Unexpectedly, a village

Unexpectedly, my daughter (25) and her partner found themselves living with us in the last few weeks of her first pregnancy. They weren’t exactly excited about it. In their ideal imaginings, expecting their much wanted first baby, what they did not expect was to be back in her childhood bedroom, sharing a kitchen, bathroom and living area with her parents and siblings. Becoming an adult in our culture generally involves living independently in your own home, not with the 'olds'. Yet, here they were; pregnant, expectant and unable to nest or set up the baby’s room, or any of the other things she imagined she’d be doing at this time, all she could do, in fact, was rest.

While honouring their disappointment, I harboured the suspicion that it was possibly the best thing any new parent could ask for, even though they didn’t realise it, yet. How could they? None of us really knows what to expect before that squishy ball of raw human need enters the world from the soft confines of his mother’s body. None of us know that in those first few days and weeks with a new baby, they seem to sleep for 23 and half hours a days, yet it seems to take 26 hours a day to feed them, get the air bubbles out of their tiny body, rock them to sleep, change nappies. It seems an endless 3 hour cycle of feed, burp, poo, change, sleep.

When you’re carrying this life inside your body, you don’t quite appreciate how demanding it will be once it’s on the outside; quite how relentless it will be to attend to this new creature. When do you get your own eight hours sleep, or even four hours in a row. When do you eat? When do you even go to the supermarket or cook? When do you wash; your body or your clothes? When do you pay the bills, or fill up the car?

 

While the living situation was not in their ideal plans, being with us has allowed this new family unit a true bubble within which to connect with their little person while sharing the burden of running a household. There has been someone else to think about and prepare good food, some one else to sweep the kitchen floor and clean the toilet, someone else to talk to, someone else to hold the baby in the afternoon or evening while he burps, farts and poos, so the sleep deprived new parents can get an extra hour of much needed REM before the interrupted night ahead.

It begs the question – why do we do usually do it on our own? What is this doing to our wellbeing, for both men and women? Many cultures birth and raise their babies in villages or extended families or even with extra paid domestic help for cleaning, cooking and childcare.

It’s hardly surprising that many women find themselves alone at home with a list of chores, not enough sleep and a sense of failure to be the ironwoman our society expects her to be. Equally unsurprisingly that the (often) man in her life feel like he’s abandoning her each day, sometimes with guilty albeit sleep deprived freedom, to earn the money to keep the house warm and everyone fed.

Our western culture elevates independence, making your own way and going it alone. Surely, we should not accept that new parents will be pushed to their limits even though we warn them that they will. We have books with titles such as ‘surviving the first 6 weeks’. Something is wrong in our society when being pushed to our mental and physical limits is a rite of passage for emergent families. By the time my first child, this new mama, was a toddling one year old, I’d survived, I’d done it all, but my body was showing the signs of stress and mental strain, not to mention lack of sleep. The price being of being competent and independent, isolated with the endless demands of a treasured wee baby, was my health and wellbeing. And I was doing well. I knew many mothers who were not doing well, whose price was higher than mine.

I have come a long way. I could not have taken help, advice, or nurturing from my own mother at the same age, but I know in hindsight that some of that is because I am a very good specimen of our independence culture. In my brain independence = success. Individualization, independence, our focus on the nuclear family – mum, dad and the kids – puts unnecessary pressure on mothers and fathers. It means they have to do it all in a household, rather than one job within a community: do all the jobs daily, not just one a day or every few days or even one big job a week.

My hope for my daughter, her partner and this new (delicious) little baby, is that these weeks have been nurturing, and an opportunity to thrive, not just survive. I hope they, have been able to get a little more sleep, a little more good food and sustenance, and little more connection, conversation, and encouragement; a temporary escape from household chores such as cooking and cleaning; a sense of normality and humanity as this new life takes over their lives in ways they could not even imagine I trust they will have a sense of a safety net in their village. Above all I hope they have avoided loneliness, isolation and the limits of human energy.

Even though it was unexpected, I am so grateful for the village that is nurturing my grandson, but more importantly his mama and papa. I know not all families can do this – not all families’ personalities work together in a way that is positive and life-enhancing. Goodness, I’m not even sure that my daughter isn’t counting every minute till they can leave our home again. But, my new grandbaby has parents who have been fed, nurtured and encouraged. I hope they know what healthy family life and wellbeing looks like and feels like, and they continue to seek out their village to nurture their wellbeing. They will be in a better space when they leave to establish their own home, as our cultural scripts dictate. For me, I cant help but yearn for a better way; a village approach to this thing called life.