Building a Modern Day Village

Lauren of Hobo Mama and Stefanie of Very, Very Fine and their littles let us in on the fun via some google chat action.

While we’re all familiar with the old adage that “it takes a village to raise a child,” too few of us actually know what it feels like to have a village. In fact, our fast paced and spread out global society often contributes to a feeling of isolation for mothers – especially new ones.

Those of you who have been on this blogging journey with me from the start know that I became pregnant with my first and only child almost immediately after moving an ocean away from all of my family and friends. Then, just ten days after our daughter was born, my husband had to go away for eight months. I had no community at all and felt alone in a deeper sense than I had ever known. I knew I had support from friends and family far away, but it was in no way the same as having them nearby, and the extreme time difference often meant that I didn’t even have anyone to call on the phone. To my joy, I slowly made connections in the months that followed and at this point feel very little of that previous sense of isolation, but that experience has made me uniquely aware of the challenges of tackling new motherhood without that village.

While a true, physical village is hard to come by these days, I have found a modern version in my friends from the Natural Parents Network. I’ve been woven into the fabric of a fantastic community here locally, but because we are all so far away from the rest of the world, friends travel often and for long stretches. Others are so different in their philosophies that it’s difficult for them to give or understand exactly the type of support I need at any given time. I don’t want to discount the value of these local friends, but I do want to say how much I appreciate my NPN village.

It has been almost a year since the creation of the site known as the Natural Parents Network, and about as long since I joined the ranks of their volunteers. In the months that followed, I began reading the blogs of many of the mamas involved and many of us slowly built connections with one another. At this point, most of us communicate regularly. Some have done book discussions together, others have worked together on various projects, but virtually all have come to share parts of our lives and our journeys with one another that we have no other safe place to share. I have never before seen a safe place quite like the one that this group has created. There is support without one-up(wo)manship. There is hearing, seeing, and understanding. There is kindness, warmth, and generosity. There are even mother blessings and other outpourings of celebration and support. This is exactly what I picture living in a village to be like, minus the actual sharing of physical space.

The chat in action. Jennifer and her Tiny are the big picture, while Annabelle and I are one of the teeny, tiny boxes below. Three cheers for technology! Photo credit: Lauren at Hobo Mama

Many of the members of this village got together over the long weekend. Most were meeting in person for the first time, and as far as I can tell, it was a beautiful thing. Geography and the exorbitant cost of airfare kept me from them, but I look forward to a similar event next year. While I could not be with the others in person, I was able to “hang out” with them via google+ for a bit, and I was surprised by the rush of emotions this brought on. As I watched the various attendees of the events mill around the room, it struck me that I truly felt like I knew each one – even the children and spouses of the volunteers themselves. I had some sense of what it had taken to get them to the get-together, and how they were feeling about it. These women truly had become my friends.

It’s a strange feeling to have friends you’ve never spent time with in the same room, but it’s a wonderful feeling to know that they will listen to you without judging, and offer support precisely when you need it. While I do have a rather extraordinary community here on Guam, the nature of my family’s situation means we’ll be off to a new home in less than a year’s time. I am surprisingly comfortable with this, because I know that, while I will dearly miss my Guam friends, I will have this circle of support no matter where we end up, and there’s a good chance that I’ll even be fortunate enough to live within visiting distance of at least one or two of its members.

While modern life makes the one type of village rather difficult to find, it does make possible the stitching together of virtual, geographically diverse villages of a different kind. And for that I am grateful.