Kitija Ozolina · Awareness Mentor for Mothers
For the Parent With No Village
Some words for the days no one shows up. Because someone should have handed you these a long time ago.
Some mornings your child wakes up with a fever. And there is no one to call. No grandma down the road. No sister who can pop over. Just you.
Maybe your family lives far away. Another town. Another country. You love them, but they cannot be here on a normal Tuesday when everything falls apart.
Maybe it is you and one other tired person. Two of you, doing the work of a whole family. Working, cooking, cleaning, holding a small human who needs you all day.
You drink your coffee cold. Some days you cry in the car for a minute, then wipe your face and walk back in.
You are not failing. You are doing a huge job with almost no help. That is a very different thing.
First, the true part
Everyone seems to need you. Your child needs you. Work needs you. And when you look around for someone who is there for you, the chair is empty.
You do not really get sick days. When you are ill, you still get up. There is no one to take over.
A date night? You can barely remember what that even is.
None of this is because you are weak or doing it wrong. There used to be a whole group of people who helped raise a child. Aunts, grandparents, neighbours. A village. Most of us do not have one anymore. And no one warned us how heavy it would be to carry it with one or two pairs of hands.
A few small things that help
Not a plan. Not homework. Just a few things you are allowed to try on the hard days.
Lower the bar. And do not feel bad about it.
On a hard day you do not have to do it all. Toast for dinner is still dinner. A skipped bath is fine. The messy floor can wait. Your child needs you calm far more than they need a clean house. Pick the two or three things that really matter today, and let the rest go.
A break can be tiny and still count.
You may not get a whole evening off. But five minutes is real. Stand outside the door and breathe. Sit in the car one extra minute before you go in. Lock the bathroom door and just be quiet for a moment. It is not selfish. It is how you keep going.
Try to build a village of two.
You do not need a big group. You need one person. One other tired parent who gets it. You watch their child for an hour, they watch yours. You text them at nine at night when the day has been long. It is not the big family you wish you had. But someone once said it well: to have a village, you have to build one. It can start with just one other person.
Say one honest line out loud.
When you are drowning, say it. Not to fix it. Just to be honest. You can say, "I am having a really hard day and I need a minute." Say it to a friend, to your partner, or just out loud to yourself in the kitchen. Saying it does not make you weak. It makes the day a little lighter to hold.
Some days you feel like you are dying a little inside while still doing your best for them. I know that feeling. It is one of the hardest ones there is.
And you keep doing it anyway. You keep showing up. That is not a small thing. That is the whole thing.
None of this fixes everything. Nothing does.
But maybe today there is a little less to carry. You are still here. You still show up for your child, with no one handing you a break. That is not nothing. That matters more than any of the days you wish had gone easier.
You are not the only one doing it this way. There are more of us out here than it feels like at two in the morning.
With love, Kitija 🤍
If you want to take this further, The Body Reset is a workbook you can go through at your own pace.
Have a look →