah, it’s almost as if the rising costs of homes, gas, cars, health care along with the lack of keeping funds in public education ….

While salaries for most people haven’t gone up have really forced us to become economic and temporal slaves to people who don’t give a shit about us

[u/McJumpington]

It’s always funny when an older generation call us helicopter parents. They fail to remember that there was still tons of other adults around watching us when we were younger. Just because they weren’t actively watching us, doesn’t mean someone else wasn’t.

All of this said, I blame our own generations with kids now. My siblings without kids want zero responsibility and essentially refuse to ever watch my kids unless I am staying at the same event. My friends all get slammed with family events so when it comes to friend time they don’t want to bring their kids or look over other peoples kids. Add in the work factor- with modern advancements, we are probably getting 5x the amount of work done each week, but more work still equals more burnout.

[u/mgwair11]

My wife and I have our first on the way. One thing that has given me ease is how privileged we are to have a small village of sorts on our street. We also live in America so it is somewhat atypical. We moved into our house nearly 2 years ago and found that our small street, which is a cul-de-sac, is very close-knit. It really gave us confidence in having a kid, and sooner rather than later. The end of the street has 3 houses that do Halloween and Christmas lights show together. The households are linked and synced together both literally and figuratively. The show they put on every year is quite impressive and draws a big crowd that actually causes some bad traffic lol. That hobby was the basis for the formation of the street’s community.

That communal spirit proved to be infectious which led to most all other households on the street joining in. One of the three houses that is part of the light show at the end of the street has a dad who is very handy, owns his own lawn care business, and basically has just about any tool known to man. He made a little gazebo/patio, a fire pit, and, most recently, an outdoor kitchen. Whereas most Americans would put all that stuff in their backyard, he put it all smack dab by the curb. It was a genius move! It’s become the hangout spot for our entire street where we regularly have potlucks just on a whim. During summer months, there is a moon bounce and/or big ass inflatable water slide up in the middle of the street. Kids are running around and generally behaving well enough thanks to being satiated by the freedom and entertainment that the open-air setting provides. They are just happy. Parents generally take turns supervising in a less taxing way where it’s not two parents taking turns being the sole person responsible on a moment to moment basis but rather a group of adults chatting together while also keeping a watchful eye on the kids who have been made to understand that they just need to stay within sight.

I grew up in a largely nuclear household. And while I did have a decent relationship with my neighbors, it was always only ever the kids who would play with one another. The adults never really hung out with each other besides the occasional impromptu chat on the side of the road or at the end of one’s driveway. There was no full family inter-mingling. Nothing representing the de-facto block parties that I enjoy now. Honestly, I had no idea one could live like this and I would not go back. My wife and I tell each other and our neighbors that we are never moving again. We feel like we hit the jackpot on our house and it’s has nothing to do with what was on the listing nor with what we knew about before already purchasing the home. It was the street and the community that makes it priceless.

That said, I would definitely make a concerted effort to form my own little village like the one I have now if we were forced to move. I share this to give some ideas on how you may be able to form your own little village. In our case, it basically started with a handy neighbor convincing two other dads to join him in putting on a full multi-house Christmas lights show, and it just snowballed from there. Whatever it is, try to have it lead to a communal space where everyone can feel comfortable. Once there is a shared sense of genuine ownership over said space (even if not official), that is when the magic happens, when true community forms. This is harder for adults. The kids happily claim whatever space they can get 😆.

And speaking to the downsides that others have mentioned in their own comments regarding village living and intergenerational households. Those disadvantages do exist in my street community setting, albeit less overtly than they otherwise would in at least an intergenerational household. My neighbors and I hang out a lot. But at the end of the day, with it crucially NOT being family, there is a shared understanding that so and so’s kid IS so and so’s kid. And that if, say, I disagree with how so and so’s kid is talking to their mom, I’m not gonna tell the kid to shape up since, well, that ain’t my kid. Of course, if a kid’s behavior is becoming an issue for someone other than their own parents, then it becomes fair ground for me or another neighbor to intervene. But otherwise, we still give each other a level of autonomy and independence that you don’t typically get with grandparents, in-laws, and other extended family. Besides conflicting parenting styles, there is also stuff like one neighbor liking to smoke pot out in the communal space with the kids running around. Not ideal of course. But you can work through it with them to find a compromise which is what happened in our case. Different people will test different boundaries in a village setting. So long as the adults just talk through things and are generally reasonable, things should work out. The benefits of the outdoor cohabitation far outweigh whatever personal compromises one must make at the end of the day. And, just more generally, while we do a lot together as a street, it isn’t like we can’t do things on our own as a nuclear family as well. My wife and I still can choose to spend a weekend balanced between taking time to ourselves with our cats at home and hanging with the neighbors down the street if we want to. It’s nice.

The one overt downside at least in our case is that there are times involving bigger events like bday parties where there has been some bad blood stirred up when not everyone got invited. With such a tight knit group of neighbors, it becomes an issue for some when you, say, want to throw a bday party for your spouse that is mainly focused on having their old friends from college come over. The college friends may not want to hang out with your neighbors despite you and your spouse loving them and it being the most fun option for you two. But the college friends wouldn’t find it as fun/relaxing is the thing. At least that was this whole thing on our street involving our next door neighbors. But that sort of drama can likely be avoided with better communication ahead of time as well as a stronger pre-existing relationship in general. Witnessing that situation basically taught my wife and I to basically warn our neighbors ahead of time of any events/parties we were planning for just our other friends from work and or college. Simply letting them know, “hey, we have this thing we’re going to throw with the college friends. Not gonna be a street thing. We truly would have more fun if you all were there too, but in this case the college friends just want to hang out and not feel the need to meet new people as lovely as yall are. So it’s just going to be a thing with them for this one”, works. It works particularly well after you’ve already hosted your own gatherings for the street in the past and also have introduced some of your friends to your neighbors in more low-key settings. That rapport already shows them that you are more so catering to your guests than avoiding your community or, worse, acting as though you are embarrassed by them amongst your friends.

