The Modern-Day Twist on “The Village” To Promote Equitability for All
Regardless of our parental or relationship status, we all need our village
With one click of a button, it was sent. Four years worth of pretzelling herself up and navigating stormy seas. While I can’t always prevent her from going overboard, I can be her lifejacket and keep her afloat until the storm passes.
Over these four years, she has endured a divorce, parental estrangement, crippling mental health issues, the loss of two dogs, friendship disintegration, and a pandemic. And let’s not forget — she faced all these buckling life impediments while journeying through a Ph.D.!
This dear friend of mine is someone who gives more to society than she withdraws. Her volunteering exploits are extensive and honourable. But the last few years have brought her close to extinction. Without her village, my noble friend would not be with us today.
She may not have children, but that doesn’t make her needs any less meritorious than those who do.
Her village is her lifeline.
Now before you jump ahead and get your thoughts in a fankle, I’m not here to lobby that any one group has more claim to “The Village” than another. I am here to initiate the conversation that “The Village” is a life necessity, which is not limited to raising children.
In this day and age, “The Village” is essential for all of us to thrive. “The Village” provides us with happiness and a sense of well-being.
In true equality-based reasoning, my argument does not take anything away from a parent's need for “The Village.” Rather, it adds to the list of beneficiaries and recognises the needs of people all around us.
“It takes a village to raise a child” originates from an African proverb. This article explains the village's responsibilities as:
Providing a safe, healthy, and secure environment. (which)
Promotes personal development and flourishment. (to)
Realize hopes and dreams.
Let’s look at who the villagers are in this original definition:
Parents, siblings, and extended family members.
Neighbours.
Teachers.
Professionals.
Community members.
Policymakers.
Do you see what I see?
“The Village” is our community. I will go so far as to suggest that the nuclear family has destroyed “The Village.”
Before the nuclear family, which is a social unit comprising solely of parents and their dependent children, we had “corporate families.” These family units were often centered around running a farm or other family business. The more children produced, the more labor available. The incentive to reproduce was largely monetary.
Uncles, aunts, grandparents, and cousins all flocked together in this unit. This sprawling, cohesive social amoeba was a support system for all involved. Children were not the sole responsibility of the parents. And by the same token, every family member had the support they needed. Each individual was part of something bigger than just themselves.
This corporate family functioned much like the old African villages, as a revolving system of reciprocity.
Medium writer Yael Wolfe wrote an article that went viral. She identifies a flaw in modern society, which sprinkles invisibling powder over single people.
“We don’t teach people to check on their single friends when they’re sick. We don’t think to leave a pot of chicken soup at their door or offer to pick up some groceries for them. We don’t even text them every morning to make sure they’re still alive (yeah, I’m kinda serious) and reassure them that they are on our minds.”
Yael suggests that women in society are taught to focus their attention on their husbands and children. But as she so articulately says:
“Everyone needs help. Everyone needs care. Everyone needs social support. Everyone needs a safety net, backup plan, and yes, an occasional caregiver.”
Yael’s article hit a nerve. It pulled one wonky Jenga stick out, and the whole tower crashed to the ground.
Society looks very different today from the times of corporate families and villages. “Family” in the traditional sense of the word is giving way to our own compilation of chosen families.
We have a rise in single people and non-parents, and with globalisation we may now live on separate continents from our traditional “village.” The society we once knew has splintered.
Video calls have their place but can’t contend with actual human contact. There is no substitute for a hug.
Amid this societal snow globe shake-up, we are all lonelier and more isolated than ever before.
Those who storm away to build their nuclear family often find themselves looking around for their “village” to help them. Maybe they could open up their nuclear family to incorporate a few waifs and strays and become a village for others.
Like a traditional stone arch bridge, the strength of the whole relies on the presence and support of each individual stone.
So yes, with the reformation of society as we see it today, support systems are eroded and dismantled. But parents are not the only sector to suffer from the diminished social infrastructure.
I don’t want to dwell on this, but the whole reason I’m writing about this topic is down to a small minority. There’s a latent expectation in some that those who are not parents should serve those who are parents. As if “The Village” is a trust fund that you suddenly have access to once you have a child.
This sense of entitlement is missing the whole point of “The Village.” For a village to function, it requires us all to be active members as soon as we can comprehend the workings of a community.
It takes time to build communities. They are an investment of love and support. A conglomerate of skills and interests. Expecting a village to present itself on command indicates a lack of personal contribution. I can’t help but wonder whether those who shout the loudest for a village have ever served as a villager.
If we want the benefits of a village, we must also be a villager.
It took a village to raise a child in days gone by, and it still takes a village to raise a child today. This is widely accepted. But when “The Village” morphed into a metaphor and the fabric of society frayed, we lost something critical in translation.
