Thanks so much for your insights here — making that connection between paretnal overwhelm and the isolation others feel is so important.
I'll get to writing about it down the track, but I can't help wonder whether the decline of collectives under neoliberalism has something to do with the difficulty we face in building enough trust to offer and receive help. (Since the 1970's voluntary participation in organised groups has been in rapid decline.) Collectives provide spaces to foster trust, and get a feel for who we might want to invite further into our private life. Asking a random at a playground just feels so much harder than someone you volunteer with or do shared activities alongside.
Shane, your newsletter looks amazing. I just subscribed and I can't wait to read more.
I've got a post coming soon (among my many posts "coming soon") on why building community takes courage, which I think is another way of saying what you've said in your comment here: that our culture has made it hard to remember how to build trusting connections with people. And my post *this week* will be largely about using volunteering and shared activities as gateways to building kinship relationships.
That's very kind Lisa :) Always nice to meet kindred spirits!
It does take courage. I think collectives in particular take "collective muscle memory". We are so used to the service model where we just simply pay and show up or don't pay and don't, that we've forgotten all of the hidden things (admin, consistent presence, volunteering, etc.) that have kept collectives alive for generations.
Love volunteering as a gateway/McGuffin too Look forward to those posts!
I love this idea! I also think there's something broader at play here too - I was talking to a friend this week about something similar. Now, neither she nor I can be described as isolated - we both have a lot of friendships which we pour a lot of effort and love into (when I got ill she read me her favourite children's book down the phone, chapter by chapter, voicenote by voicenote). But I was saying to her how happy I am that a family I love has moved back to Edinburgh, largely because I have rarely experienced such a strong sense of everyday, automatic community as I did when we all last lived in the same place, and I have missed it so much - and now I'm delighted because the kid is part of that community too. And I could tell that the friend I was talking to really longed for the same thing - both that sense of community, of everyday showing up, and the meaningful connection with little uns. I think that even beyond battling isolation (which is clearly urgent and essential, I'm very much not trying to deny that!) there's a real yearning in a lot of folk for multigenerational friendship and communities, and for kinship outside of couples and nuclear families where we know the other people will be part of our everyday lives and show up for us without being asked.
This is such a great point, Annie -- the desire to build kinship isn't *just* about loneliness; it's about our very human longing for genuinely INTERGENERATIONAL connection. I am a former public school teacher and a longtime teacher educator, so I'm definitely a big fan of school, but I am also happy to acknowledge schooling's shortcomings, and I think a big one is how school teaches people to associate only with people of our own age. We really need to get the knack back, of making friends with people much older and much younger than ourselves. Everybody benefits.
So fascinating to think about both sides (parents and aunties/grandparents etc) wanting more of that connection. I am one of the aunties who has kids in my life, but would be happy to and has room for more. And yet, I have found it really hard sometimes to convince parents that I really mean it. In particular, a friend who I've been growing closer with, had a child two years ago. I was so excited to offer to babysit and help out etc but she was really resistant. She had a lot of anxiety and other things, so I didn't push it. But every time she complained about not having childcare, it was really hard not to be like, I am here and offering. Eventually, her parents moved to town and they pretty much provide all non-daycare childcare now. I feel sad that I wasn't able to convince her I meant it. I would have loved to be a weekly or monthly babysitter and it's been hard to navigate without feeling like I'm shaming her. I guess my point is, if we are going to build bridges, folks have to be willing to trust that when someone offers help (especially repeatedly), that we mean it! Building that level of trust takes time and is really hard, and it feels like our culture isn't currently built for it. So, I'm curious to know what others think about steps we can take within our current culture to foster more community building so we could walk on to a playground and offer help one day.
Amen, Liz! I've heard this refrain over and over, and experienced it in my own life as well: it's hard to get people to believe that you are genuinely offering support, and hard to help them be willing to take it. And on the parent/primary caregiver side, it's hard to believe that someone *really* wants to have your back in a substantial way, and therefore hard to ask. This is definitely going to be a recurring theme in the Auntie Bulletin in coming months, and I hope you'll keep chiming in with your insights. They're very appreciated!
This is such a great newsletter and I love the topics you're covering, and I want to give a particular shout-out to your curation on the Three Recommended Reads. They get me deep thinking every time!
BOOM! I've been thinking along the same lines. It feels like there should be an app for this... but then also, there should probably definitely not be an app for this.
And if there's ever an app for this, we are TOTALLY calling it Kinder.
Lisa, you need to get in touch with Jody Day at Gateway Elderwomen. :) She's here on Substack, & on her Gateway Women website. This is a subject she is very interested in:
I have a lot of complicated feelings about this, as someone who gave up on trying to figure out how to fit in with people who weren't currently raising children. "Maybe parents of small children aren't interested in this" is literally a comment I've heard at a planning meeting after parents of small children shared about the barriers they faced in participating. "Young people aren't joiners!" when the limited childcare doesn't overlap with the adult-centered programming or the orientation is held during school pickup. Obviously, because I've heard this multiple times I am interested in organizing and community-building--for so long that I'm not even a young person any more! It hasn't been difficult creating community when I focused only on people who had small children--it's not hard to host a family-friendly hike, to visit an art museum with children, to invite families to watch the eclipse/meteor shower/etc, to hold an organizational meeting in a place where there is enough room for a floor puzzle or at the coffee shop with a playroom, etc. So why don't people without children do these things?
