Childcare and takeaway are not enough for me

You know, I have this illusion that I’m the normal one around here. But every now and then I have a conversation which makes me realise that I dance to the beat of a different drum. Maybe you also dance to its beat; maybe you struggle to hear it amid the chaos of life – but if it’s not your drumbeat at all, you probably don’t read this blog!

Anyway, six months ago, we moved house. We didn’t move far; two miles, to be exact. But we moved from an unfriendly street to a friendly street; and, in particular, we moved to be a few doors up from some special people. Other friends, who hear our drumbeat, cheered us on; but many couldn’t understand it. And at the old school, which we attended for the last few weeks of term after moving, I was standing with a group of mums at pick up time when one of them asked me about the new house. ‘It’s great,’ I said, ‘we’ve been there a month and already we’re sharing a meal or two a week. The kids go back and forth a bit between the houses and so they’re more engaged and asking less of me.’ I was ready to say more – about Friday movie nights (for the kids) and wine (for the adults), say, or about sharing the lawnmower or the rice cooker or babysitting – when a woman interrupted. ‘What’s so great about that?’ she asked, slightly contemptuously. ‘Childcare and takeaway, that’s what you need; why would you want to get involved?’ And half the women in the group nodded, and looked at me as if I were the strange one.

And that, folks, is the moment I realised that we dance to different drums; and the drums are so different that I couldn’t answer her. While I stumbled for words, another woman cut in. ‘I can’t stand the idea of neighbours,’ she said, ‘I ignore mine, and always keep my big gates shut and locked.’

Thank goodness the school bell rang and the kids poured out, because I was flabbergasted. I just can’t imagine not sharing my life, especially as a parent. I feel suffocated at the idea of living with just partner and kids; the nuclear family is not enough for me. And when I think back to how important so many adults – friends and neighbours – were to my childhood, I can’t imagine raising my own kids without the same crowd of people in their lives.

Even more, I can’t see that purchased supports are any substitute for the shared life. While I’m not against either childcare or takeaway, and use them from time to time, they’re not enough for me. I also want old friends and new acquaintances and neighbours who hand food over the fence; I want to eat with many different people, and often.

Many Friday afternoons, the kids all play here while my friend-now-neighbour works from home and I cook up a pot of something; then the kids run down the street and flop in front of a movie at the other house. I follow a bit later carrying my big pot, and my friend and I tell stories of the week over a glass of wine while dinner cooks and we wait for our partners to come home. Together, then, we all eat and talk about work and writing and ideas and politics, and remind the kids of their table manners; then my partner and I whisk our kids home to bed.

Childcare and takeaway vs a glass of wine with a friend, an interesting conversation, and a two-household mutual admiration society? They don’t even begin to compare!