Saturday 19 April 2014

Solitary parenting

I sent a text to a friend asking if her kids were available for a play date today. She just texted me back and said her parents were coming to take her boys for the day. Tears stung my eyes as I cringed in envy.

Never has anyone offered to take my children for an afternoon. Never.

It's not because my kids are bad kids, and hopefully it's not because people don't like us. But all of the people we know have "people". They either have family nearby or live-in relatives or church/community helpers or a nanny or money to pay a babysitter. We have no one, not even a distant cousin, and certainly no money to pay a sitter!

Well, the solutions seems simple - trade days with another family! We take their kids for an afternoon and they take ours on another day. Each set of parents gets a much-needed date to reconnect, while the kids get to have a nice long play date. But there-in lies the problem - no one we know NEEDS us!!! Why would they take MY kids for 3 hours when they don't need me to take their kids in return? They already get plenty of breaks - an hour here, a day there, sometimes entire weekends. So they see no reason to inconvenience their quiet afternoon with a three hour play date...

But despite their reluctance to help me, I am always available and willing to help them - pick up kids, drop off kids, take their kids when they aren't feeling well. Maybe the problem is that we have two kids - it's easy to find a play date for the older one, but the younger one doesn't have any of his own friends. The only time he gets a play date is when the older one has a friend over! And we all know how much fun it is to have your little brother bothering you when you have a friend over...

They say it takes a village. Man, I wish we lived in a village! Everyone would know each other, look out for each other, know instinctively when someone is at the end of their rope and needs help.

Who wants to start a village?!?!

:-/

1 comment:

  1. I feel your pain!!! I was in the same boat some years ago!! Things get better once kids are in school and begin fostering close relationships with friends. Then you sometimes have too much free time!! lol I think you should move to 'our' village...it's fantastic with hundreds of young families in similar situations!! Everyone looks out for each other. It's fantastic! BTW...Love the way you write!! Great stuff!!

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