No family nearby? How to build a support network when you don’t have a village

There’s a phrase you hear a lot when you have children: it takes a village.

It sounds lovely, doesn't it? The problem is that plenty of us don’t actually have one.

Families are more geographically spread out than they once were. Grandparents might live hundreds of miles away, still be working, have caring responsibilities of their own, or simply have busy lives they quite rightly want to enjoy. Friends may be juggling their own children and jobs. You might have moved somewhere new and not know many people locally yet. And sometimes family relationships are complicated, or the people you would once have relied on simply aren’t available.

Even when you do have family reasonably close by, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have someone you can call every time you need help.

That was something I discovered myself.

Moving closer to family didn’t automatically give us a village

My family and I moved back to the UK after living in New Zealand for 14 years. One of the reasons for coming home was to be closer to family, and we’re very lucky that my mum now lives around half an hour away.

But I quickly realised that having a grandparent within driving distance and having someone permanently available to help with your children are two very different things.

My mum has her own life. She’s getting older. She has plans, friends and things she wants to do, and I never wanted our childcare arrangements to depend on asking her every time my husband and I wanted to go out for dinner, had an event to attend or needed some help during the school holidays.

Sometimes, frankly, we just needed a break.

What I wanted was a handful of people I knew and trusted. Someone local who could come over for an evening. Someone I could contact without feeling as though I was constantly asking a family member for a favour.

Finding those people was much harder than I expected.

You don’t need to be completely alone to feel as though you don’t have enough support

I think this is an important distinction.

When we talk about parents who “don’t have a village”, it can conjure up an image of someone with absolutely no family or friends around them. In reality, there’s a huge middle ground.

You might have grandparents nearby who help occasionally but can’t provide regular childcare. You might have brilliant friends, but they have three children of their own. Perhaps your partner works long or unpredictable hours. You might have plenty of people around you socially but nobody you would feel comfortable asking to look after your baby.

And then there are the everyday gaps that formal childcare doesn’t necessarily fill.

Nursery might cover your working day, but it doesn’t solve Saturday night. School doesn’t help during half term. After-school club is brilliant until you need to attend a wedding. And none of those necessarily gives you someone who can come to your house at 7pm, do bedtime and stay until you get home.

That gap can make family life surprisingly restrictive.

Your village doesn’t have to be made up of relatives

This is perhaps the biggest thing I’ve come to believe.

We often talk about “the village” as though it’s something you either inherit or you don’t. Grandparents. Siblings. Aunties. Lifelong family friends.

But you can build one too.

Your village might include another parent from school who can collect your child when you’re running late. It could be the neighbour who will take in a parcel or feed the cat while you’re away. It might be friends who understand that occasionally you need to abandon plans because a child has started vomiting at precisely the wrong moment!

And it can include paid childcare.

There can sometimes be a strange reluctance to think of a babysitter as part of your support network because you’re paying them. I don’t think that makes the relationship any less valuable.

Finding a brilliant babysitter who gets to know your children, understands your family and becomes someone you trust can be enormously freeing. Over time, they can become another familiar adult in your children’s lives and another person you know you can call when you need some help.

The important bit is finding them.

Start building your village before you desperately need it

It is remarkably difficult to find childcare calmly when you discover on Tuesday that you need someone for Saturday night.

If you know you don’t have much family support nearby, it’s worth starting to build those relationships before there's an urgent need.

Get to know other local parents. Ask people you trust who they use for babysitting. Talk to nursery and school parents. Find out what local childcare options exist. If you meet a babysitter or childcare professional you really like, don't necessarily wait until you have a big occasion to contact them again.

An occasional couple of hours of childcare can be useful simply because it allows your children and the person caring for them to become familiar with one another.

That familiarity matters. The ideal situation isn't necessarily finding a different available babysitter every time you need one. For many families, it is gradually building a small circle of people their children already know and feel comfortable with.

Think about what you actually need help with

“Childcare” is an enormous category, and you may not need what you initially assume you need.

Perhaps you don't need a nanny. You need someone once or twice a month so you and your partner can go out together.

Maybe the difficult bit is the school holidays, when you can manage most weeks but have a few awkward days to cover.

Perhaps you work from home and occasionally need someone to take your toddler to the park for a couple of hours while you have an important meeting.

You might need evening babysitting, help with school pickups, an extra pair of hands when your partner is away, or someone experienced with babies who can give you a few hours to yourself.

If your child has additional needs, finding someone with the right experience and confidence may be much more important than simply finding the nearest available babysitter.

Knowing exactly where the gaps are makes it much easier to start filling them.

Don’t feel guilty for wanting help

This one shouldn't need saying, but I think it does.

Wanting childcare doesn't mean you don't want to spend time with your children.

Wanting to go out for dinner with your partner is allowed. Going to a friend's birthday is allowed. Having a haircut without a small child sitting on your lap is allowed. Needing to work is allowed. Wanting a few hours when nobody is asking you for a snack is also allowed.

For generations, parents raised children within much larger networks of relatives, neighbours and friends. Expecting two adults – and often one adult for large chunks of the week – to fulfil every practical and emotional need of a family without outside help is an enormous ask.

Getting some help isn't failing to manage family life.

Quite often, it makes family life considerably nicer.

Why I started Borrow A Village

My own experience of trying to find that support eventually became one of the reasons I started Borrow A Village.

There were already big national childcare websites and apps, but I never particularly enjoyed using them. I didn't want to put our details online, receive lots of messages and then work my way through hundreds of profiles trying to decide which stranger I might trust with my children.

I wanted something much more personal.

I wanted to be able to say: these are my children, this is where we live, this is when we need help and this is what matters to us.

And then have someone say: we know someone who might be a really good fit.

That's what we're building.

Borrow A Village will get to know our childcare providers properly: their experience, strengths, availability, the ages they're comfortable caring for and the kinds of families and bookings that suit them. We'll also get to know what parents need, so that we can help make sensible matches rather than simply presenting families with another enormous directory to search.

Because I don't think most parents need 187 possible babysitters.

They need one good one.

Building our first village in Sheffield and Chesterfield

Borrow A Village launches in Sheffield and Chesterfield on 1 October, and we're currently building our first community of childcare providers and families.

Our founding provider group already includes Early Years professionals, teachers, teaching assistants, nannies, nursery practitioners, experienced babysitters and people with experience supporting children with additional needs.

And parents are starting to join us for all sorts of reasons: date nights, babies and toddlers, school holiday help, occasional babysitting and simply wanting another trusted person they can call on.

Some have family nearby. Some don't.

What they have in common is that they'd like their village to be a little bigger.

If that sounds familiar, you can register your interest with Borrow A Village ahead of our Sheffield and Chesterfield launch.

Because sometimes you aren't lucky enough to inherit a village.

You have to build one.