a Village

They say it takes a village to raise a kid because we used to live in them. When the baby needed to fed at 3 AM or the toddler is freaking out, your Mom or Dad is one cave or hut over to hold them so you can nap, take them for a walk so you can eat. Now, we live far from our families, or some of us do, and we do it alone, or if we’re lucky, pay someone else to help, and that person becomes family while you ache for your own. We take the babies on planes, flying across previously unfathomable distances, and create little villages over holiday weekends, but it’s never enough. Running through the airport with two suitcases and a toddler on your hip, you want your village, you want your Mom holding the baby so you can pee and you want your Dad looking up turbulence reports and your little brother jogging to the gate, asking them to wait. You want to cut out all of your homes spread out over the big paper map and tape them to each other, you want to open a door in California and be in the village, six homes in a circle around a fire.

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