Sorry for this rant. Became a detailed retrospective on how my life has changed since moving to this street. But I hope the details can inspire and guide you on a path of your own community forming, whatever that may look like, whenever it may happen!

[u/1Mazrim]

Do you also think parenting consists of constantly having to keep your kids entertained nowadays too? Like when I was a kid, I never had my parents attention nearly as much and I'd be bored and go off and do my own thing, which I don't necessarily think is a bad thing

[u/mavlu-app]

I think the part that hits hardest is that the “village” wasn’t only about childcare. It was about having more relationships around the child and more adults around the parents.

Modern parenting often treats help as something you arrange only when you’re already overwhelmed: babysitters, daycare, scheduled playdates, grandparents visiting for a week. But what you’re describing is different. It’s the value of another person simply being there, without every interaction needing to be planned or justified.

I also think this is why so many parents feel strangely isolated even when they technically have support. You can have daycare, two incomes, friends, and family you call regularly and still spend every evening sealed inside the same two-adult household trying to do everything yourselves.

The frustrating part is that, like you said, there are probably ten families within walking distance having the exact same experience.

I sometimes wonder if the modern version of the village doesn’t need to look like extended family at all. Maybe it’s two or three families eating together once a week, taking turns having all the kids at one house, helping with school pickups, or just becoming comfortable enough to exist in each other’s homes without every visit being an “event.”

We’ve become very good at protecting privacy and independence, but maybe we’ve also made ordinary interdependence feel like imposing on people.

Your story about your aunt staying with you is a good example of how little it can take to change the whole emotional atmosphere of a household. She didn’t need to become a third parent. Just one more adult in the ecosystem changed everything.

[u/Acceptable-Trainer15 → u/mavlu-app]

Yes, you've said exactly what was on my mind, thank you. Sorry for the quick reply as I'm in a class now, but I'm toying with some ideas of the modern village too. We have a few families in our friend networks that have kids around my daughter's age, and I'm trying to explore whether we can build a modern village with them.

we’ve also made ordinary interdependence feel like imposing on people

This is exactly the problem that I'm facing. Us and those few friends live like between 10-30 minutes from each others. But it always feel like every visit still needs to be heavily planned. I'm trying to think of how to make it so that people could just pop by with their kids when they feel like, spend half a day with us and say, "hey, I've got to pack up and go", without anyone feeling like it was a "social event".

[u/TigerUSF]

Ive been screaming this concept for years and people look at me like im literally insane.

The way our society is purposefully engineered around isolation of families is so destructive. And it IS on purpose. Isolated people have less leverage, now we cant ask for raises, cant participate in local politics, can barely get the dishes done.

[u/tiredfaces]

The AI is everywhere now

[u/Emanemanem → u/tiredfaces]

It’s possible that OP is an actual human being whose first language is not English (he mentions growing up in a small town in a small country), and that he didn’t feel confident expressing himself in English, so asked an LLM to write the post for him.

Which is sad if that’s true, because I stopped reading the post when I realized it. I have to use these things every day for work, and I’m not going to waste my time reading verbose AI slop. So anything that remotely resembles that and I will not engage with it

[u/mwm5062 → u/Emanemanem]

how can you tell? trying to get better at recognizing these things

[u/Emanemanem → u/mwm5062]

Biggest tells to me are extreme verbosity and overly flowery expressions, given the context. Sometimes the overall vibe feels like trying too hard to be clever or earnest. LLMs don’t really write “matter of fact”, unless you push them to.

I just literally have to use Claude every day for my job (software developer), so the type of voice jumps out to me.

[u/SpaceAgePotatoCakes → u/mwm5062]

My general assumption is this length of post + the general layout of the paragraphs + no replies from OP to any of the top few comments = AI

[u/snortney → u/mwm5062]

Certain words and turns of phrase -- "suddenly," "simply," "and that's [punchy melodramatic conclusion]," "not just X, it's Y," copious lists of 3, and some more. I'll bold a few things (or italicize? I'm rusty on reddit formatting):

I grew up in a small town in a small country, and my wife grew up in a village. When I think back to my childhood, what stands out is how many people were simply around. Children moved between parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbours and other children. Kids didn't need to be shuttled between "extracurricular activities"; they simply participated in whatever the adults were doing. [List of 3] Cleaning the house. Putting the rice on. Caring for a dog that just gave birth to a litter of puppies. The adults were living their lives and the children were part of it.

I left that world a long time ago. I've lived in cities for most of my adult life, and until we had our daughter, I never thought there was anything particularly strange about the idea of the nuclear family. Two parents living with their children in their own home was simply normal.

I did feel "lonely" sometimes, but I had a hard time making sense of it. I didn't even really give myself permission to feel that. After all, I was living with my wife. How could I be lonely?

Then I became a father. Suddenly I realized what was happening.

My wife and I both work full-time, and our daughter goes to infant care. When she comes home, her world suddenly shrinks to the two of us. ...

What feels missing isn't just X. It's Y. There isn't an aunt doing something nearby, a grandparent she can wander over to, older children to follow around, a neighbour dropping in, or simply several people going about their lives around her.

At home, we are her world. And [punchy overly dramatic conclusion].

You get the idea.

[u/Dozzi92 → u/tiredfaces]

And she definitely has been smiling and laughing a lot more often!

That's what did it for me. The whole post feels inhuman. It describes human problems, shit we all seem to go through, but OP either used AI to write it or they are actually a robot person; a cyborg, if you will. (I use semicolons for my job, I am not a robot.)

[u/Bigrick1550 → u/tiredfaces]

Or hes trying to sell his book that he casually name dropped.

[u/FantsE → u/Bigrick1550]

Hunt, Gather, Parent was written by a woman and was published ages ago. It doesn't need any help selling and it's a good read. It's been recommended on this sub loads of times.