Amen, Tiffany. People without kids are mostly pretty rotten at making their events and gatherings accessible to families... and that makes their complaints that families aren't showing up ring pretty hollow, doesn't it?
I've got a post coming out in the next day or so that offers some initial suggestions to non-parents about what they can do to connect with families in a way that might actually WORK for families.
But it's a huge topic, and as a non-parent myself, I am probably unaware of a lot of the barriers families face to connecting with non-parent community. I hope you and other parents will keep chiming in on this, because I'm pretty sure we need ALL of our perspective and insights if we're really going to start to shift our culture in a more community-oriented direction.
I love this!! Reading it I had kind of an aha! moment about our long-time relationship with our babysitter of 6+ years. She started working for us at a time of family crisis for us -- prompting me to finally step outside my comfort zone and hire a babysitter -- and what I later learned was a long mental health recovery journey for her. I think folding her into our family was integral to her finding meaning and kinship during that journey, and having a relationship with a good babysitter was life-changing for us, too.
I often feel like I'm burdening others when seeking help with my kids, yet I remember how meaningful it was for me to spend time with and be entrusted with my goddaughters and nephew before I had kids of my own. It wasn't a burden but a gift! How right you are that these relationships between overwhelmed parents and lonely adults could change everyone's lives for the better.
Lacey, sorry for the delayed reply -- election feelings got me derailed for a bit -- but I loved this comment as soon as a I read it. What a beautiful testament to the ways we can build kin! I wish your story with your babysitter could happen for everyone.
And yeah, don't feel like you're burdening your people when you ask for help! I suspect you know whose hearts are in it and I hope you can trust that feeling. Aunties genuinely truly do want to be involved, for exactly the reasons you name.
Don't worry about the delayed reply -- even in better times I know substack writers have rich and full lives which hopefully includes ample "unplugged" time. I've found that limiting my online time is important for my mental health especially when there's so much pain and uncertainty to process. Thanks for being another beacon of light in these dark times.
Thanks so much for your insights here — making that connection between paretnal overwhelm and the isolation others feel is so important.
I'll get to writing about it down the track, but I can't help wonder whether the decline of collectives under neoliberalism has something to do with the difficulty we face in building enough trust to offer and receive help. (Since the 1970's voluntary participation in organised groups has been in rapid decline.) Collectives provide spaces to foster trust, and get a feel for who we might want to invite further into our private life. Asking a random at a playground just feels so much harder than someone you volunteer with or do shared activities alongside.
Shane, your newsletter looks amazing. I just subscribed and I can't wait to read more.
I've got a post coming soon (among my many posts "coming soon") on why building community takes courage, which I think is another way of saying what you've said in your comment here: that our culture has made it hard to remember how to build trusting connections with people. And my post *this week* will be largely about using volunteering and shared activities as gateways to building kinship relationships.
That's very kind Lisa :) Always nice to meet kindred spirits!
It does take courage. I think collectives in particular take "collective muscle memory". We are so used to the service model where we just simply pay and show up or don't pay and don't, that we've forgotten all of the hidden things (admin, consistent presence, volunteering, etc.) that have kept collectives alive for generations.
Love volunteering as a gateway/McGuffin too Look forward to those posts!
Good luck with that drafts folder 😆
I love this idea! I also think there's something broader at play here too - I was talking to a friend this week about something similar. Now, neither she nor I can be described as isolated - we both have a lot of friendships which we pour a lot of effort and love into (when I got ill she read me her favourite children's book down the phone, chapter by chapter, voicenote by voicenote). But I was saying to her how happy I am that a family I love has moved back to Edinburgh, largely because I have rarely experienced such a strong sense of everyday, automatic community as I did when we all last lived in the same place, and I have missed it so much - and now I'm delighted because the kid is part of that community too. And I could tell that the friend I was talking to really longed for the same thing - both that sense of community, of everyday showing up, and the meaningful connection with little uns. I think that even beyond battling isolation (which is clearly urgent and essential, I'm very much not trying to deny that!) there's a real yearning in a lot of folk for multigenerational friendship and communities, and for kinship outside of couples and nuclear families where we know the other people will be part of our everyday lives and show up for us without being asked.
This is such a great point, Annie -- the desire to build kinship isn't *just* about loneliness; it's about our very human longing for genuinely INTERGENERATIONAL connection. I am a former public school teacher and a longtime teacher educator, so I'm definitely a big fan of school, but I am also happy to acknowledge schooling's shortcomings, and I think a big one is how school teaches people to associate only with people of our own age. We really need to get the knack back, of making friends with people much older and much younger than ourselves. Everybody benefits.
