We've gotten the village all wrong

A village remembers who you are while you're busy becoming someone else's mother

Let me tell you about 67th street.

It’s a hidden little dead-end that butts up to a cemetery (there are a lot of those here in Queens). If you’ve ever flown to NYC, you probably saw it out of the corner of your eye, disappearing into the web of townhouses and tombstones that make up The World’s Borough.

The dead end situation makes for a quiet street to ride bikes on, and the cemetery part makes for some legendary games of man-hunt.

Some 70 years ago, my grandma and grandpa bought one of the brand new houses on this block and had their four kids there. As they grew up, each kid bought a house on the same block.

It’s referred to in the neighborhood as “McGee Row.”

It’s the place where I was passed from aunt to aunt as a newborn, and celebrated every Christmas eve at the epic block-wide party. It’s where I learned how to ride on two-wheels and play whiffle ball so well it turned both me and my cousin into championship softball players in high school. It’s been home to many a black-eye and more than a few stitches.

It’s the block that built me.

And it’s one of the reasons I will never, ever, over my dead body, leave Queens.

my view from the porch that started it all

Now that I have kids of my own, I know theres a place less than a five minute drive from my home where I could park the car and immediately be swarmed by my parents and aunts ready to help with whatever I need.

My girls and I never leave without a snack, or a full dinner, and some new things to laugh about.

It’s my village. And while I know how rare a village this robust is and how lucky I am, I keep thinking about the people who have some version of a village and choose to raise their family elsewhere.

I know this isn’t a possibility for everyone.

But I keep thinking that we’re getting a lot wrong about what ‘the village’ is actually supposed for.

We talk about the village almost entirely in terms of childcare–who’s watching the kids, who’s helping with pickups, who’s filling the gaps.

But that’s the smallest thing a village does.

Take away the help part and we’d figure it out. Take away the connection part, and I would crumble.

Because helping with childcare is it’s least important job.

A village is what remembers you while you’re busy becoming someone else’s mother.

My village is full of people who keep me from drowning–the people who know what it looks like when I am underwater and know how to throw a life preserver my way.

I had my first baby during covid, and the pandemic for a people-person like me was such a struggle. Gone were the daily little conversations I had with the subway conductor, the grocery cart guy, the barista–and it was surprisingly hard for me.

Then I had a baby that I couldn’t take out of the house and the isolation wasn’t just annoying anymore–it was devastating. But my village wouldn’t let me disappear. They took turns dropping off bags on my porch a few times a week. Sometimes food, sometimes pictures–all constant reminders that someone knew I was still there.

Because that’s what a village does…it reminds you that you are a part of something.
That your people have got you.
That you have somewhere to fall.

A village is walking past your uncle at the park, jumping out of the way of your newly two-wheeled four year old, as he tells an embarrassing story about you almost taking out the ice cream man the first time you rode your two wheels in the same park.

It’s watching your two year old light up when we run into an aunt walking her dog who reminds you that you loved animals this much, too.

It’s waving to a cousin while she wrangles her toddler to her own moms house, while you silently raise your eyebrows to each other and immediately know how hard today has been—then remembering twenty years ago making the same face to each other while being yelled at for sending a baseball through a window, again.

It’s the reminders that you were ‘just like them’ at every stage.

It’s my kids growing up surrounded by people who remember every version of me–especially the ones that I’ve forgotten.

Motherhood is so much more lonely than I expected, and some seasons do feel like I’m disappearing into them. My village makes sure that doesn’t happen. They pull me out of that with a quick comment about the way my four year olds smile looks just like mine or a story about me as a 17 year old that I had long forgotten.

This week I spent a day at the beach with another part of my village, my best friend and her family who I’ve known since kindergarten.

As I sat there watching my daughter being tossed around by the waves, half gripped by anxiety, my friend laughed and said ‘Remember when you used to do that? We could never get you out of the water!’

And for a second I wasn’t watching my daughter anymore, I was remembering the girl who could let the waves throw her around for hours without worrying about anything at all.

I’d forgotten she existed.

My village hadn’t.