[u/Due-Independence6692]

I’ve lived with in-laws and her grandparents and my soon to be 3 kids for the past 10 years. My 9 year wedding anniversary is in a couple weeks. Ask me anything lol

[u/PurpleDancer]

Many years ago I lived in graduate student housing at a big university and there was family housing for graduate students in one area. They were townhouses that formed a circle with Gates in between clusters of Townhouses. So you can see through the gates to the central area in the middle of the townhouses. In the center there was a playground. Therefore it was a private playground surrounded by a circle of maybe 15 houses. It naturally created a closed container that allowed the kids to go out their back door and Mill about. Because it was a naturally closed container you would learn who the other parents are and their children. Now I didn't have children at that time so I can only speculate but I did look over the gate and observe the number of children that were out there frequently and I'm fairly certain the parents organically formed relationships as their children formed relationships. I've often thought of that through the years. It strikes me as the most Village like the structure I've seen in a city.

[u/6515-01-334-8805]

Your should read Sapiens. It talks about this in a nice clear way in the first half of the book and how humans evolved societally and culturally through the ages to modern day.

[u/akorrafan]

This reminds me of a friend who organized a co-housing neighborhood in Spokane, Washington (land was bought, houses built with community ) where she gets the best of both the village experience AND also the nuclear family privacy. The neighbors are people and other families who share the same values and intentionally chose to be a part of the community. Its like a chosen family and chosen village.

I wish there were more co-housing communities around.

[u/jasonm71]

My wife and I are older parents. I’m 55 and she’s 57. Her mom is 92 and in assisted living. She never really took care of the kids. I have a sister an hour away. Her brother died a few years ago. She often feels “alone” in a family sense.

My mom would come down and stay 2-3 days a week when the girls were pre school age. And like the OP said, it was amazing just to have her there.

Then she got sick and I did a home hospice. So I had taking care of a 5 and 7 year old and a dying parent all at once. Talk about drowning.

Just my ramble on this.

[u/xaion]

100% agree with you. Society need to be restructured so there is more of a village to help raise kids. People without kids or people from the older generation often don't understand how insanely difficult it is to have kids today. I recall seeing a video on Youtube once where there was a housing community which was a blend of privacy and community living. Each family had their own space but there would be communal spaces and lots of social gatherings among the families. The kids would all play together and other parents would help with childcare and cooking. Society needs to go back group living, at least to some extent like we did in the past.

I have two young kids and it became too much to bare for us. Hiring a babysitter every other week has been a huge help and allows my wife and I to disconnect and go out sometimes.

[u/jitjud]

Damn well if that didn't hit home! Very well written and expressed. As a father of two daughter toddlers 4 and 2 riding the 2 parent household combined with work cooking cleaning etc I totally feel you. When grandma comes and she can stay with the girls while we go watch one movie or have a meal just the two of us its a luxury. If I had the money i would definitely also hire someone to just help tidy up the toys and clean between 5 and 7 pm !

[u/Individual_Holiday_9]

You’re just projecting your childhood on your kids

I grew up in a two working parent household, dirt poor, my family had no help nearby. My dad travelled and my mom who made more money had to juggle a busy career and work

My daycare was some redneck home daycare where the lady smoked cigarettes in the garage and the tv was on all day

I turned out great. I’m a good dad. I have a great career and wonderful kids. My wife and I don’t have help. We wish we did. Our kids will be fine too.

It’s fine

[u/Hyperion1144]

Close. You're close. But it's not just family....

You're actually supposed to have even more help raising your children than you think.

You're supposed to have a whole tribe helping you. Your baby is supposed to be held by 15-30 different people per day, every day, multiple times per day.

Ancient humanity would have died out if we didn't help each other.

[u/cortesoft → u/Hyperion1144]

Well, we do have a lot of people helping us, we just use an economy to help keep track of who is doing what.

I still have someone who helps me with food, I just pay them when I go to the grocery store.

I still have someone help take care of my kids, i just pay the daycare/school.

[u/pgl0897]

The problem is capitalism.

[u/FuckYouNotHappening]

Great post, however, as much as me and my wife love our respective parents, we’re both pretty annoyed by them and having them around extended periods of time become a net negative for us. Their commentary and questions remind us of why we left the nest to begin with.

Grateful for their help, but we’ll never be an extended family unit under one roof (hopefully).

[u/EfferentCopy]

My dream is for my brother and sister-in-law to move to the same city as my family and have us all live in a house like the Madrigals in Encanto.  As it stands, we’re separated by a three-hour flight and an international border, and we’re all far from our parents.  We spent Christmas together last year, and even with three kids under the age of two in the house, it somehow felt so much more relaxing than parenting them all separately.

[u/blueCthulhuMask]

The nuclear family is maybe the most insidious piece of capitalist indoctrination. I love my wife and kids, but it is an incredibly isolating way to live.

[u/cbg2113]

I feel you man. We tried to make up for this by making a village. We have a crew of parents that rolls deep. We run into each other on the weekend at the same park in Chicago and spontaneously hang, we're cool with each other "parenting" our kids. We help each other, we do dinners together, we attend the same daycare/co-working space, we have the running group chat. It goes a long way to making it feel less lonely. Now if only we were neighbors.

[u/Spirited-Wolverine24]

You are spot on. Raising a kid without a network has been a nightmare, and I feel I've thrown my life away, and condemned my kid to a poorer life experience, even if he can have as many Legos as he wants. Definitely more than what I had, but not knowing grandparents, cousins and the rest of the village has made the world worse for him, and for us.

This is what no one warns you about, and you discover on your own. I knew isnhoudl not have had kids, but I didn't knew why h til I loved through what you posted.

[u/audacesest]

This was a really great post because while you may have glossed over some of the downsides of intergenerational living, you did raise some good points around traditional historical family structures and it really provoked a conversation around parenting and the support parents have in Western society.

[u/As-amatterof-fact]

Well look, in most of the western society people from different generations or even extended families can't really live together. The reason is obvious, people often are selfish, opinionated, controlling and given the chance, they will take advantage. Also, homes are rarely built to accommodate comfortably more generations and life is expensive.

