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Photo Credits:-

Village Landscape
(DavidRockDesign, Pixabay)

Togo Village
(gadjet, Pixabay)

Swazi Village
(thewatkins6, Pixabay)

Village or Extended Family 

"It takes a village to raise a child." (African proverb)
Village Landscape

Ancient humans focused on family, community, and the natural world, and I think we can learn so much from that.
(Donny Dust, quoted at The Guardian, posted and accessed 25 October 2023; he is a US Marine Corps Veteran, considered by many as a worldwide expert in remote primitive survival, ancient/historical technologies, lithic arts (flintknapping) and emergency preparedness)

Enlist Your Tribe - It is pretty much impossible to raise a child without tripping and stumbling constantly.
It is simply impossible to parent in ones or twos and not feel frayed at the edges, if not outright exhausted. We are not supposed to raise kids on our own; we are meant to do it as part of a tribe. (Susan Stiffelman, adapted from here posted 13 April 2015, and here posted 9 April 2015, both accessed 16 April 2015)

Togo Village

Humans live longer to "pay for" their larger-brained children. Humans live relatively long compared to other great apes. The majority of this extended life is post-menopausal, while chimps are reproductively viable right up to their death. A human brain is three times the size of chimpanzee's. Evolutionarily, the extended lives of human grandparents are there  to relieve mothers from being solely responsible for raising their big-brained, energetically costly infants. Ageing can be seen as the outward show of the stress of living long enough to lend a helping hand to your relatives.
(Adapted from 
BBC, posted and accessed 26 July 2011)

Having children adds almost two years to life, say scientists...
a new study suggests that despite the sleepless nights, incessant worry and financial headaches which children bring, youngsters also increase longevity. In fact, fathers can expect to live nearly two years longer than childless men, while mothers gain an extra 18 months. Scientists do not believe the effect is biological, but rather the result [of] a loving support network which is crucial in later life, when, something as simple as a fall can be deadly. People with a close knit family are also generally encouraged to visit the doctor, stay active and take care of themselves by their loved ones. Previous studies have found that loneliness, or losing a partner in later life can hasten death, but it is the first large study to show that children have a protective effect.
(The Telegraph, posted 13 March 2017, accessed 18 March 2017)
Swazi Village

When we wish to start a family, we have to make an effort to go outside ourselves, to open ourselves to another person, a husband or a wife, and later to children. But the mistake humans have made is in not understanding that they ought to have widened the family circle even further and extended their love to other creatures and to the whole universe. This is why, even with their family and friends, they are still not happy. Happiness means not stopping at one person, or two, or ten or a hundred... but loving to infinity. So, continue to love those you already love, but widen the circle of your love still further so you can have exchanges with all the higher creatures – the angels, the archangels, the heavenly hierarchies and the Lord. Then, your family and friends will be enriched, strengthened, made beautiful and purified because of all the sublime states you nourish in your heart and soul. (O.M. Aïvanhov)

Other Quotes

It's not motherhood that's exhausting. What's exhausting is to nurture in a world that doesn't care for and support its mothers. (Mamá Kaur)

The fascist threat collapses when ordinary people have meaningful opportunities for social connection and purpose, the groundwork of human dignity.
(Prof Daniel Martinez HoSang, The Guardian, posted and accessed 9 September 2024)

Resources
  • Top 10 tips to building a baby's brain (BBC, undated). [Emphasises community. Children do better when from strong, supportive communities!]
  • Village Prenatals (Sister MorningStar, Midwifery Today, 2014). [This is clear evidence how a supportive community of women can make birth so much easier and blissful].
  • Stressed by parenting? Evolution can explain why (Nichola Raihani, evolutionary biologist, BBC Future, 2021) [An evolutionary biologist explains how, "as a species, humans are spectacularly ill-equipped to deal with parenting in isolation." For much of human history, extended families provided the help needed to raise our offspring. This collaborative way of raising children makes us unique among great apes. Called "cooperative breeding", it is more similar to how seemingly more distant species like meerkats and even ants and bees live – and it has given us crucial evolutionary advantages.].
  • ‘It felt shameful’: the profound loneliness of modern motherhood (Lucy Jones, The Guardian, 2024).
Also see:-

Attachment Parenting

Natural Family Living

Spirituality & Natural Family Living


Family

Unity

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© Bruce Mitchell 2014-Now. All rights reserved.
Page last updated: 9 September 2024.