Looking for a Village

As the saying goes, "It takes a village to raise a child". If Clinton and the African proverb are correct, then we need to find our village, because we find ourselves raising our child in increasing isolation. You'd think we had some kind of contagious disease (stay away, they have baby!!!) considering how hard it is to just get people to commit to a short social visit or dinner.

Leslie is especially starved of adult interaction. Two of her best friends have been either traveling or too preoccupied with their own families lately to devote any time to her. Neither of us has any relatives close by. Leslie's family all live out of state, and my nearest relative is my 20-something cousin who is always busy with the things 20-somethings do. So we don’t really have anyone we can call on to baby-sit when we want to go to a movie or just get a break for the two of us.

Leslie had hoped that people in her Buddhist community would be more supportive as well. But it seems that most of them are too busy to even pick up a phone. There are even a few that she thought she was close to who have yet to even see our baby. If Leslie calls them, they're always too busy, or have plans already or say they'll call back and never do. It's very disappointing.

I find it hard to accept some the concepts of Buddhism when I see that the people in her "community" don't really go out of their way to support one another. Most will bend over backwards to assist a Lama and his or her family members, but everyone else it seems is on their own.

Instead of a community, I see a bunch of cliques. There's the Tibetan/Nepalese/Bhutanese immigrant clique. Then there's the lesbian clique, the gay clique, the hippie clique and the punk clique. There's even a groupie clique, or folks who hang on every word of the lama and fall over themselves trying to make sure that the lama's every need is met. Another group is not really a clique since they don't really hang out together. They're people who are so absorbed in their practice, that they eschew any social interactivity lest is impede their progress toward enlightenment. Unfortunately for Leslie, there doesn’t seem to be a new mother clique.

So that leaves us with trying to connect with other new parents without much success. It seems that many new parents are too busy as well. So we're still short of a village. Anyone have any ideas where we can find one?