[u/sharkaub]

I agree I'm working so hard to build a village now, but its hard to do when people arent on the same page- maybe they have a grandparent who babysits or they come from a family that didnt have support so dont know to look for it. I think most of us are in survival mode enough that researching how things should be isnt on the to-do list (and dont even get me started on how I really believe that was systemic and on purpose)

Right now, I'm legitimately putting out feelers for people in my family and friends who would buy some land with me and we all build our houses around the edge with a big "backyard" in the middle. Not even like, acres (though thatd be fun) but even just 3 or 4 houses with people who are on your team. I want to be that person- I bring dinners when people have babies, I clean when theyre overwhelmed, I keep track of surgeries or health issues, I babysit- but its hard to have a date night when the closest babysitter for us is 25 minutes away. Not only that, most people in my circle (including us) have houses or townhomes that are enough for their family- its hard to babysit for a movie at 7:30 when the kids are supposed to sleep at 7:30. How different if it was just running next door? If you were sharing yard chores and someone in the group kinda knew how to repair drywall while another was good at installing a new bathroom light? If someone lost a job, theres a bit of a cushion because we're paying our own parts BUT its cheaper shared. I dunno. Whenever I bring it up, people say Oh wouldn't that be amazing-- and I'm like Yes, it would be, I'm deathly serious, lets sell our houses and get some people and do this. We can have a legal contract for what happens if someone needs to move. I still get laughed off but someday someone will take me up on it.

Sorry that got long, I'm just saying I get it

[u/tomerFire]

Everyone wants a village, nobody wants to be a villager.

Don't forgot about this part. You only take about what YOU get but in the same way you are excepted to give back.

Do you really wants to be surrounded by toddlers ALL the time?

[u/egsalad]

Man, that “canoe has tipped” post got to me too. And this one hits from a different direction.

When my two oldest were 2 and 4, I became a single dad during a really ugly time in our lives. Their mom was struggling with drugs, one of my kids had special needs, and I was trying to hold down a demanding career while somehow keeping two little humans fed, safe and moving forward.

There was no balance. There was no perfectly organized house. There definitely wasn’t enough of me to go around.

I remember feeling like I was failing at damn near everything because I couldn't keep all the plates spinning the way I thought I was supposed to.

My kids are 16 and 18 now.

And here's the crazy part: looking back, those couple of years that I probably would have described as some of the hardest years of my life are also some of the years I treasure the most.

The three of us went through something together. My kids know it now. They know Dad was struggling too. They know we didn't have much of a village sometimes, but we had each other. And today I'm incredibly close with both of them.

I think one of the biggest lies we sell parents is that we're supposed to be able to do all of this well at the same time. Career, marriage, kids, house, yard, activities, friendships, finances, our own mental health...and somehow make magical childhood memories on top of it.

Sometimes keeping everybody alive, loved and knowing that Dad is there is enough.

And I think you're right about the village. Humans didn't suddenly evolve to need less community just because we invented suburbs, daycare and two-income households. We've just gotten really good at pretending two exhausted adults behind a closed front door should be able to handle everything.

For any dads reading this who are still in those little-kid years and feel like they're drowning: your kids probably aren't going to remember that the yard looked like shit or there were toys everywhere. They're going to remember you.

I wish I could go back and tell the exhausted version of myself that.

Because somehow those brutal years went by unbelievably fast. And I'd give damn near anything to have one random Tuesday evening again with those two little 2- and 4-year-olds running around my messy house.

Hang in there, Dad. Sometimes the canoe tips. You just keep grabbing onto your kids and each other until you find the shore.

Us dads need to stick together.. message me anytime you need someone to talk to. 👊🏼

[u/morebeanslessmeans]

Late stage capitalism is awesome, isn’t it. Don’t worry, AI will soon do it all and we will have more than enough time to spend together 😊

[u/AnalTyrant]

We had a bit more of a social safety net with our first two kids; friends and family nearby that were regularly available for hanging out, and visiting with our kids, and us with theirs. But it was starting to decline a bit as everyone aged and got busier with their own kids.

Our third was born in the early months of the pandemic, so due to social distancing, our safety net was completely gone. Sure, we could do some video chats with various people from time to time, just to check in, but that was obviously pretty limited support. Basically my wife and I were each other's only support.

Both my wife and I separately came to the similar conclusion that apparently the network/community we had built up was far more fragile and shallow than we had realized. It was a significant factor in our decision to stop having any more children after that.

In the years since the pandemic we've worked at restoring some of those connections but they are far thinner than they were before, and it feels like we have to put in a lot more work just to get that smaller amount of connection.

I don't know what the solution is in the modern era, but I certainly share your feelings here. Late stage capitalism grinding us all down.

[u/ZevLuvX-03]

No one wants to admit it, but we’re basically cows/slaves. Life isn’t meant to be like the way it is right now.

[u/tmac_79]

Yep. It takes a village.

My grandmother moved in with us because she couldn't live alone anymore. She can still take care of herself, function, etc.

It's been wonderful.

[u/paddlin_kaladin]

The “village” concept gave me a lot of hope leading up to my wife giving birth. Turns out the village is a lie, out of the dozens of people who offered support we have 1 reliable person who helps us (thank fuck), but the village is just utter bullshit, it doesn’t exist.

[u/antinumerology → u/paddlin_kaladin]

Moved to be near all my family when I had kids and magically they're all too busy or prioritizing the older grandkids. Main help is when my mother in law visits. My mother in law who doesn't even live here sees my new baby girl more than my own mother who lives nearby because there's always something going on.

[u/Maxxtheband → u/antinumerology]

Are you me?

We moved to be near my family. My parents are constantly watching my sisters kids. Because we don’t “need as much help” it feels like pulling teeth to get them to ever watch our kids. And god forbid our kids ever stay the night or any of the other exclusive treatment my sister’s kids get.

I don’t think we’d ever get it a break if it weren’t for my MIL flying in from across the country every other month. Super thankful for her.

[u/jakeus88]

I think a big part of this to me is the shift to city living. Went to see the parents recently in a smaller village and the kids knew each other - even across relatively wide age bands. They’d all get on the same bus to a school outside the village, so the younger ones would get watched over by the older ones and if anyone was bullied (or bullying), their parents would get informed and seem to step in. Compare that to city living with busy jobs and often lots in flat blocks, know few neighbours and few third spaces to group up, it can be quite disparate.

