What if I don’t have a tribe?

“What if I don’t have a Tribe?” is a guest post by Jess Douglas-Monks at The Mama Bare.

Today I had a little “Instavent”.

It was early and I was emotional and overwhelmed. I vented through my Instagram story about how tired I was and how much I wish I had a tribe or a village or whatever it is that apparently, everyone else on social media has to help them get through the rough days of parenting.

I was under the belief, due to the many posts I see about these wondrous ‘tribes’, that everyone had a tribe membership except me. Kind of like Fernwood, but less expensive and with wine.

You know the posts ‘Find your tribe, love them hard’? Or ‘It Takes a Village’ and all the mamas out there being thankful for their ‘tribe’ when good things or when bad things happen?

For the longest time now, I’ve been feeling as though I was missing out.

That I was tribe-less. Most of my friends don’t have kids yet, or the ones that do live far away or are insta-friends so I rarely get face to face time with them.

I was also under the impression that everyone else lived in a magical village whereupon numerous family members were available night or day to help out when the parenting gig was getting tough. Which, if we were keeping time, in my household, has been just over 5 months now.

I was under this impression because, since becoming a parent, I feel as though I’ve seen the term ‘it takes a village’ roughly 8000 times on various articles and blogs aimed at mums or parents like me, who would naturally be reading them.

Combine this with the knowledge of other actual humans I know who have pretty exceptional family support and there you have my magical village concept.

So, there I was, venting and feeling bloody sorry for myself. At present (here I go again) I have two paid jobs and three children, including a five month old baby who has only JUST stopped screaming all day and is yet to sleep through the night consistently (which I KNOW is totally normal but the sleep deprivation is just the cherry on top). My skin has gone to shit, a third of my hair has fallen out and I barely have a minute to scratch myself, let alone clean my house or cook a proper meal or compose a blog piece before 9pm.

When low and behold, I started to get private messages from other mums in the same position and to be honest, some from those in much worse.

Some from mums I knew well and some from relative strangers and they all broke my heart.

So many beautiful women out there who, for various reasons, felt they had no-one to help them and no-one to turn to on the days where it finally gets to you and you just want to cave in.

Some had family nearby who weren’t willing to help, despite being able to (which really got to me, because why not help if you can?). Some have no contact with their family any more (which I found incredibly sad). Others had good friends, but guess what? Their friends had kids too and so they didn’t want to burden them with more even though they desperately needed a break.

Then there were the ones who were expected to work, parent AND run the household while their partners simply went to work and got to pick and choose when their interactions with the children would be and to top it off wouldn’t dream of lifting a finger at home, which genuinely left me speechless.

All the responses blew my mind.

Each in different ways and it just made me sad. And mad, really mad.

But also, unexpectedly humbled.

Humbled by the fact that I knew so many beautiful, strong women who were struggling to keep on top of it all, largely by themselves, but kept it up every damn day. The love they have for their children is greater than their desperation, their hurt, their frustration and resentment. It kept them going through what they will look back on as some of the toughest times in their lives and I know for a fact that not one of them will regret a moment of it.

They will look back in years to come and smile. They won’t forget how hard it was, but they won’t let it make them bitter and they won’t let it ruin the beautiful memories they make every day, when they get up before dawn, because there’s just no other option.

Some of those women will read this and know I’m talking about them and when they do, I want them to be proud.

I want them to take a minute to realise that they helped me today, in more ways than one. Not only am I thankful for that but I am proud of them too. I know how tough they are doing it and they just keep going, which I could not respect more.

So perhaps I do have a tribe after all?

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