You Don't Have a Village Because You're a Flake

The one we're all missing and so desperately need, and if only we had this mythical village, all our maternal problems would be solved. If we had a village of our own, we could be the better mothers we see ourselves stunted and prevented from becoming due to its lack. If only we had a "village." I am here to tell you, as an expecting mother of two who has a village of dozens, precisely why most mothers today do not. Most mothers are bad villagers. Their behavior is such that having them as part of a village would be a liability to group cohesion and success. To invite them into a village would be to destroy the village, and the modern mother's biggest offense barring her from village entry is herself. Her worst quality is that she is a flake. What Does a Village Do? A village provides a mother support in her lowest of lows and her highest of highs, whether that season be postpartum or otherwise. I have seen it firsthand, but this reward does not come without a cost. The village women who serve one another do not necessarily do so out of a desire for reciprocity, because that would mean their good deeds are transactional. However, there is the reality that a long-term lack of service without a reasonable explanation as to why you cannot help others in a group heavily focused on serving others will lead the village women to consider among themselves what the state of your character is. You are consistently demonstrating a lack of behavior that holds the group together, which is service. I would not seek to join a village if you are not a selfless person in this season of your life. It would be like trying to join a group of writers, yet never sitting down and writing pieces yourself for your peers to review, and never taking the time to edit the writings of others. You are violating the fundamental principle of the group: to write. When you fail to serve in a village, you are violating the fundamental principle of the group: to serve women. By women, I mean serving women of all ages. Service is not limited to novice or veteran members of the group. You cannot serve anyone if no one can count on you to show up. In a village, a novice member is someone who is temporally new or someone who is a maiden. For example, a Mom of Many who has just recently expressed an interest in joining the existing village or a young bachelorette who has an appreciation for womanhood, marriage, and motherhood. A veteran member might be a Mom of Many who has been married for several years, may be older, and has been in the village for a few years. These women of differing demographics and life stages are still called to serve one another in a village. A veteran member may do lunch in her home with a novice and chat with her about marriage and motherhood, and the novice can provide a young, vibrant perspective and fresh outlook on life that a veteran sorely needs. Young women and older women of a village pour into one another, even if they do not have everything in common. A novice might bring a meal to a postpartum married mother while the postpartum married mother has a chat with her about physical recovery. Both serve one another, and both gain from one another. As previously mentioned, a village is held together by service, but service requires something even more basic: reliability. You cannot serve anyone if no one can count on you to show up. This is where the modern woman runs into trouble. What Is a Good Villager? First and foremost, a good villager shows up. You cannot establish bonds, trust, and long-term relationships with other women if you make yourself scarce. There is no substitution for giving someone your time. Time is our most depreciating asset, which makes it our most valuable asset. The true cost of a village is your time. This is also why it is so difficult for friendships to thrive in modernity. We do not spend enough time in physical proximity with one another. If someone is a flake, there is no way they will be able to integrate into an existing village of women. A good villager takes the time to go through the integration process of the group. She doesn't ask first what the village can do for her, but rather she asks what she can do for the village. Out of a pure desire for love and companionship, she looks to fill in the gaps of the group. She asks, "What are they missing that I can provide according to my talents and skills?" Then, she exercises conscientiousness in completing her acts of service. They don't stay theorized in her mind or in group discussions. They become deeds performed in reality. A good villager does. Her word is her promise. There is no substitution for giving someone your time. A good villager does not need to be endlessly available. She does not have to say yes to every request, attend every gathering, cook every postpartum meal, babysit every child, or become the communal workhorse. Women have husbands, children, jobs, pregnancies, illnesses, aging parents, financial limitations, and seasons where they simply do not have much to give. A good villager knows her limitations and is honest about them. She is a direct, trustworthy communicator. If she is bringing you dinner Tuesday, dinner arrives Tuesday. If she cannot bring dinner Tuesday, she tells you as soon as she knows. If she commits to watching your children for a few hours so you can go to an appointment, you do not spend the morning wondering whether she's going to come through or not. Reliability has become a rare social virtue. Modern mothers have normalized treating plans as tentative until the moment they occur. Invitations are answered with "maybe" without commentary as to why commitment is not possible. In the privacy of their minds, women allow themselves an invisible escape hatch in case something more appealing comes along. Then we wonder why we do not have community. A community cannot survive if most members behave this way. A village requires some degree of inconvenience because other human beings are inherently inconvenient. Babies arrive when they arrive. Women miscarry without consulting your calendar. A postpartum mother may need dinner during the week you are tired. Your friend may need someone to watch her toddler when you would rather spend Saturday morning in your pajamas. This is the cost of knowing and loving other people. The benefit is that when you are the one bleeding, grieving, exhausted, overwhelmed, newly postpartum, frightened, lonely, or simply unable to carry your normal load, there are women around you who know how to show up because showing up is already part of the culture you built together. You do not magically acquire these women when you become the person in need. You acquire them slowly by becoming one of them. You become a villager, then you get your village. What Is a Flake? A flake is someone you can't count on. If she says she's coming, you know more likely than not she will text you the morning of with some excuse as to why she can't. Obviously, life happens, and there will be numerous reasons why people inevitably cancel, but if you are canceling more than you are completing obligations you agreed to and you are frequently canceling at the last minute, you are a flake. You are not reliable, and you are not dependable. Most people you interact with will conclude your word is not good and eventually stop inviting you to events altogether. They will stop asking you for help. They will also eventually stop offering you help. That is not necessarily because they are