The village evaporated for everyone.
I wholeheartedly agree it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to look after the elderly and vulnerable, provide support for trauma and mental health sufferers, repair from a natural disaster, rehabilitate after an operation, recover from illness, cope with a bereavement, complete a Ph.D.… and so much more.
It takes a village for everyone to survive and thrive.
This “village,” our creation of a community, gives us all our sense of belonging and purpose, which translates to happiness and well-being. We contribute what we can to the pot. Sometimes we can give, and other times we need to take. But this process would not be possible without mutuality. A revolving circle of reciprocity is essentially what binds a functional society.
I can still hear the words of an ex-friend:
“I don’t care what anyone says; lockdown is harder when you have children.”
This idea feeds into a twisted, pronatalist, and hierarchical paradigm — it’s dangerous and diminishing. It’s a grotesque form of one-upmanship that helps no one. This notion reduces society into parents and non-parents and allocates “permissible” levels of suffering accordingly.
Many people suffered during the lockdown; some were parents, and others weren’t. In fact, I’ve read accounts of involuntary childless people who felt excruciatingly lonely and isolated during the lockdown. Their levels of despair nose dived as they ached for the sense of purpose and connection a much longed-for child would have brought them.
And then there are those who cared for vulnerable parents, friends, or animals. Or those who served on the frontline in hospitals or other emergency or essential services — flirting with crippling burnout. Let’s not forget all the bereaved who endured inhumane policies and were not allowed to hold their loved ones in their final hours.
The psychological torment of the pandemic flooded the entire world. Parents and non-parents!
I want to see a world where everyone supports each other. Where no one is made to feel undeserving, nor are they overlooked. A world where there is no sense of shame for asking for help. A utopia where we are all encouraged to withdraw our needs from the communal pot of support. A world where there are no entry criteria to tap into the offerings of “The Village.”
When we all sign up to be soldiers of the village, we fight loneliness and despair with love and connection — we flourish. Helping others gives us a sense of purpose and happiness, and receiving help brings a palpable rush of belonging and mattering.
Let’s rebuild our villages. Let’s reach out to all those around us and start weaving interconnected kindness throughout humanity. After all, we each want to feel like we belong and that we matter.
If you want to know how you can start building a village, the perfect starting point lies in the slightly amended words of a famous quote:
“Ask not what other people can do for you, but what you can do for other people.”
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Great to have you here Ali. I've been noticing the rhetoric of entitlement around 'community' too and also a sense from people ageing without children that it's something they can 'plug into' when they need it... Something I say is that 'community is built on inconvenience' (doing inconvenient things, at inconvenient times, for inconvenient people') which is time consuming and awkward. As human relationships often are! Now in my 60s, it's something I'm doing in my own life and rural community, and I'll be putting some more formal structure around that in Spring 2025 - hoping to create a pilot study that other people without children can embrace/adapt. Because none of us can do this alone, but I do think many of us have forgotten how to do it... (and/or are so consumed in the relentless tasks of modern parenthood + work that they simply don't have time to consider it).
Very honest, honest and very true. thank you for writing this.
There can be isolation for those who are sick and hospitalized, who live with disabilities, and for the bereaved. Often there is help in the beginning, during the acute phases, but when things become chronic, support can dissipate overtime. We can’t let up on the village of support.
The bringing of food or visiting someone in the hospital is often replaced today by Facebook page postings, text message threads, and health updates from Caring Pages. Sometimes phone calls aren’t even made.
When I was raising a sick child two decades ago, (we had no cell phones and we had no social media) people actually came to visit and brought food and were physically there for us. we felt held together and supported by human presence . I wonder ( and hope) there is in person support for those in need like that today.
We had a strong village then, when we were parents and our daughter was alive. From my experience and those I’ve spoken to the support diminishes in bereavement.
I think that widows, bereaved parents, and those who lose parents, siblings, close friends, and even careers in retirement may find themselves in the village-less group someday.
I also believe that Covid plays a part, that the isolation bled into post pandemic life. The isolation and self preservation mentality seems to have stuck. That may be working for those who have a big support systems and close families, but it doesn’t work for everyone. The post pandemic world created more community isolation and many never got back to the way they lived before hand. Community and social support has been slow to trickle back. We need to create more villages of support for all populations thank you for writing. I agree with everything you wrote.
We need to get to the old ways; checking on our neighbors, offering to plow the driveway for an elderly person, etc. And we need to think differently and expand the concept of “ it takes village” as you are expressing here. Covid Forced everybody to focus on their own safety and to block out others for safety too. We as a society need to pivot from the self preservation state of mind and bring back more