What is a village?

This has been the most difficult thing when it comes to motherhood in the military, at least for me. “It takes a village to raise a child.” A phrase so commonly said and used in normal circumstances. In places where people are raising children surrounded by friends and family that are constants. In places that they’ll be staying for years to come. That’s just not the case for my family, or many military families.

I don’t have a village to help raise these kids, and that is in no way to say I can’t raise them on my own or with my husband, obviously. But when kids are raised in these circumstances things are incredibly different. Sure we’ve made friends, some of our best lifelong friends who we no longer live near, and we have groups of people who are always more than willing to help out. But at the end of the day it will always feel like it’s just us, our 5 person family unit, and nothing else.

Growing up, for me, we had constant family around. Grandparents that lived both only blocks away and 20 minutes away. Friends just around the corner and aunts & uncles that would flow in and out all the time. The idea of having a village was appealing, an ideal way to have a family. Sure you raised your own kids, but you also had help, people to babysit and constant friends for the kids to play with. As I grew older I always assumed that would be my life as well, I’d get to watch my parents be grandparents and my brother and sisters aunts and uncle to my kids. I never imagined my current scenario to be how things would turn out.

Sure, I still see all of those things. I am thankful for my family who make the effort to be constants in my children’s lives. Daily facetimes and visits at least once a year, my kids are at least growing up knowing and loving these people as I always wanted. But it’s still so different, no family just around the corner and tears every time we have to leave grandma and grandpa. Aunts and Uncles that are watching them grow up through screens rather than in person. It’s a difficult life, especially as the kids get older and really start to understand how different the life they live is.

And when it comes to friends in the military, it’s hard. I’ve met some incredible people and made some great friends, but at the end of the day I still feel alone. I still feel helpless sometimes, especially when my husband is gone, and it feels like I have no one to help me through these difficult moments. I’ve created a life where I can’t trust anyone with my kids, so doing things on my own is damn near impossible. The military does its best to create community, and I’ve done my best to do so as well, but it’s not easy especially as a full grown adult. No one told me making friends as an adult was so hard, but making friends and breaking down the walls I’ve put up for so many years is something that I don’t think will ever happen.

When it comes down to it, having the “village” I grew up with as a child isn’t something I can have as an adult, or give to my children. An unfortunate, but true, thing in the military world. I know people will tell me the experience is what I make it and that I need to be more trusting. Words and phrases that are easier said than done, especially in a life that’s constantly moving.