Every day, I look at my 10-year-old and 13-year-old, gaze lovingly into their eyes, and see the little kid, toddler, and infant they once were. I kiss them gently on their foreheads and think two thoughts at the same time: “I miss my teeny-tiny baby” and “Thank God you’re not a baby anymore.”
Those early years are beautiful, unforgettable, and incomparable but also so, so hard. And TikTok user Lindsey, who posts as @lindseymariecolor_ on TikTok, has a message for moms like me: now that we’ve hit our stride, we are tasked with helping new parents. So, get those casserole dishes ready!
“This video is for the parents who have decided they are completely done having children,” she begins.
“Maybe you or your partner have made that permanent decision and you are no longer having any more. You’re not pregnant, you’re not nursing, and all of your children are now fully potty trained. You don’t have to carry around a diaper bag, you might even be completely out of car seats, and you don’t have to help your children open their snacks, they can do that by themselves. If everything I’m describing sounds a lot like your life right now: congratulations, you’re now The Village.”
The Village, of course, is a reference to the adage — “It takes a village to raise a child.”
“You are in charge of making new meals for parents, for offering to clean houses, for offering to take the older kids to the park when somebody has a new baby,” she continues.
She preempts anyone who would counter this edict by pointing to their own lack of help when their children were young.
“You didn’t have a village: how did that make you feel?” she asks. “Did it feel lonely? Did it feel isolated? Did it make your postpartum depression worse?”
Parents of older kids, she notes, have a much easier time doing things. Simple things, like getting out of the house or eating a meal. Caring for a child who can’t do anything for themselves (except create chaos: they’re great at that from day one) is exhausting, and even asking for help can be overwhelming because where do you even begin to ask? Lindsey has a suggestion for that, too.
“When somebody you know — a co-worker, a friend, a neighbor — has a baby, they have three under three, they are going through something really difficult, they’re going through grief: offer to make them food. Take them food to their house. Don’t say ‘What can I do to help?’ Just say ‘Hey I can bring food over Tuesday or Friday, what day works better for you?’ … Offer to help in a way that is actually helpful rather than putting the decision on them, because … they can’t make that executive decision right now. Make the decision for them. Be the person that you needed when you were in that new motherhood era and it was so incredibly difficult.”
Response to this message was disappointingly mixed. While plenty of people expressed eagerness to be there for their friends, family, and neighbors, others proudly crowed about how not on board they were with this plan.
“No ma’am I’m not,” reads one comment. “I just survived that stage.”
“Tubes removed at 23,” says another. “I’m not doing sh*t for no one. Unless they are direct family.”
“The best part of not having many friends is not having to be the village,” reads a third.
Many others claimed life was busier now that their kids were older and in activities.
Look, no stage is easy. But speaking as a mom of a busy tween and teen, I think anyone claiming this stage is more demanding probably forgets what it was like to have your child rely on you for every single aspect of their existence. It might behoove society as a whole to take a minute to remember that… and then go to your friend who just had a baby with a lasagne and a laundry-folding attitude…
