Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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!

Curious what you think the alternative is. To have someone take care of your sick kid when you got home from work? Like an aunt, grandparent, etc? I think you’re clueless if you really think there were previous generations of women (or laughably men) willing to come over to take care of your kid with double pink eye and a cold. No way. The main difference is as an UMC woman, you wouldn’t have had a job.

NP. I don't know why you think the PP is 'clueless'. My mother worked when we were young, and she could depend on relatives/neighbors to help when necessary. Most families at that time could.

I disagree. Most likely your mother’s neighbors had her own children. Was she going to just leave hers at home alone while she came to watch your sick child? Sorry but I just don’t buy that neighbors and friends were helping to this extent. I actually don’t understand what OP even needs help with. Neighbors can’t help her husband feel better or her child’s pink eye heal. I’d say that children decades ago were more independent and could be sent outside when another child was sick, but I really don’t think neighbors were coming by to watch sick children.

I think OP is another example of a millennial with poor coping skills. Kids get sick. Husbands do too. It’s called life.

What do you mean you disagree? I related the experience of my family and those of other families in my neighborhood. There's nothing to disagree about. This was, and is, the situation in many places where people rely on each other. No-one, including OP, was suggesting that a friend/relative should stay home from work to help her. However, people do help each other after work or on weekends.

Just because people are struggling to cope with life and you aren't, doesn't make you superior, PP. My mother was born in 1941, and she also struggled to cope some days. Why do you think so many women in the past had their little "mother's helper" each day? They lived in a time where women couldn't say they were struggling. To ask for help IS actually a sign that you are strong. You seem to be strangely hostile to the concept that in some cases friends/relatives are willing to help. In my case, some of them were single, some were married with young children, and some were married with grown children.

Anonymous wrote:OP seems to have a weird, surfacey understanding of how intimacy develops. It's not through sending care packages or hosting game nights! It's through actually ASKING people (in person!) for help, and showing up IN PERSON for them, and talking about what's actually going on in your life. And you also have to work to find that person who's willing to open up to you in that way as well. If I saw that an acquaintance who I had never really talked about life with was posting on FB asking for a ride home from the hospital ... I'd probably take a step back, because that's a bit odd? But if you emailed or send a group email, I'd do what I could to help.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dear OP,

Same situation here re: no village.

Here is what I did:
* actively seek out other mothers without a village. You are prib attracted to nice smiley women with families in the area who help. They are lovely, but they are not your village. Look for women who don't have a village. Candidly discuss trading childcare. It works.

OP here. I totally agree with this. And actually I do seek out women to be friends with who don't have any local family here/are new to the area, because they have more time to get together. than those who do have family in the area.

I'm not looking for childcare help. I'm looking for warm, caring friends who care about me. Here's the kind of things I do for others: send care packages if they've had a major illness/been in the hospital, take my friends out for lunch on their birthday, bring by a Mother's Day gift on Mother's Day, bring home-baked cookies on Christmas, check in with them daily by email/text if they or their kids are sick, host baby showers, host holiday meals.

I feel like they don't do anything in return, and it bothers me. I don't need babysitting help, I need a friend who cares enough to check in and see how I'm doing the day after surgery when they know my DH is on a business trip.

Here's another example: a few years ago I was in a car accident. DH was on a business trip, so I had no one. I posted a FB message from the ER asking if anyone could pick me up so I wouldn't have to take a cab home. No one responded. Do you know how terrible that made me feel?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People in DC suck. The worst part of it is how unaware they are of how much they suck. The "close friends" who volunteered to take me to the hospital when my baby came, answered the phone at 10 minutes after midnight and told me, as I panted with contractions very close together, that it was too late on a weeknight to leave the house, and I should take a cab. My doula got on the phone with them, when she heard my summary of what they'd said before hanging up, and told them again what was going on. She was livid, disgusted. Those folks never apologized. They still think they're kind, generous, open, helpful, probably have half a dozen stories of how charitable of selfless they are.

I've had 2 emergencies that made me call friends since then, although those times in the middle of the afternoon. In both cases, the phone kept on ringing. Maybe, as I've seen suggested on this forum, just in case I was going to ask for last-minute childcare, which I've never done with a phone call, and may have done with a group text 3 times in 5 years. No, one of these 2 emergency phone calls, I thought I was going to bleed to death in front of my kids. Turns out I didn't, but I didn't realize that while I was dialing with one hand and pushing on the wound with another and watching my calls to my neighbor "friends" get screened out.

People suck. Funny someone upthread wrote "did you ASK someone to help you?" Reminds me of a non-friend who is a pro at letting other people's requests for help slide right off her back in person, or into voicemail, and never offering help when it seems needed, and is also great at scolding folks in hindsight for not asking clearly enough, loudly enough, urgently enough.

They all love their pussy hats and think their values beat your values, but DC is full of selfish people who like to pretend they're part of a village when they're not.

This isn't a DC problem but more a function of how Americans operate. Btw, how did you watch your neighbors screen your calls? Were you watching them through a window?

"watch" was used figuratively, not literally. Watched my phone screen.

I think I can see why no one answers your calls anymore.

What am I supposed to answer if someone asks me whether I was watching them through a window? Was I supposed to detect sarcasm and ignore? Is the use of the words "figuratively" and "literally" sarcastic or hostile?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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!

Curious what you think the alternative is. To have someone take care of your sick kid when you got home from work? Like an aunt, grandparent, etc? I think you’re clueless if you really think there were previous generations of women (or laughably men) willing to come over to take care of your kid with double pink eye and a cold. No way. The main difference is as an UMC woman, you wouldn’t have had a job.

NP. I don't know why you think the PP is 'clueless'. My mother worked when we were young, and she could depend on relatives/neighbors to help when necessary. Most families at that time could.

I disagree. Most likely your mother’s neighbors had her own children. Was she going to just leave hers at home alone while she came to watch your sick child? Sorry but I just don’t buy that neighbors and friends were helping to this extent. I actually don’t understand what OP even needs help with. Neighbors can’t help her husband feel better or her child’s pink eye heal. I’d say that children decades ago were more independent and could be sent outside when another child was sick, but I really don’t think neighbors were coming by to watch sick children.

I think OP is another example of a millennial with poor coping skills. Kids get sick. Husbands do too. It’s called life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why we have built our lives near family.

Wow this is really helpful to the OP...

Anonymous wrote:This is why we have built our lives near family.

Anonymous wrote:This is why we have built our lives near family.