Feminist Advice Friday: How do I build my village?
I need community. I'm exhausted. How do I square these two things?
A reader asks…
I know that I can’t do it all on my own. And I keep hearing that I need to build a village. How the hell do I do that? And how do I stop feeling like a failure that I don’t have a village?
My Answer
I follow a bunch of momfluencer accounts on Instagram. And they all agree on one thing: We need a village.
I can’t help my immediate reaction: “Oh great. Something else women are supposed to do. Something else we are failing at.”
So if you’re hoping to build a village and you don’t have one, before I say anything else, I want to say this: It is not your fault if you lack a village. The village is goddamn exhausted. We’ve decided to add “village building” to our already long to-do list. It makes exhausted mothers feel even more inadequate. Yes, we need a village, but we need an infrastructure in which village-building is more possible. Aggressive capitalism, lack of access to childcare, shitty ass spouses, sexism, low wages, and every other type of oppression make the village highly inaccessible, and conspire to keep us exhausted.
The exhaustion is not an accident, and the guilt it produces is designed to oppress women and mothers. Your lack of community is symptomatic of a broader social problem.
So how do we build meaningful community?
A couple of months ago, my daughter started kindergarten. “Oh!” I thought. “This is my perfect opportunity to build community!”
I tried so hard with these fucking parents. We hosted a massive birthday party. I went to every event. I was so nice. I never once breathed a word about lazy husbands, or hinted at my deep dark feminist self. I made it through an entire semester without a single mom at that school even realizing I have a job. I wanted to fit in so my daughter could fit in. I kept trying, over and over, even when it became clear that these people were never going to like me.
And of course it didn’t work.
We left the school, and I never spoke to a single one of those parents again.
Now, my daughter is at a new school and I feel like I can breathe. I don’t feel like I have to stuff my entire personality into a tiny corner of my chest just to get my daughter a birthday party invitation. People are just…nice. It’s not hard.
What does this have to do with building community?
Everything.
Mothers are so desperate for community that we’ll seek it anywhere—even among the people who judge and reject us for random and ridiculous reasons. Our time spent trying to gain the approval of these worthless communities—the neighborhood mean mom brigade, your abusive family, the school mom mafia—is time we could spend building actual community.
When you have found your people, relationships should not feel hard and painful.
Women are socialized to accept that suffering is part of being loved. That we have to put up with partners and families who devalue us. So then we go out and seek relationships with friends who devalue us too. The point of community is to get a break from the bullshit. So I think the first step toward building a village is to stop trying to build villages that don’t work for you, to stop pursuing relationships with people who do not honor and love you.
So what do you do with your time, now that you’re not pursuing assholes? My top tips for building community include:
Consider joining a ready-made community. Cobbling together a group of friends who actually like each other can take years, or even decades. Instead, consider joining a community that already exists—a Girl Scout troop, a school, a book or garden club, an activist organization. Good groups welcome new members who contribute meaningfully, so show up ready to help, and only stick around if your contribution is valued.
Say nice, meaningful things to people. What’s the first thing women usually say to each other? “I love your hair!” Or “You look so great!” Women are socialized to value their appearance above all else, and it’s deeply harmful. It means we rarely hear positive feedback about who we really are. So instead, try telling people the positive things you really think of them. “You are so good at dealing with angry kids.” “I’m awestruck by your advocacy.” It’s a way to connect, a way to make people feel valued, and a way to offer other mothers something they’re probably not getting anywhere. Worst case scenario, you say something nice and it goes nowhere. But maybe, just maybe, you build real connection.
Ask people about themselves. When you’re lonely, as most mothers are, it’s easy to talk too much about yourself. Don’t do this. People love talking about themselves, and one of the fastest ways to forge meaningful connections is to ask people about themselves and then listen to their answers. Make people feel important and valued, and they’ll do the same for you.
Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable. We are all so sick of being around people who make us feel pressure and shame, who make us feel like we have to be perfect parents to be worthy. Yet most of us also feel pressured to be those people, to put on a show of perfection. Try sharing vulnerability instead. It makes people feel comfortable, and makes you a more appealing friend.
Be interesting. People want interesting friends. Yet women are socialized to suppress their opinions, to agree with everyone. One of the very best ways to screen your potential village is to assess whether you can be yourself. Can you share your opinions? Do they get your sense of humor? Be who you really are early and often, and you’ll find your people faster.
Focus on quality, not quantity. A single friend who really loves you is worth more than hundreds of acquaintances who don’t really see you for who you are. Rather than trying to build the biggest possible circle, focus on a single connection or two. Build rich, close relationships, and slowly and steadily expand.
Give generously. Giving to others feels good. It makes your life better. It also helps you build friendships. Don’t be afraid to give generously, because this is the foundation of a village. I have never regretted helping another human being.
Don’t discount people who are different from you. We tend to befriend people who share our social class, income, race, and world experiences. This makes us worse, and narrows the field of people from whom we might build community. Don’t assume someone is less than you because they are different. Don’t befriend people based on what you think they can give you, because often you’re wrong.
Readers, what are your tips for building community?
I’ve noticed this, ‘village’ trend is the new idea or topic that I’ve seen come up on social media recently. IMO it is just more gas lighting rhetoric, more sexist drivel to lay blame at the feet of women often times BY WOMEN. For example, let us go back to this ‘village’ of the past AS IF women did not suffer worse subjugation back then, but sans that I understand the double bind. First, for this ‘village’ women need to begin to see other women’s humanity, they need to see themselves in all women regardless of privileges, before we can even make a useful step in forming a, ‘village’ we so desperately seek. As with many of the institutionalized and systemic things that Zawn stated up top in her article that affects us as mothers on a whole, the internalized misogyny that so many women harbor and perpetuate is rampant AND there has to be constant and diligent effort on women’s part to unlearn, or no authentic village will ever be accessible. When we as women can get our oppression as a sex class consciousness in our skulls rather than individually because that is what men and patriarchy strive for, women as a collective will then be able to successfully form community.