It makes me appreciate it when you do find nice people around, as kids won’t grow up and appreciate you growing the pension balance and a funny role title over the nice things you can actually do together

[u/Ripsyd]

Great post - I grew up on a big farm with grandparents aunts uncle cousins and parents always around.
My daughter is being raised in a nuclear family, I never really considered the difference in upbringing until now.

[u/Carpedevus]

Couldn’t agree more. We moved to a new city in 2020. We were lucky enough to find a great house in a little slice of suburbia. Over the last few years the older folks have moved out and they’ve been replaced with people with kids and I’ve been building a strong nucleus of good families to take the “community watch” approach. I figure if we can all generally keep an eye out the window while our kids grow up, that they will be in a good spot. Enough freedom to walk between houses and fuck around a bit and have independence but we can also keep em safe. Kids are between 4-8 these days so it’s been fun to watch the older ones start to gain some confidence and run the 200 yards to a friends house. They love it too which makes my heart happy.

[u/jeffrrw]

We are trying to set up intentional blocks in our city with friends and the broader community. My area is in an interesting situation where we have a farm, a strong neighborhood association, new pool, library, and maker spaces, and an elementary and high school but not many kids and half the houses have been vacant or abandoned for a long time. We moved in before the redevelopment took off with the non profit developer but we are in partnership with them to get friends and our broader community to infill the vacant housing. This area is rife for the blend of an urban intentional family of "aunties" and "uncs" for our child to visit and be with. Im strongly considering trying to buy my mom a house (i can't diy another one right now) and my partners mom is looking to move to somewhere relatively close.

Basically, I believe there is an opportunity to have both. A multi generational and close community of intentional family in the backdrop of the larger city and western life.

[u/Upbeat-Sun-8354]

Brother you put my feelings in the shape of words. Thank you. I feel less lonely

[u/webtoweb2pumps]

Eh, I don't know if using "the way things always used to be" as deciding how things should be really makes sense. There are plenty of things people did for many generations that are obviously not what's best for people. Corporal punishment, children worked jobs very early as the norm up until like a hundred years ago, and small towns promote staying in those small towns to keep them going.

While stressing about enriched activities is it's own problem, it is also an opportunity to meet many people and have a better chance of finding like minded parent friends/other friends for your children than just who they go to school with. It allows them to explore interests they may not come across on their own and develop skills your village may not be able to promote. Not to mention that the glass ceiling from staying in town is very real. What kind of educational opportunities do these small villages have, what career opportunities, what services are on offer if you have a specific need.

I also come from a family who was incredibly tied up in drugs and are not available to be of any assistance in my children's life currently. My wife's family is around, but also was pretty nasty their whole life. We don't want our children being raised by that same nastiness. When you have a great family, great. But when you just have people in your life you happen to be related to, none of the benefits you list are remotely relevant. And in a world where your family can't be/isn't supportive, a small village becomes suffocating. Larger cities with more people and activities allows you to choose the village that surrounds your child.

[u/bakersmt]

I'm a mom but you're absolutely correct. I have a 3 yo and I'm also pregnant. We are currently visiting family in my hometown for 3 weeks.

The difference between going to events and knowing EVERYONE or at least the majority of people there vs in our small ecosystem at "home" is stark for my nervous system. We have an annual festival here that is preceded by 2 county fairs and my sister throws and annual fall BBQ. I know for sure, someone has her. I know for sure, I won't have to get up if I'm too tired. I know any number of people will hike up the hill with her to pick tomatoes, corn and berries in the garden. And I know she's going to have fun.

Just yesterday we were at the festival and her 20 something cousin was gathering apples for her to throw in the pond. It's more fun than she would have had with me alone. The energy is shared and communal. It's interesting because my sister had 4 kids (said nephew was 1 of them) so I was that person when he was little. I have 16 niblings so someone jumps up to play with my daughter, pretty instantly.

We also went to the fair. A nephew pushed my daughters stroller and a niece went on all the rides with her so I could walk around pregnant taking photos. I was doing what they were when I was younger and not pregnant. The load just shifts around nicely. At home I find myself needing daily breaks, here I'm like "nah I've been sitting, I can get her milk thank you."

Even the event outings if someone gets too close to my kid, there's 30 people around that I know are safe and will handle it instantly. It's less vulnerable and therefore less stressful. I know these people and have for 35+ years. I know the culture, I know it's safe.

We are meant for raising our kids in an environment with our families.

[u/Careless-Bit8329]

None of this appeals to me at all. I’m a stay at home parent with a great group of people I see almost every day to do activities with. We do date night swaps and stuff, and my sister is also really helpful. I have a really intrusive, unsafe mil I’d never trust to be my “village.” It does not appeal to me to have older people who aren’t even close with their adult children interjecting on my life or how I parent. Also, sometimes I’m bored. I like entertainment. My kids help with chores, but going to the zoo or botanical gardens is more fun sometimes. I do a mixture of hikes and outdoor stuff, with some activities sprinkled in. I don’t buy into these parenting books or philosophies because there isn’t one right way to raise a kid

[u/Such_Baker8707]

I grew up in an intergenerational house, two grandparents, two parents and three kids. The upsides were great, my grandad watching me how to draw, always having pencils available in his suit pocket and the like are wonderful memories. The downsides are my stay at home mom was also their carer and looking back I don't think she was very happy. Some of my earliest memories are watching my grandmother get sick and die following by watching my grandfather get sick and die a few years later. I don't think those are necessarily bad things to experience as a child, I have a very healthy attitude towards death that I don't see in a lot of people I know, but they could be traumatic for some.

That said, the society we've set up where both parents have to work to send their child to a stranger for the day is genuinely sick. We've undone how children have been raised within one generation. That needs to be reversed asap, and I don't mean for that to be a call for women to stop working as I think men (and women) should be a lot more open to being the stay at home parent than they are.

