Anonymous wrote:You won’t get any sympathy on this site, OP, because it’s the land of doing it all by yourself as a badge of honor.

But you have my sympathy and I’m sorry. If you have helpful family, I would move to be near them.

Alternatively, a nanny for us has been a lot better than daycare. We can always throw extra hours at the nanny and get help. She’s like a third parent to our kids.

There are many transients here, as befits a power center full of internationals. So it's not a badge of honor. It's that relatives and friends are not local, and incoming families struggle for a while before finding their footing... if they stay that long!

area

A lot of people in the DC are have no village so you are not alone!!

Anonymous wrote:Are you the sort of person who would join a church? That tends to provide an instant village.

I was in your position, OP, years ago. I had friends, but nobody I felt like I could call in an emergency. We just muddled through. It gets easier as the kids get older.

This! We were/are in the same position when we moved here - no close family at all (no sibs, parents died relatively young) and no cousins anywhere near. Joining a smallish UMC church with a preschool, active Sunday school, and youth group at least gave us a place where our kids had other loving and kind adults to interact with and opportunities to learn about serving others through mission work. We made some friends with a variety of people (no one super close as a personal friend), and had people happy to act as emergency contacts or share occasional carpooling for youth activities with. The most important thing though was if we had a true emergency, I knew I could call someone and they would show up, with love to help out. Thank goodness we never needed it, but I needed to know we had a trustworthy village to fall back on.

You won’t get any sympathy on this site, OP, because it’s the land of doing it all by yourself as a badge of honor.

But you have my sympathy and I’m sorry. If you have helpful family, I would move to be near them.

Alternatively, a nanny for us has been a lot better than daycare. We can always throw extra hours at the nanny and get help. She’s like a third parent to our kids.

I suggest investing in finding some local babysitters. Good luck.

OP, I felt this exact way so many times.

Yesterday almost did me in. My husband had food poisoning and was up all night. We have a 7.5 month old who is getting over double pink eye, an ear infection and a cold. He is on antibiotics that he doesn’t like the taste of and tries to spit them out when he’s not coughing so hard he’s throwing them up exorcist style. I had major events at work that I felt couldn’t be missed.

It was a really hard day. I worked a 13 hour day on 3 hours of sleep and got home to be right back “on”.

Raising kids without the village is so tough. I found consolation in now knowing I can be this strong if I have to be but I also need to do my due diligence and plan ahead. I am a planner and usually it helps avoid all of the mess. That doesn’t replace the village.

Keep trudging ahead. You will find your people!

It is easier when only one parent works. We are in similar situation, but one of us does not work. When we both worked it did not seem sustainable.

Are you the sort of person who would join a church? That tends to provide an instant village.

I was in your position, OP, years ago. I had friends, but nobody I felt like I could call in an emergency. We just muddled through. It gets easier as the kids get older.

It doesn't take a village. If it was an emergency surgery, then I get the situation but husband should have canceled his trip. If it wasn't an emergency he should have done the trip another time or hired help. We don't have a village and we make it work.

Did you ask for help? We don’t live close to much family and have some people we are riendly with but they are there when we ask for help. And they ask us for help when they need it. Normally it is small things, taking kids to school or pick kids up from school. Keep kids for dinner so Dad has downtime when Mom is traevlling. But they ask us when we need help and we ask them when we need help. I do check in on them when I know there is an issue, sick kid or parent, And they will ask if they need something when I call.

I think sometimes we assume people will see we need help and jump in to help when the reality is that we need to ask. There is nothing wrong with asking, the worst thing is that they say no. But they will probably say yes.

Hang in there and reach out when you need to.

I also have no family in my area and relocated when my daughter was two, and I'm divorced. It's definitely taken time and energy, but after 6 years I do feel like it's paid off. I do put more energy into friendships where the other person is responsive and seems to want the same level of reciprocity. I try to remember to reach out and offer support and help when people have something going on, but sometimes those details get lost in work, kid, everything else. I like it when people ask for help when they need it or send a reminder. If I get a text that says "I'm trying to stay calm for surgery tomorrow", I'll remember to reach out.

Our families are in Europe and for many years we didn't have any close friends. Sometimes it was hard, but we made it work.

I didn't think of coming on DCUM to complain about it, though. My parents lived the same way (out of their respective countries), my ILs were war refugees, so for us, living like this is normal!

Unfortunately I think this area is kind of a pressure cooker. People don’t have enough free time for themselves let alone helping w babysitting, unless you luck out and live next door to a retired nurse like one of my friends does. Maybe you can speak candidly about trading childcare hours with each other? We don’t have family close by but we pay for weekend sitters to give us a break regularly.

It takes a village and I have no village. We have no local family (family is thousands of miles away) and neither of us is close with aunts, uncles and cousins (who also live thousands of miles away). I'm an only child and my husband has one sister who he is not close with. We moved to this area from out of state, so don't have a network of college/grad school friends. I had to make a whole new social network and I have worked hard to make a lot of mom friends in the area through mom groups, and we get together often for playdates, but they're not the kind of friends who "show up" for me, even though I try to show up for them by doing thoughtful gestures, bringing meals for new babies, hosting baby showers, offering to watch their kids, etc.

For example I recently had surgery, and my husband had to go on a business trip the next day. It was hard taking care of the kids while I was still under the weather.

Since family is not local we had no help there. I would have appreciated some companionship from a friend, or even a simple check-in to see how I was doing, but they didn't even do that (and they knew I was having surgery and that my husband was going on a business trip). I guess I should have hired a home health aide or something?

It's hard raising kids without a village. DH and I work and kids go to full-day preschool with aftercare, so no nanny. Kids are 3 and 5.