It really does take a village to raise children. I am convinced of it.
In the beginning, I managed the twins with my husband and a 24/7 baby nurse for six weeks. After my husband went back to work, it was just me and a full time nanny for three months.
And when that didn’t work out, it was only me and a housekeeper who came around two, then three times, a week. This arrangement lasted until the kids were over a year old when I asked her to come everyday.
I stopped caring about the cleaning and only wanted her full attention on the children.
In part, it was to give me a break but it was primarily to give the children someone else because they had no one else.
Those precious months should have been spent with their grandmothers, my sister and brother, their aunts, uncles, and cousins, but they were stuck with two vagabond parents and whoever they could pay to help out. A life away from home follows a lonely road. We didn’t have regular visits to grandma’s house, cousins didn’t stop by to play and sisters weren’t around to babysit.
In 1.5yrs time, our housekeeper in Mexico knew our children more than the rest of our family, and in return they loved her more than we could imagine. It was the kind of love and adoration that should have been reserved for our family members and close friends. We tried to cultivate this kind of love by having family photos around for their sticky fingers to point to and mutter “annya, annya” for grandma and ask “theeese? theese?” for who’s that?
We created bedtime songs that included the names of everyone in the family. We even threw in names of close friends and our favorite family pets. We would put the telephone to their ears hoping to see traces of recognition in their face as our loved ones try to reach out through the telephone line, often getting disconnected by their curious, grabby hands.
And there was video conferencing on the computer, but only after spending days organizing a mutual time that didn’t get canceled, and getting the technologically challenged to connect at all (first we only got voice before they realized that the button that looks like a video camera actually puts it into video mode).
Even then we would spend our ten minutes “face-to-face” either wrestling the kids into the video frame or keeping those sticky fingers and grabby hands off the screen and, worse yet, the keyboard which always ended up closing the video screen, muting the sound, and ultimately disconnecting the whole cumbersome production.
Our children’s “village” was a virtual experience for them, some kind of amorphous idea of the people in our lives that we tried to implant into their hearts so they would love them even though these people rarely (if at all) existed in their day-to-day lives.
So there is little wonder when we finally left Mexico and returned to the United States that our children experienced increased stranger anxiety. We were finally in the veritable village where people were real flesh and blood, with their love pouring in to make up for times missed. Yet our children were not comforted. To them, their village was actually reduced in numbers from three to two – mommy and daddy.
They clung to us tighter than their vice grip on an ice cream cone. They threw harder tantrums. One started sucking his thumb, the other chewing on her finger. The relief and freedom I expected to have with family around to help was non-existent. Worse yet, the abundant love and joy from family we anxiously awaited for them to finally experience was also non-existent. Sigh…
By now, however, things have improved since the initial move. The natural course of adjusting takes over as everyone acclimates to their new environment, a new routine, a new set of people to get to know and even perhaps eventually love. We are growing a new village here, and will have to do it again after each move to a new country.
We’ve learned that we alone cannot be enough for nurturing, teaching, guiding, inspiring, disciplining, and loving the two young lives we brought into this world. Not that we ever believed we could do it alone. Rather we now see the significance of trying harder to have more people in the lives of our children on a day-to-day basis because a village of two is just too small.
Are you raising your children near your family? How do you nurture your children’s relationships with their relatives if you live far away from them?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by our mother of twins writer, Dee Harlow in Virginia, USA.
Photo credit attributed to goforchris. This photo has a creative commons attribution-no derivative works license.
We’re raising our kids far from family as well… opposite Coasts in the US. I greatly prefer it. Most families deal with a degree of “getting in each other’s business” and have trouble setting healthy boundaries. For the most part, we don’t. We don’t see each other often enough for that to be a major problem most of the time. We see grandparents a couple time a year. Same with aunts, uncles, and cousins. The time we spend together is full of making memories together and hanging out playing.
The people near us whom we’ve chosen to spent time with have become far more valuable. We’ve created a kind of Family of Choice… people who are raising their children with similar values, discipline, and faith. Other families with kids the same age. Other adults who value our children and their relationship because they WANT to and not because they “have to” because they’re related.
Overall, I think we’re choosing to look at raising our kids (who are 10, 9, 7, and 5) over a large scope of time. We’re not in a hurry. We have time. And our kids’ experience with life and people is richer because of that choice in my opinion.
Thank you, Sarah, for reminding me that being around family all the time is not necessarily ideal and a safe distance seems to work for most people I know. And I really appreciate your longer term perspective bc I often get caught up in the microscope of trying to satisfy the now.
We, too, live on the opposite side of the USA from our family. We wish we had family closer but don’t foresee that happening anytime soon. We tried to live in the same town but it didn’t work out for many reasons, none being our families proximity. Nonetheless, we are working on building a family here. The stranger anxiety you described existed when my children were toddler and wanted no one but mommy and daddy. That has worn away. Last night I overheard big girl talking to grandmom on the phone, asking her to come visit us soon 🙂
How cute of your big girl!