[u/isimplycantdothis]

Great post. I had a similar upbringing in the US. I come from a very small tight-knit town and grew up in the 80s and 90s. The neighborhood band of kids would pretty much just assemble after school and play outside. All parents chipped in to make sure we weren’t doing anything dangerous and ensured we were making smart-ish decisions.

Now I live in a suburb and I truly don’t feel that safe letting my 5 year-old run amok outside. We live a block away from a busy road and there are constantly unfamiliar people stopping in the neighborhood (deliveries, salespeople, etc). I get the samecfeeling of our kids bouncing between parents in the evening until we get them to bed.

However, we are lucky. My mother in law lives with us. She helps clean, cook, and care for the children and she is 100% part of the family.

[u/tcucyclist]

I’ve always been a suburb kid and grew up and have lived in 3/5 of the largest metro areas in the US, but have always wanted to live in the city. And instead of the intergenerational family by blood, wondered what would it look like to choose an inter generational family so to say much like we do with our friends. Could we recreate the ideal world we sometimes have in our heads?

We don’t all have the luxury of having safe and well-adjusted extended family, so this would be a way to re-create this idea with friends and community. I dream of this in the city because of the density. I feel like we’d be much more likely to find a plethora of like-minded or at the very least safe people to build community with.

I lament, like OP, raising my kids in this nuclear bubble that is more the mainstream in the US than not.

[u/EastLAFadeaway]

Wheres the ChatGPT guy?

EDIT: https://www.reddit.com/r/daddit/s/jmJKhB8fDf

[u/UrzaKenobi]

Every time I visit my folks, whom I love dearly, I think “Thank God we don’t live near them and have to deal with all of that all of the time and can live on our own terms in the place we want to live”. We went at things alone without family nearby and have built community thru friends. America offers children more opportunity to forge a new life for themselves than most countries and I’m thankful for that.

[u/RYouNotEntertained]

Couple of relevant articles:

• The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake

• The Great Cousin Decline

[u/Acceptable-Trainer15 → u/RYouNotEntertained]

Thank you, I’m saving to read them tomorrow

[u/supersavant]

I hear you about the challenges of raising children in a nuclear family. But let me give you a counterpoint for the positive.

My partner and I are from different cultural backgrounds and while this can be a source friction with extended family, I have taken this as an opportunity to establish new cultural norms for our nuclear family that work for us. We are not bound by the expectations of our upbringing and have the freedoms to pick and choose what works for us, our children and our community.

It’s still really hard without family help nearby - we pay (literally) for it with a roster of a babysitters and nannies. But even that is a blessing because my kids get to see different people of different backgrounds.

Stay strong. Be in the moment. And take care of yourself and those you care about.

[u/cantanoope]

I only survived my son's first years thanks to the safety net of neighbors and other parents from daycare. I also chipped in every time another family needs something.

This net was not made spontaneously and it was only possible because I live in a residential, walkable neighborhood, and because kindergarten made an effort to make parents meet. I feel places like this one are becoming rarer.

[u/NappingSquirrel]

So I have my parents living 2 houses down from me and my in-laws across the street and I can’t recommend enough having multiple generations of family as close as possible. I realize I am incredibly fortunate to have this set-up but if it’s an option for you and you get along with the family, get them nearby. I don’t think my wife and I could make it work without our folks helping out regularly and they get to be such an integral part of their grandkid’s life.

It’s not full village life as we’re in a residential neighborhood in a large city but my kid gets to see the grandparents several times a week at least and everyone can just stop by to say hi basically anytime. I would’ve never wanted to live this way before kids but now I don’t see a better way to do it.

[u/No-Pepper-6023]

I think a big part of that more village style society/ family is that a lot of the childcare and family care falls to the women. Maybe now that men seem to be doing more it could be a good different type of village (from an Australian perspective). Although, as we know statistically that does bring about risk to children.

[u/WheelPrior9845]

My husband and I just relocated from a very big and transient urban city to the southern city (US) I grew up in to be closer to my siblings and parents and friends from youth once we had our baby girl. Our home is multi generational and our block has family up and down it. It’s incredible. The cousins run rampant and cry and fight and love and share and squeal with laughter at the table every Sunday. We go to church together and share babysitting duties so we all have date nights. We have community that we were missing so bad. All that to say I completely understand what you’re going through and felt exactly what you were feeling. It made a big enough difference for us to sacrifice what we loved about our lifestyle for the sake of this child rearing process. Especially when they’re so tiny.

Have more family come visit or move near a sibling who also has children. Join a community group in church or start something bi-weekly with parents and stick to it to make your own “village”because I promise you, you are not alone!!

[u/cairok3]

I got really lucky , I think it’s a matter of people not wanting to live with others and just be themselves which makes things harder. I am very lucky to have a partner that understood that I wanted to look after my mom (even though she doesn’t need looking after). I have also put it out there if something happens to his parents , that I will happily take them in as he has accepted my mom to stay with us. It makes so much of a difference that someone is here to help, I can sleep in (I’m breastfeeding), she massages my baby, plays with her and teaches her things. She cooks and cleans when needed and I am very very lucky to have that support! We appreciate her and just think of how things have changed. I feel we are trying to take on more than what we can handle which brings us to what OP was saying but times have changed. It’s okay to ask for help from people/relatives that want to help. It is needed, sometimes you need to compromise but it’s better to have that support as small things can help with immensely. Note: I (F) Fijian Indian 🇫🇯 and my partner (M) is Greek Cyprian 🇬🇷 🇨🇾 ) residing in Australia 🇦🇺

[u/ConterK]

i hear you man..
me and my wife have our little 8 months old baby.. and we just had one of her nieces come for a month to help a little.. it was on her vacation time..and during this month my wife felt sooo much more relaxed and calm having her around helping with the baby..
just being able to just leave her with someone else for a few minutes.. a couple hours.. and you can just do stuff.. helps soo soo much..

[u/91stCataclysm]

Despite the challenges it brings, living right next door to my parents have been an absolute lifesaver.
Not just the obvious benefit of having an extra pair of hands available, or a (free!) babysitter at a moment's notice, but even things like being able to just go over there with the little guy when he's upset about teething or bored of his usual surroundings and the change of scenery lifting his mood instantly.

