Reply to It takes a village and I have no village

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm always amazed by threads like this (about building villages, or wishing for family nearby) and how nasty they become. Is it that misery loves company?

Of course some people are lucky enough to be able to hire help, but that's not a community.[/quote]

[b]I just have trouble with the line between “community” vs the expectation that other women provide unpaid labor for me when I’m in a crisis. I find it odd that OP’s problem isn’t with her husband, his job, her own job, the lack of nearby family, or OP and her husband’s choice to not live by family.[/b] “The problem” apparently is that OP can design her life to work for her 95% of the time, but when she hits a crisis, other women around her are just supposed to step in with emotional support, meals, childcare, transportation, etc. That seems vaguely misogynist to me.[/quote]

this

sorry but if you put a message up on FB asking me to go pick you  up somewhere, I'm only going to do it for family (because I have to) or very close friends, most of whom go back to childhood, high school, or college. Most people aren't making super close lifelong friends in their 30s anymore. They already have too many obligations in their lives to take on more.

that's just the way of the world[/quote]

But some people would call that "unpaid labor" by another name, friendship. And anytime someone posts on these boards wishing they had more of that, there are always a lot of responses just like this one. "Sorry, too busy, no room for more friends."

And we wonder why there are regular threads about how unfriendly this area is.[/quote]

No, friendship is not unpaid labor by another name. It's two very different things. If a very close friend asks to borrow money, I lend, and if she ever kills someone, I'll help to hide the body.  But if she wants help for things in daily life that can get accomplished by a taxi, cleaning lady, babysitter or grocery delivery, I wouldn't do it. I cannot be someone else's free household help. That's not friendship.

Note, that OP has plenty of people to socialize with - she mentions celebrations together, parties at her house, etc. So these people are not unfriendly, it's just not appropriate to expect free domestic labor in return. That's not friendship, it's using people. Everybody has obligations and OP seems to have too many emergencies, frankly.[/quote]

Wow. When acquaintances had an emergency recently, we delivered a meal and had their kids over for an afternoon. Didn’t realize we should have invoiced it.[/quote]

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