I think its great that you have gone out of your way to bring others in to you children’s lives in order to build strong relationships.
You are in tune with your children’s feelings and the way that they express themselves and that is so important.
Good for you.
Thanks for the encouragement, I need it!
All my family is in Poland. I live in USA. My parents have never held their grandchild. We only see each other on skype and it’s so beautiful when I see my daughter recognizing them more and more. She “gives” them kisses and wave “hi” or “bye bye”. I know it’s not enough, though. I wish I could give her and them the opportunity to connect more. I am sad I can’t. On the other hand I wish I had more help around, too. I’m not talking about cleaning or cooking but about raising my kid (kids to be soon)… .
I really know how you feel. We can only do so much to make up for the long distance. It really is exciting to watch our children connect more over skype. The other day during a skype session my son kept going behind the computer to see if his aunt and cousin were back there!
Dee,
I think this post hits home with a lot of mothers! My husband’s family is all in England, and we try to keep in touch with Skype and visit when we can. We talk to our girls about their cousins overseas, so they will grow up “knowing” them and be able to be familiar with them when they are together. 🙂
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Jen 🙂
Hey Dee. I really get alot from reading your posts and your perspective as the mom of a world traveling family. As for me, there is no one in our extended family that is not a plane ride away. So we keep in touch via phone and the internet but have had to build our own village here in WA with good friends. I do think having people of all ages as part of my sons lives is important, and I am lucky that my kids at least have many adults and kids around them like an extended family, even if they aren’t related.
I also know the feeling of having your kids shy away from your loved ones when you do finally reconnect. During my last visit to see my parents, my toddler was terrified of his Pop Pop (my Dad) and cried whenever he entered the room. This lasted for the entire trip, so not the homecoming I had hoped for. But my Dad roled with it, and I know as my kids mature we will have better times.
I also wanted to note that while it may have felt odd to have your kids adore your housekeeper but not connect with their grandparents, I think the fact that they did have an adult in their life who gave them love and with whom they felt safe and comfortable is a still good thing. They felt affection and security, and even if it came from an unexpected person, it must have had a positive impact on them. And with time, hopefully they can get their with their grandparents too.
Good luck acclimating back to the USand I look forward to your next post.
Oooh this post is so close to my heart. Thanks God for technology these days. When I was still in the US – my son is far away from both sets of grandparents. Now that we’re back here in Indonesia, sometimes I feel bad that we are missing out on interacting with his other sets of Grandparents and families because they are in FL. Sometimes I feel sad that my in-laws (who are still like my own parents) are so far away that they are missing out on their youngest grandson. But this is how our lives are at the moment and I can only hope one day my son will get to meet his relatives again.
Photos and phone calls definitely help. I like that bed time song idea. Thanks for that Dee.
Hey Dee, I can only imagine how tough it must be to raise kids far away from family. Harder still if you also have the comparison of other siblings (yours or your husband’s) raising their kids (the cousins) close to family and witness the tighter family bonds established as a result. But just think, the sacrifice of not having kids AT ALL would be a far sadder scenario; or giving up the phenomenal, international lifestyle you lead in order to stay local. In essence, isn’t it better to have kids even though you live half a world away than not have them because of the challenges and hardships?
Both my husband’s family and mine live in the Northeast corridor and though my parents pass through Boston many times a year, we see very little of them, leaving us feeling like we aren’t very important to them. My husband’s family, on the other hand, always puts family first. Even though they are entrenched in the corporate world, when too much time elapses without a visit, they make space in their schedules to get together, sometimes just for lunch or an overnight. It’s a 5 hour r/t for them but worth every minute of their time.
What it boils down to is ensuring the bonds are formed and making the effort to reinforce them. Picking up the phone, sending a scribbled picture, Skyping, looking at photographs. The imprints will last longer the older the twins get and life won’t ALWAYS be so far from home.
Thank you so much for your wise and reassuring words. My husband and I discuss the trade-offs between continuing w/ our current life-style or settling back into one place all the time. So far, the benefits out-weigh the negatives and the reality of seeing family more even if we were nearby just wouldn’t amount to much for similar reasons you mentioned.
I appreciate that everyone’s comments here is helping me gain bigger perspective for the time frame in which I should expect my children to form bonds w/ the important ppl in our lives. We have time!
I am finally going to visit my sisters (Vegas & Seattle) after not seeing them for two years. So while my hubby’s whole family does live in closer proximity, I do know what you are feeling.
We purposely moved ‘home’ to be near two sets of grandparents and a smattering of aunts and uncles. There is certainly something special in those relationships which are consistently nurturing in our children’s lives – finding other people to fill that role would give you the opportunity to choose, though – and *that* could be a very big plus in a more itinerant life-style. 🙂