Villagers

I've been thinking a lot about villagers the last few days. You know, the people in the village that it takes to raise a child.

Make no mistake - I'm totally, completely, 100% on-board with the "it takes a village to raise a child" thing. I believe in it, want it, need it, and like it.

But. Doesn't it make a difference WHO your villagers are? Shouldn't you get some say in who "lives" in your village? I mean, it's YOUR child, right? And these villagers are going to make an impact on his or her life. So picking and choosing, to some extent, seems to make sense to me. For example, you meet someone who seems nice, but then you realize they're an alcoholic. Or has a history of unstable behavior. Or lies. Or cheats. Or steals. How much of an impact do you now want this person to have on your child? So you'd probably limit the amount of time they spend together, or maybe even cut it off completely.

But then you have your family, who are automatic villagers, unless you take your child and move off to some remote island somewhere and cut off all contact. Or maybe if your family already lives far away and you don't see them too often, they'd still be villagers, but ones with less of an impact because you don't see them too often. That could work.

So what happens when you have these automatic villagers - your family members - who live nearby, who see your child usually multiple times a week, including times when you're not around to keep an eye on things, and you don't like the impact they're having, or could potentially have, on your child? When they don't respect your parenting decisions (forget about them actually agreeing with them)? When there are factors that make your feelings about these things not seem important to them, because another villagers feelings/issues are more important to them? What then? Do you limit the amount of time you and/or your child spend with these villagers? Do you try to set ground rules around the time they spend with your child? Do you take your child and leave when the ground rules are broken, or when a situation otherwise becomes such that you don't want your child to be there?

Maybe I'm just a bitch. Maybe I'm just a momzilla. But what I think I am is a "Mama Bear" who's trying to do the best she can to provide the right environment and influences for her child.

No one's perfect, I know that - including me. But sometimes the shit that goes down in my family is really, truly, incredibly difficult to deal with, and it makes me want to significantly limit the time Jordyn and I spend with them. My parents write off any inappropriate behavior my brother engages in as being due to his bipolar disorder and therefore he can't control it. I think that's bullshit. I think when he's not psychotic, not in a manic or depressive episode - when he's stable - he absolutely can and should be expected to control his behavior to pretty much the same extent anyone else can and should. The rest of us shouldn't be expected to pussyfoot around him all the time and just let him do and say whatever he wants. But we are; that's exactly what my parents expect. And it makes it seem like our feelings don't matter - it doesn't matter that something made me extremely upset, I "should be more understanding because he's seriously ill", especially since I work in the medical field. Ha! I work in the medical field, not the mental health field - they're very different in many ways.

I just don't think that's fair. My feelings should matter, too. But to my parents, my mom especially, it doesn't matter that I was very upset after something that happened when Jordyn and I were at my parents' house on Friday night. It only matters that my brother was upset, and seemed very down all day on Saturday. I should just take it, and care only about not upsetting him.

I think we SMCs have a harder time with the whole family-members-as-automatic-villagers issue because there's no buffer. Married/partnered couples spend some time with each of their families, so they're not with either one too much. And even if only one of their families lives close, I think they still spend more time together as their own family and less with their parents. Because I don't have a partner, there's no other family to spend time with, and because it's just me and Jordyn, we're somehow expected to do all "family" things - holidays, etc. - with my parents and siblings.

But what about the family I'm creating (well, trying to create!) with me as a parent? It seems that because there's no second parent, my parents expect us to just stick with them for everything, and not spend time doing our own thing. I don't think my parents and siblings see Jordyn and I as a family of our own, in our own right. So instead of Jordyn and I having the time and space to create our own traditions and do our own thing, we're just expected to keep doing the same things as before, just with Jordyn there.

It's a fine balance, I think. It's not that I don't want to spend any time with my parents and siblings. They're my family, and I love them and need them and want to maintain my relationships with them and have Jordyn build relationships with them. But I also want to feel as though Jordyn and I are our own family, and be given the time, space, and respect of my family members to do that.

Where's the line? Maybe I crossed it a while back, or inadvertently drew one in the sand in the wrong place, and now that I'm realizing that, it feels like it's too late to change it. Or maybe there is no line yet, that actually feels more accurate. But I think I need to draw one, if I can figure out where.

I want to be able to do things with Jordyn without some member of my family always tagging along. I want to be able to take Jordyn to see Disney on Ice without a guilt trip from my mom because I didn't invite her. I want to feel like I actually have the option of eventually taking Jordyn to Disneyworld for the first time on my own, or with friends, and that it's not a given that my parents will be there, too. I want my mom to stop making comments about how much she misses Jordyn when she doesn't see her for two (TWO!) days. I want to spend some Friday nights at home, creating and doing our own Shabbat traditions, and not always go to dinner at my parents' house. But still sometimes go! Like I said before, I think it's a balancing act.

I think loneliness comes into play here, but that's a whole other post for a whole other night. For now, suffice it to say that I'm having trouble figuring out my village, or at least my family's role as villagers. Are all villagers created equal? Do all villagers have equal rights and responsibilities? Where's that line?

And speaking of whole other posts... Would a second child make it feel like we're more of our "own" family? NOT that that's why I'd have a second child, I just wish I knew if it would change anything or not...