It Takes a Village - Doesn't It?

I was born in Harlem Hospital in 1967 and for the first nine years of my life, I lived with my mother and father. In 1976 some things happened and my mother chose to move out of the home we shared with my father; she and I moved into an apartment in Spanish Harlem. For the next 9 years of my life I had a relationship with my father but it was not the relationship we should have had. While things weren't perfect, my mother on a very meager paycheck made sure I was happy, fed, clean and loved unconditionally. My mother didn't do it alone, my aunts, our neighbors, my grandparents and friends all taught me so many different things. I can't list all the things that I learned from different people in my childhood and while my mother was a single mom, there were so many things I learned from the village that was my playground. For example: I remember a lady friend of my dad's that explained to me how to iron my pants and put a crease in them. I remember one of my grandmother's friends that would baby-sit my cousins and I on weekends taught us how to sweep, wash clothes by hand, how when you take a bath you should ring out your wash cloth until its bone dry so that you wouldn't soak your bath towel. Small and simple things that as I've grown older I've always remembered.

My favorite time growing up was the holidays at my grandmother's house or should I say my grandmother's building. My grandmother lived in a typical tenement apartment building in Harlem (and still does to this day) in a five floor walk up on the third floor. This building didn't only house my grandparents but; my great aunt (my grandmother's sister); my great aunt's son and his wife; my cousin in law and my grandmother's friend that she attended church with. This was a family building; there was never a time when we were outside playing that someone wasn't home or watching us while we played in the park across the street. All the people in the neighborhood knew one another, everyone watched out for one another's kids and family.

These holidays were so much fun for the kids because whenever there was a major holiday where food was involved (Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas) all the adults would unlock their doors and there was pretty much like a potluck meal that was held in about five apartments an us kids, well we loved going up and down the stairs to the different apartments and eating the different foods. It wasn't until the 90's that we noticed that our grandparents started to lock their doors, when we left one apartment to go to the next; we couldn't leave the doors open and unlocked anymore. I remember the first time I came home from the military for a holiday and I asked what every one else had cooked and my grandmother said to me, "Oh baby girl we don't' do that anymore." That was when I realized that things had changed and the carefree life of my childhood was over.

When I was 27 years old I had my first child and she too was raised in a single parent household until she was eight years old. I didn't realize it until recently that I too had a village helping me raise my child. My daughter has four godparents and on top of that I was close friends with about eight women that didn't have children and loved to care for her. When my daughter turned four years old we moved to Maryland and it was then that I first noticed how deserting my village would affect not only me but my daughter. I moved away from the village thinking to make a better life for her by living in the suburbs not the city. I look back now and I wonder was that a good move, was it a smart move moving away from that village, going out on my own thinking that since I was a carefree independent African American woman with a good job, I could do it alone. I neglected to see how much that village raised me and how it could have assisted me in raising my daughter to be all that she can be. She's 13 years old now and all the moving (we lived like nomads for about 8 years) really took a toll on both of us but we are stable now and I know that it will work out but I miss that village.

My husband and I have a two year old son; we too moved to the suburbs out of the city so that our son could be raised with a backyard and have a place to ride his bike. We miss our village; the villages are gone -at least the villages we use to know. We have reached out to our neighbors and they are helpful but it doesn't feel the same. The one thing I can say about the village I grew up in, it never felt forced or like you were putting anyone out if they watched your children. The neighbors on the block didn't watch your children while they were playing because they were asked to but because they believed in community. Nowadays it's almost taboo to talk to children on the street, and let them know that what they are doing is wrong. Parents no longer look out for kids that live in their community; people are afraid to speak to the children or the other adults in the neighborhood because it will cause an altercation. Not to mention now with all the pedophiles coming out the woodworks, you no longer feel safe just having anyone watching your child.

Wouldn't it be great to move into a subdivision and be able to trust the people that live in walking distance from you? Are you ready to take a stand and build up your village for the betterment of our children and our communities? What has happened to our communities? Why are we no longer helping one another like we did when I was growing up in the 1970's? What has happened in thirty years? What happened to Mrs. Jenkins that was retired and watched out for all the kids on the block? Not because she was told to but because she cared about the children. What happened to the communities joining together to help one another out-without feeling obligated to do so? Do we even want that type of neighborhood again? Do you think it would be good or bad for your children? How do you think it would impact your current lifestyle if you had that sort of environment to assist you with your family? How do we go about starting up our villages? What do we need to do?