Tribe

This past weekend, I visited my grandma. I love sitting at her table, sipping iced tea and talking about anything and everything. This time we chatted about what it’s like raising kids today. She balked at how moms schedule “playdates” today, and wondered whatever happened to…playing! To open the door, and let your kids run out into the sunshine. She sweetly reminisced about my uncle playing with a couple of trucks in a patch of dirt under her maple tree. Content, in a world of roads and ramps of his own making, he played that way until she called him in for lunch.

There’s something idyllic about the freedom children used to have to just play—my mom playing “cowboys” with all the neighborhood kids, or my brother and I running through the woods all day. But in talking to my grandma, I was also hearing that it was, well…easier. As a mother, she didn’t have all of the worries that we seem to have today. She knew her neighbors, they all looked out for each other, while the kids explored their world and learned about life through their play. Gram had a tribe. She was part of a community of women who shared the workload of caring for their families. And sure, times really were tough, many things were harder then, but within that tribe, the women just kept things moving forward.

We talked a bit about what has changed, and why things seem so different now. We came up with lots of theories. But we both agreed on one thing- a lot of women today don’t have that support system. Moms need a tribe. Many of us have to work to find our tribe, to build that community around ourselves, to get comfortable sharing the workload with other moms. It’s not always easy to ask for help—aren’t we supposed to be able to do it all?

The conversation with my grandma reminded me of a great interview I recently heard with feminist Germaine Greer. When asked what she thinks the biggest feminist issue of our time is, she said that on every street, in every home, women are doing the exact same thing, facing the exact same challenges- but they are each doing it alone, and they are all getting tired. Women need to be supporting one another. Yes!

Now I'm imagining Germaine Greer sitting down to lunch at gram’s…

If you want to hear the interview, you can find it here. It aired July 5, 2011.