hillary would like it here

This "neighborhood village" thing around here is growing and it's just so awesome! My kids and the new neighbor kids next door have audibly "clicked" and are roaming around together like they've been this band of friends forever. ...Only problem is that they tend to migrate to one house or the other without always letting the appropriate parents know where everyone is. All is good - we just like to keep tabs on them. We're so demanding.

Today, the middle-school aged girl, G, came over with 10 year old brother J.
"Do your mom and dad know where you are?" I asked very directly. G said yes, but something about the way she said it made me wonder. I asked her if she knew their new phone number so I could call and check in with her mom but she didn't remember it. So I let it go. (Parenting rule #4. Always trust what your gut tells you.)

Well sure enough, about half an hour later, the dad came over searching for his two lost children. I, being the mature adult that I am, pointed my finger at young G and said "I asked her!! She said! She said you knew where they were!"

I have fallen in G's eyes, I think. I am the ratting-out next door neighber old lady instead of the cool "Miss Jennifer" that she was chatting with and helping to chop carrots with for dinner. Dang. There went my moment of (pre)teen coolness.

Seriously, it's so much fun. On the weekends, kids are coming in and out of my house, wandering to and from the cul-de-sac, eating snacks at various houses, eating dinners at various houses...it is becoming a village indeed.

There's resistance from many of the moms. The idea of letting kids wander down the street and over play with friends without the helipcopter parent there is disconcerting. Do you take the 5 year old neighbor home when they show up in the cul-de-sac when the noise from the rest of the gang beckons? Do you follow the 8 year old home and make sure they really go straight there? We (being adults) did this kind of wandering when we were little. Why are today's parents so easily freaked out?

Trust. As the little kids around here begin to grow older, we helicopter moms are having to learn to trust our children and trust the other families. I'm ready for this. I think it's a huge amount of fun. I'm watching my kids build their community and I like what I see. I like having a revolving door and I like needing to have a stash of ice cream and juice in stock for impromptu gatherings. You've always got to have makings for spaghetti and salad in case the so-and-sos from down the street want to stay for dinner. I like my calendar being full of mark-ups to pick up the kids down the street from the bus on Tuesday and let the so-and-sos pick up my kids on Thursday.

Don't know how you do this parenting thing, this life thing, without a village...