So fascinating to think about both sides (parents and aunties/grandparents etc) wanting more of that connection. I am one of the aunties who has kids in my life, but would be happy to and has room for more. And yet, I have found it really hard sometimes to convince parents that I really mean it. In particular, a friend who I've been growing closer with, had a child two years ago. I was so excited to offer to babysit and help out etc but she was really resistant. She had a lot of anxiety and other things, so I didn't push it. But every time she complained about not having childcare, it was really hard not to be like, I am here and offering. Eventually, her parents moved to town and they pretty much provide all non-daycare childcare now. I feel sad that I wasn't able to convince her I meant it. I would have loved to be a weekly or monthly babysitter and it's been hard to navigate without feeling like I'm shaming her. I guess my point is, if we are going to build bridges, folks have to be willing to trust that when someone offers help (especially repeatedly), that we mean it! Building that level of trust takes time and is really hard, and it feels like our culture isn't currently built for it. So, I'm curious to know what others think about steps we can take within our current culture to foster more community building so we could walk on to a playground and offer help one day.
Amen, Liz! I've heard this refrain over and over, and experienced it in my own life as well: it's hard to get people to believe that you are genuinely offering support, and hard to help them be willing to take it. And on the parent/primary caregiver side, it's hard to believe that someone *really* wants to have your back in a substantial way, and therefore hard to ask. This is definitely going to be a recurring theme in the Auntie Bulletin in coming months, and I hope you'll keep chiming in with your insights. They're very appreciated!
And as for steps we can take to foster community building, I've got a post in the works headed to your inbox this Friday morning (US time).
This is such a great newsletter and I love the topics you're covering, and I want to give a particular shout-out to your curation on the Three Recommended Reads. They get me deep thinking every time!
Thank you! I've been worried the 3RRs are too much, so I appreciate this affirmation!
It does not feel like this is a problem that could be solved with a Tinder-style app, but if it were it could be called KINDER!!
BOOM! I've been thinking along the same lines. It feels like there should be an app for this... but then also, there should probably definitely not be an app for this.
And if there's ever an app for this, we are TOTALLY calling it Kinder.
Lisa, you need to get in touch with Jody Day at Gateway Elderwomen. :) She's here on Substack, & on her Gateway Women website. This is a subject she is very interested in:
https://jodyday.substack.com/
https://gateway-women.com/
Ooooh, good intel! I will reach out to her -- thank you!
I have a lot of complicated feelings about this, as someone who gave up on trying to figure out how to fit in with people who weren't currently raising children. "Maybe parents of small children aren't interested in this" is literally a comment I've heard at a planning meeting after parents of small children shared about the barriers they faced in participating. "Young people aren't joiners!" when the limited childcare doesn't overlap with the adult-centered programming or the orientation is held during school pickup. Obviously, because I've heard this multiple times I am interested in organizing and community-building--for so long that I'm not even a young person any more! It hasn't been difficult creating community when I focused only on people who had small children--it's not hard to host a family-friendly hike, to visit an art museum with children, to invite families to watch the eclipse/meteor shower/etc, to hold an organizational meeting in a place where there is enough room for a floor puzzle or at the coffee shop with a playroom, etc. So why don't people without children do these things?
Amen, Tiffany. People without kids are mostly pretty rotten at making their events and gatherings accessible to families... and that makes their complaints that families aren't showing up ring pretty hollow, doesn't it?
I've got a post coming out in the next day or so that offers some initial suggestions to non-parents about what they can do to connect with families in a way that might actually WORK for families.
But it's a huge topic, and as a non-parent myself, I am probably unaware of a lot of the barriers families face to connecting with non-parent community. I hope you and other parents will keep chiming in on this, because I'm pretty sure we need ALL of our perspective and insights if we're really going to start to shift our culture in a more community-oriented direction.
I love this!! Reading it I had kind of an aha! moment about our long-time relationship with our babysitter of 6+ years. She started working for us at a time of family crisis for us -- prompting me to finally step outside my comfort zone and hire a babysitter -- and what I later learned was a long mental health recovery journey for her. I think folding her into our family was integral to her finding meaning and kinship during that journey, and having a relationship with a good babysitter was life-changing for us, too.
I often feel like I'm burdening others when seeking help with my kids, yet I remember how meaningful it was for me to spend time with and be entrusted with my goddaughters and nephew before I had kids of my own. It wasn't a burden but a gift! How right you are that these relationships between overwhelmed parents and lonely adults could change everyone's lives for the better.
Lacey, sorry for the delayed reply -- election feelings got me derailed for a bit -- but I loved this comment as soon as a I read it. What a beautiful testament to the ways we can build kin! I wish your story with your babysitter could happen for everyone.
And yeah, don't feel like you're burdening your people when you ask for help! I suspect you know whose hearts are in it and I hope you can trust that feeling. Aunties genuinely truly do want to be involved, for exactly the reasons you name.
Don't worry about the delayed reply -- even in better times I know substack writers have rich and full lives which hopefully includes ample "unplugged" time. I've found that limiting my online time is important for my mental health especially when there's so much pain and uncertainty to process. Thanks for being another beacon of light in these dark times.