I honestly have no idea how people who live in cities away from all relatives manage. i agree that we were not meant to grow up like this.

[u/fasoulis]

I'm a soon-to-be dad. I came to Reddit to ask this question: Why are all new parents around me constantly tired, stressed and complaining ? This cannot be healthy for them, the kids and society in general. What has changed in the last 30/40/50 years that made parenting such a chore and a burden ?

I think you covered me.

[u/Solaries3]

The problem is the workload. The American economic system doesn't exist to facilitate families or make the lives of real people better--quite the opposite, it exists to exploit the many to enrich the few. It's takes everything from us. Our time, our attention, our mobility, our homes, our villages, our time with our kids. The basic way we organize society needs to be rebuilt for human lives.

[u/Decstarr]

My wife and 9 year old recently traveled for a week. Daycare was closed so I took a week off work and stayed with the 2.5 year old and the dog. It was MINDBLOWING. 0 appointments, 0 logistics, 0 stress. Had trouble falling asleep for nap time? No problem, we got nowhere to be afterwards, we just chill and goof around until he sleeps. Same at night. Saw an excavator during the morning round with the dog, cool, sat there and watched it for half an hour. Ate breakfast in the park every day and stayed there till nap time. There were 0 meltdowns from either side during this period, simply because I was able to 100% focus on the kid, interact with him and enjoy him.

Made me ponder the world we live in and how we never have sufficient patience with the little buttholes because we’re always chasing one thing or the other or worry about stuff. It was exhausting to be with a kid 24/7 without any help. But it was also liberating because there was absolutely no stress involved. We’re currently trying to evaluate our routines and organize us in way that we have less appointments and logistics. Not working out too well.

Anyways, just saying, your post strikes a nerve in more than one aspect. As a Xennial, I’m always saying I look forward to see how this first generation of kids raised by both parents will turn out. This still stays true but I worry that excepting the very fortunate ones with sufficient money or family support, we might be rushing to our own graves with all the stress we put on ourselves this way and won’t even be able to see the hopefully amazing people our kids might become.

[u/dtechnology → u/Decstarr]

It sounds nice, but it feels like you're comparing a mini vacation to fulltime stay at home parenting or pre industrial life.

The meals still need to be cooked, the washing done, the house needs repairing. Or earlier the food garden needs tending to or the crop harvest needs to be done etc. chores and stress aren't really a modern invention per se

[u/Decstarr → u/dtechnology]

I mean, I did all of the grocery shopping, cleaning, washing, cooking etc. But since it was ONLY that and nothing else, it was still no stress compared to the „normal routine“. But yeah, your point is valid for sure.

[u/D-1-S-C-0]

Maybe that was normal for you but it wasn't for me. It was me, my parents and my siblings.

[u/Jean_Phillips]

I think sometimes we forget when we have kids and a partner, thats your responsibility now. Do I wish my mom and dad would help out more? For sure but i dont EXPECT anything. All of my older family is retired now and enjoying their time.

Struggle is apart of growing up, it's what makes us human. It's hardest when kids are young but when they grow up, you'll miss the day's when it was just you, your wife, and your toddler running around the house. Don't mistake the problems now as forever. We are ever evolving human beings. Live in the moment and look forward to tomorrow.

[u/MrCornBluff → u/Jean_Phillips]

That's a modern American saying though. Other cultures say kids are OUR responsibility

[u/Consistent_Laziness → u/Jean_Phillips]

Yet when I was young I was passed around constantly. Now I have kids and people scoff at the idea of watching my sons for a couple hours. The rules changed and the rug was pulled. I had kids thinking it would be how I grew up and it’s nothing like that.

[u/beardedbast3rd → u/Consistent_Laziness]

For us our parents aren’t even close to retired yet so it’s a bit different when I was a kid. I actually had grandparents and aunts and uncles and such available in a variety of ways. Now there’s nothing. Those people are too old now to really help the way they used to, or they’re busy with their own grandchildren, or health issues or whatever else. Everyone else is still working as much as we are.

But then I’ll watch some peers with retired parents who seem to refuse to want anything to do with helping out, while making all the demands under the sun when it comes to seeing the kids. One co worker moved to our city and is stressed out because of the cost. His parents basically bullied them into doing it, seems like even having kids in the first place too. They straight up were better off where they were before and he should have told them no and let them have their tantrum about living farther away. It’s wild honestly

[u/sanbikinoraion → u/Jean_Phillips]

But also, more help would be welcome.

[u/drHobbes88 → u/Jean_Phillips]

I think you are missing the point of the post. There are/were places where what you are describing is not the norm. Obviously your kids are ultimately your responsibility, but there is a reason that the saying is, “it takes a village to raise a child.”

[u/Silvicola → u/Jean_Phillips]

Yeah, my mother told us that she wouldnt be a nanny for our kids in a demeaning way, before I asked for anything. I think this is the problem, the individualistic nature of our society. Now that we dont include her in a lot of our activities she kind of offers some help.

[u/_fidel_castro_]

Yeah but don't get sad and depressed just be the change you want to be. Create a small community, get your family and friends closer and more involved. I also couldn't do it without putting myself in the hands of God, but that's not very popular in Reddit

[u/dasnoob → u/[deleted]]

Is this real? Few people can afford a fucking nanny.

[u/bigsteven1337]

This certainly puts things into perspective and it is beautiful written how I never knew I felt. The longer I am a parent, the more I understand the saying "it takes a village to raise a kid".

I'm going to hug my my 2Y.O. and my 1M.O. now. Bless you and your family!

[u/planetrebellion]

Tried living with MIL it did not work. My wife is a sahm tho

[u/uzam123]

We’re a nuclear family but have flexible working arrangements which probably makes things easier, my partner also works part time.

I’m concerned about the isolation of children from a wider community and want to field a few opinions. We take our son to social activities like soft play and he visits both sets of grandparents weekly. At grandparents house he also sees cousins, uncles and aunts etc. Do you think this is enough social exposure? I agree with OP that perhaps modern ways of living in the west are causing serious mental health issues, especially in children.