transactional individuals. They will stop offering you help because they likely have other friends who pour into their lives more. It is prudent to prioritize friendships based on mutual interest; otherwise, we would never get around to forming deep bonds and the sort of friendships that stand the test of time. If someone you are flaking on has others passionate about loving them and waiting to pour into their lives, they will naturally gravitate toward them and away from you. A flake is someone whose desire to serve others is based on her emotions. She volunteers enthusiastically and disappears when the enthusiasm wears off. She says, "Let me know if you need anything!" but becomes mysteriously difficult to reach when someone actually needs something. She loves the idea of community considerably more than the obligations of community. This woman may desperately want a village. She may repost content about villages, lament that mothers were never meant to do this alone, and sincerely believe modern motherhood has become unnecessarily isolating. And she would be completely correct in declaring modern motherhood is unnecessarily isolating. However, she will do absolutely nothing to change the state of modern motherhood in reality. Therefore, she will perpetuate the very thing she claims mothers lack because she is a flake. She loves the idea of community considerably more than the obligations of community. A village cannot be built of women who all want to be rescued while simultaneously desiring to never be inconvenienced. That is the uncomfortable part of the village discussion that is missing from social media. Everyone discusses what the village is supposed to give the mother. Fewer people discuss what the mother owes the village. The village is supposed to bring you food postpartum. Who did you bring food to? The village is supposed to watch your children when you are overwhelmed. Whose children have you watched? The village is supposed to do a wellness check when you disappear. Who have you checked on that has seemingly faded into the background? The village is supposed to celebrate your pregnancy, remember your birthday, pray for your marriage, visit you after birth, listen when you are struggling, and notice when something is wrong. Whose pregnancy did you celebrate? Whose marriage did you pray for? Whose baby did you visit? Whose suffering did you make room for when it was inconvenient? Asking these questions is not meant to produce a transactional narrative. The point is to inform flakes that people can tell when you do not love them well. Love that exists only in sentiment but rarely manifests in action is of little use to a village. It says, "I may care about you, but I am not conscientious enough to reliably act on that care." It says, "My immediate comfort routinely takes priority over my commitments to you." Everyone is busy. Every adult has responsibilities. A cornerstone in the foundation of a village is understanding this: my busyness is not an excuse to withdraw love and service from others. A good villager makes time, even though we are all short on time. If every villager took more than she gave, there would be nothing left for the village to provide. How Can I Stop Being a Flake? 1. Stop saying yes when you mean maybe There is more dignity in telling someone, "I don't think I can make it because bandwidth is low for me this week due to my other obligations." When you have shown up enough times for your fellow villagers, you build what is called "equity." People understand you would ordinarily make time for them if you had it, but you have more pressing obligations to tend to. They respect when you say no and don't ask for further explanation because they know you're not going to flake for an arbitrary reason. 2. Treat your commitments as obligations rather than aspirations. Once you tell another person you will do something, your decision affects someone else's life. Put it on your calendar. Set a reminder. Prepare the night before. Leave enough time to get there. Do the boring logistical work required to become someone whose word has weight. And you might be thinking to yourself, "Well, what do I do if something actually DOES come up?" Text to cancel as soon as you can. Most people have their phones set on "Do Not Disturb" at night unless they have work that requires a variety of contacts to have them on call. If you wake up at 3 a.m. to a baby who is vomiting out of nowhere, 3 a.m. is a fine time to send a text. Moms will understand the 3 a.m. text. 3. Become comfortable with mild inconvenience. Real friendship means putting pants on when you would rather stay home. Sometimes it means loading up your children into the car when you would rather not. It is easier not to, after all! Sometimes it means making twice as much dinner so half can go into an aluminum pan for a postpartum mother. Doubling dinner requires having the forethought of purchasing twice the amount of ingredients alongside disposable containers. This requires cognitive effort as well as physical effort from potentially doubling your time in the kitchen. Do it anyway. If you want to be loved well, you must first love others well. There is a mom with more children than you making the time to cook for a postpartum friend. Where there is a will, there is a way. You will survive. 4. Serve before you desperately need to be served. Don't wait until pregnancy, postpartum, illness, or crisis to realize relationships have practical value. Work on your relational equity with your friends when life is calm because it will provide you the bandwidth required to serve others. Invite them into your home even when it is imperfect. Bring the meal. Hold the baby (if mom needs hands-on help). Help clean the kitchen. Send the thank-you card. Make introductions between women you think would enjoy one another. Become useful to the people you love. 5. Understand that becoming a good villager takes time. If you are a flake, you're probably low in conscientiousness and have been at this bad habit for a long time. If you have been flaking on others for years, it may take you years to become a dependable person and a good villager. That's the nature of bad habits. They're hard to kick, and we've spent years of our lives enjoying the slothfulness of them. We have bad habits because they're easy to keep. It's easy to send the last-minute cancellation text. It's harder to wake up an hour early, shower, get your clothes on, and show up for a friend. You also cannot force intimacy in a friendship. Women don't like being love-bombed by men, and this principle applies to other women too. If you come on too strong, it can come across as if you are trying to force something or have ulterior motives. Take your time building up your friendships. Trust accumulates through hundreds of small interactions in which people demonstrate their character to one another. Over time, a pattern begins to form: You show up. She shows up. You help her. She helps someone else. Someone helps you. Years pass. Babies are born. That newborn you held is now a preteen. Marriages experience trials. People move, struggle, celebrate, grieve, recover, and return. Then one day you look around and realize the mythical village everyone keeps talking about is standing in your kitchen. The smell of a comfort meal is in the air. Chatter is bouncing off the walls in your home. Smiles and glances are exchanged. You realize the village was never a myth. It was built, brick by brick, and you laid some of those bricks yourself.