"Village" Life Disappearing?

by Phil Stott

So the Stott family are just back from exactly the kind of vacation I needed: lots of time spent on the couch; my parents, brother and sisters more or less fighting over who'd get to look after Maeve (freeing me up for more couch-time); and plenty of soccer on TV (well, it was Scotland, after all, although I'd get lynched for calling it anything but fitba' there). In light of all that, I'd expected to come back to work feeling refreshed, relaxed, re-just-about-everythinged, in fact. So why do I feel so bummed out?

Apart from the obvious answers of jetlag (exacerbated by Maeve's refusal to sleep en route), and the inevitable post-vacation comedown, there's another factor that's weighing heavily. Loosely summed up, it's to do with missing my family. Not in the pining for home kind of way-I've been away for long enough that that's not really a factor anymore-but rather for the idea of raising Maeve within a community, surrounded by an extended family.

It takes a village ...  

If being in Scotland recently has taught me anything, it's that the concept of it taking a village to raise a child is greatly underestimated-especially in this day and age. Living around a thousand miles from our nearest relatives, my wife and I haven't necessarily missed having anyone around to help out with Maeve-but only in the sense that you can't really miss what you've never had. Having just spent a week at home with one half of her extended family, I've come to realize just how important it is for Maeve to know her relatives as she grows up.

Just to clarify (in case my parents are reading!), I'm not just talking about having people around to dump Maeve on when we feel like a break (as if we would!). No, what I'm trying to get at is that whole concept of having a community of people to look out for her, and who can give her attention and teach her things even when we don't have the time or energy. In just one week with her relatives, Maeve's vocabulary absolutely exploded, along with her willingness to actually use it. It also highlighted that Meghan and I had kind of fallen into a system where Maeve pointed and grunted at things while we did our best to interpret, continually coming up with suggestions until we guessed the right answer. My parents (veterans of five kids) refused to partake in the game, and exposed something we hadn't realized about Maeve-she knows the words but is often too lazy to use them!

That's exactly the kind of thing I'm realizing we're missing (and that isn't available even in places like daycare, where there are always other kids for the carers to worry about)-the opportunity for someone else to bring something out of your kid that might not otherwise have emerged just because of the routine you're used to.

... but not a global one

All told, it's little wonder that I'm feeling more than a little bummed after this vacation, what with the return to reality being made that much harder by the increased realization that we're kind of on our own out here in New York. And yet, we're not alone, if you get my drift. With people relocating all over the globe for work, it seems like the concept of traditional communities is breaking down all over the place. While there are positive sides to being a global citizen, I worry about Maeve not having the kind of roots that my wife and I both take for granted, or the opportunity to really get to know her family or where they come from. While I'm sure we'll all adapt to it-just as we've been adapting, as a society, for generations-I can't quite help but wonder what else we're losing as that concept of the village disappears. The global village might be a great place to find fulfillment on one level, but it sure can't raise a child like a local one can.