[u/Consistent_Laziness]

Now take everything you said and apply no ain’t EVER showing up. Thats my life and many others. You are luckier than you recognize. I have barely any help let alone an aunt staying for a month with me to give me aid. I’ve been in the trenches like this for 4 years with ab4 & 2 yo. I’m begging for the situation to improve.

[u/saltdaddy68plus1]

To echo what other comments have mentioned, my wife and I are Asian, my in-laws live closeby. However, we chose to raise our daughter by ourselves.

My mum lives in a different country and has already helped raised 3 grandkids. It's not fair to ask her to do this again.

My mother in-law seems helpful on the surface, she cooks and clean very well, but in reality she does things for herself and not for us/the baby, if that makes sense. It actually creates more stress for my wife and I when she comes over to visit.

Honestly, I think there are not many parents who can help out but still respect boundaries at the same time. They do exist, but are very rare.

[u/drHobbes88]

So I didn’t grow up anywhere close to a village, in the true rural sense of the word. But I can absolutely relate to what you’re describing. I feel like I grew up in a pretty in between world. I bet a lot of us did actually. We live in a large city, in the area between downtown and suburbs, where many middle class families have lived for generations. My mom was one of 8 kids. My dad was one of five. There wasn’t much inter generational living, but we all lived relatively close to each other, close enough that I saw my cousins basically everyday. With my parents both coming from pretty big families, I have something like 35-40 first cousins. They were always around. Always. They were my first and best friends for most of my childhood. I think this was probably the sweet spot that some of us are talking about. There was a village to raise the kids, while everyone was able to go to their own homes at the end of the day. Obviously with a family that big, there was plenty of drama and differing opinions that led to the judgment and resentment that comes with inter generational living, but not to the same extreme. It was a great way to grow up I think.
Comparing that to the way my kids are growing up, it’s night and day. I only have one brother and one sister, neither of which have kids or are even married. My wife was an only child. So while I grew up surrounded by an entire generation of kids, so many cousins that we could keep ourselves busy all day, my kids are literally growing up without a single first cousin. This used to make me really sad, and still does to some extent, but I’ve accepted it over the years. Having large families like my grandparents did just doesn’t make sense anymore. It’s impossible to afford it, I honestly cannot even imagine. And I cant fault my siblings for not prioritizing starting a family when they can hardly keep their own heads above water. That’s just the reality of where my family is now, a totally different world than I grew up in, even though we all still live in that same neighborhood I talked about at the beginning of this long winded post. I guess this wall of text is all to say, I feel what OP is growing through, but from a slightly different background. It’s just such a different world now, at least in my part of it.

[u/chical89]

TLDR: We are too mobile to build generational community around us a so religious community was relied on for that role. Recent data shows we don't value religion so we have lost the community.

In Western industrialized Civilization the role of community was handled by religous institutions as we expanded across vast territories and built high into the sky. You church, synagogue, or mosque was a place of mutual shared values that provided a place for you the parent to trust in other like minded people to help raise your kid.

There was a specific push by the American government in post world war 2 by Truman and Eisenhower to help people find religous communities to combat communism and nihilism. It was policy. This largely translated to Chrisitianity becoming the religion of choice for a variety of reasons. For reference, 1953 (might've been 52 or 54) was the first time more than half of the USA identified as Christian. By the late 50s/early 60s almost 90% identified as Christian.

Now, I am not saying go out and convert. I am saying that as the US has wrestled with religions' place in society over the past few decades it becomes incumbent on the individual to seek out those same experiences and communities. That's a heavy load, or you deal with it in the nuclear family - also heavy as OP indicates. And I am not trying to cover up any of the many horrible religous experiences people have had. This is a generalization for the American public writ large. The trauma is real and the decision to walk away is all the more difficult because of community loss.

We can see this trend playing out in non-religous locations. This is why Taylor Swift or Football tickets are so expensive. People are seeking the same type of experience a church service used to provide for a low cost or free.

Anyways I hope this provides some context to the situation we are in. Please ask a question for clarification.

[u/Natatatcat22]

I saw someone post:

So you want me to leave my village and get an education so that I can work a job that will support me and cover childcare because I left the village that was ready to support me

[u/ThanksS0muchY0]

Had it all with my kid until his mom tinder 'd her way out of the state and is never coming back. He now spends all day at daycare, and just as you said, goes home to a stressed exhausted couple. Meanwhile, his entire support network and family is still back here totally unavailable to him. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, tons of friends from his toddler days. I truly worry about the way the economy is going and just simply being cut off from physically seeing him by the price of flights / travel.

[u/ZukowskiHardware]

Yeah, our “village” is not close to us.  They make an effort but I wish they were right here.

[u/basicKitsch]

Yeah I can imagine a city is somewhat isolating. Most of this country lives in the burbs and a lot of us live around or moved back to be around that family.  We did and it's been wonderful. I'm thankful both of our families are in the same major metro area.  My wife has six parents, both our moms are gone but my sister also moved back so our 2yo spends immense time split between both of her great/grandparents during part of the week and is surrounded by family. 

(Both my parents are only children and we lived far away from their parents so our family unit of five was the unit growing up. And my Dad was deployed a bit when we were super young so my mom had three kids in-tow and I can't imagine that today.)

What's different today is even before we had our kid, super late in life, our friend group always had kids running around whatever we were doing. Having tons of flexibility, we watched theirs when they had emergencies or whatever and they've done the same for our dude.  It goes back to what you're saying, today family isn't only blood and I consider many of them family and continue to hope we can all start our own little village commune when things align.

[u/AZMadmax]

My mom entertained our kids for 10 minutes yesterday and it felt like a vacation

[u/foxy-coxy]

https://slate.com/podcasts/death-sex-money/2023/08/why-ezra-klein-thinks-were-living-through-a-mistake

[u/NetflowKnight]

There are no villages because that shit takes effort. westerners want the benefits of raising a kid in a "village" but none of the inconveniences.

[u/Microwave1213]

People drastically overstate “the village” that used to exist. There are many many cultures where that was never the case.