How to create the village around you as you raise your child
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of Mama Thrive.
We are going to talk about bringing the village back into raising your children through getting more creative in your connections with other mothers in your sisterhood, in your collaboration with other mothers around you.
We actually have a worksheet for this in our Heart Book and also in the Yearly Reset Retreat. And we won’t go through the whole worksheet now, but we want to mention it because it's a pretty important thing.
We've spoken to some mothers who were feeling quite stuck on how to actually get the support that they needed, especially if they were financially limited and they couldn't like hire a nanny or something; and then they realized that there is a lot more available to them in their collaborations with other women- in the sisterhood around them, that they could get creative together.
It does take a village, without a village you can end up isolated and it also puts a huge amount of stress on your relationship with your partner, if you have one, and as a single mum- just a sense of overwhelm and helplessness, because there is no one to take over when it gets tough.
It's just absolutely unrealistic, especially as a single mum to expect that you can do everything all on your own and be calm, connected and loving.. To fully show up the way you want to show up and not lose it.
Then also even in nuclear family, it’s unrealistic to expect that it can all just fall on two people.
You know typically if your partner is at work then they’re tired and they don’t want to help and they run out of their energy and you need them to step up but they are not stepping up and then you feel unsupported and the whole cycle continues and go round and round.
And the problem is that we are not using the village, that we are not making use of the resources that many hands make light work as it were.
There is another major stumbling block that we've seen happen time and time again, so before we get into how to really start to leverage this concept to taking the village it's important to bring up this issue- and that is that mothers often have a ridiculously hard time receiving support.
And so it does not matter how rich your village is, if you cannot receive support, if you can’t accept support and if you can't ask for it. So this is a piece before you go into developing your ideal village around you, to be conscious of and to begin to practice the art of receiving. You want to give some thought to this internally. Where do you sit with your ability to receive? because it’s going to be a crucially vital piece of the whole puzzle.
So some of the things to consider when you are wanting to be intentional about creating the village around you and creating that support network is firstly to get clear and what kind of support you want, What do you really want support around if anything were possible?
What kind of support would you like? How would you like support?
What times of day would you love that support?
In what way?
What would you love your sisters to be doing?
Would you prefer them to be cleaning your house or being with your children?
If one thing could be taken off your plate what would be the most ideal?
What would feel the best, to be able to let go of?
Get really clear on that, spend some time dreaming it, writing it down, calling in it in.
The other thing to think about is- what kinds of support would you love to give other mothers?
If you were to be working in collaboration with other mothers, what would you love to be doing for them?
Would you love to be being with their children together with yours, or taking their children out?
Would you love to be working in their garden or making food, making food for them or with them?
What are your gifts, the ones that feel like the easiest ones for you to give? There’ll be stuff that feels easy to you, that doesn’t feel like a stretch- but for someone else that would be their ‘oh my God if someone could do this I would be so over the moon!’. So look for what are the things that you can really do that feel easy and feel good to you.
Once you brainstorm that little bit on your own, you want to bring it to the other mothers around you, to your sisters who you feel you can really share this kind of collaborative village creating with.
Then that's where the fun part begins- of really coming out with creative ways to work together.
I (Kaya) was inspired by my mother when I was growing up as she did a lot of this together with other mothers around her. I remembered she had what, I think she called ‘tribe days’ or ‘group days’, where she often would have a few women; like say 3 or 4 women all get together and they take turns at different people's houses once a week or may be twice a week and when everyone was at my mother's house she got to decide what she did and she could either go away and have space to herself and do her own thing may be work on a project, work on a business or catch up on some stuff she couldn't do with some little kids walking around- like have a nap or do a craft, business or community project.
And we’ve both done that in tribe days when our kids were younger too.
Then all the other mothers would be there either looking after the children- depending on how many mothers were there, sometimes there would be some looking after the children, some cleaning up or doing the things that mother really needs.
So it’s not just about getting together for a regular cuppa. It's specifically doing something to help meet the needs of that mother and then she has the time to support another mother when they go to the other mother’s house -rotating it around.
Other things that you can do is to make each other meals, say when you are making your meal, make extra and give it to your friend and vice versa or not vice versa if she really doesn't want to make meals and she has something else to give you or you could do things like mamma bakes together.
Carpooling is a really great one.
Doing another mamma's grocery, when you are doing yours. Kaya and I are often checking in with each other; ‘I'm going to a shop. Do you need anything?”
Even better for me (Lisa) personally, is someone hanging out with my kids while I go grocery shopping, that actually feels even easier to me.
So think about what it is that would make life feel easier,
because sometimes it’s not that big a deal for another mother to offer it to you and you just need to start planning a network that has the support in it that you need.
You also need to voice your desires- if anything were possible, what would you like? Because when all the mothers bring all their voices in that's when the creativity can bubble up and you can create things that you didn't even realize were possible .
You can create whole new structures in your community but you need to voice what you want and what you need and what you'd love.
So those key pieces for you are definitely- expressing clearly what you want and what you need and being willing to receive when it’s offered to you. They’re probably your internal pieces that you might need to work on a little bit. It will bring so much more spaciousness and connection into not just your family but your community as well.
The benefits are for your kids too love tribe day!!, So absolutely its beneficial for your children as well.
