It Takes a Village
Building networks around our children takes a new twist
It has been said that it takes a village to raise a child. The oft-quoted African proverb reflects many communities in that continent and in others, where extended family and neighbours take responsibility for the wellbeing of each others’ children. “The neighbourhood was one unit,” says Salma Sarour of her childhood in Sudan, Africa. Sarour, coordinator of FSA Toronto’s Building Bridges program and one of 19 children in her family, recalls the fluidity of the parenting network in her life. “If you are a child playing in the street in front of my house, each adult is responsible for your safety. It was not possible for me to misbehave [as a child]. I have to respond to all the neighbours because we know them as aunts, cousins, etc. Your neighbour is your family.”
In many countries, children from one family are informally adopted into other families who raise them with no regard for blood relationship. While this can take place for a variety of reasons, it is often a way to provide additional support to the child’s biological family and ensure the wellbeing of every child in the community.
Sociologists and family researchers agree that strong support networks foster better emotional and physical health in children. Having access to an adult who consistently provides direction, understanding and support is important for healthy child development. It stands to reason then that having many such attachments only further improves a child’s chances.
Marlo Taylor, who had several aunts and uncles growing up in a small city in Ontario, fondly recalls the variety of adults who were part of her and her three siblings’ childhood. Through these connections to her extended family, “we got to know where our mom and dad’s perspective was coming from. It was a consistent message,” Taylor recalls. “They were positive influences on our lives as kids.”
Parents too benefit from having access to a supportive familial network, which can provide a lifelong social safety net. Through these connections, parents receive guidance that can increase their parenting knowledge and help them cope with difficulties. As a new mother, Taylor finds herself grateful for having a large family network on both her and her husband’s sides. “Our family size is great because I can rely on each of them for support and the burden doesn’t fall to just one other person. You don’t feel as bad about asking for help because you can approach different people.”
A Village of 2.5 Million?
The extended family model of community tends to exist more frequently in smaller towns where raising a large family may be less expensive. But in Canada, the challenges to this model are increasing. More than two-thirds of our population lives in urban centres that have 100,000 people or more. Canada’s birth rate has continued to fall since the country began tracking the information in 1921 and fell more than 25 per cent between 1992 and 2002 alone. Eighty-one per cent of families have only one or two children, so having a vast network of aunts and uncles grows less common with each generation.
Two trends have emerged in the wake of these developments. As communities have become larger and more complex, the public has stepped in to play a role in supporting the well-being of families, and extended support networks are now often drawn from outside the family. “The City does a good job providing all kinds of access to activities—particularly here,” says Taylor of her east-end neighbourhood. “But does that necessarily mean it’s a connection that helps you raise your kids? I don’t know. I don’t think we can presume that just because you have opened a community centre people will have a connection.”
Patricia Durish, who is raising two pre-teen boys in a blended family arrangement with her partner, who also has a daughter, agrees. “My sons are involved in hockey and fencing and drama, but those haven’t been much of a community builder for us,” she says.
Both women have taken deliberate steps on their own to promote a sense of family around their children—drawing from both biological and non-biological connections. Taylor sees these efforts as a way to enhance her child’s exposure to new perspectives and experiences. “It is a bit arrogant as a parent to think that you can be all things your child needs,” she comments. While she is thankful for the presence of a large family in her life, she acknowledges that it is the quality of those relationships that matters. “I don’t know that it would seem so important if those relationships weren’t also positive and strong.” As a result, Taylor places equal value on the connections that she has personally built in her child’s life. “The influences of your friends are positive in your life and I expect that to transfer to how my child is brought up.”
For Durish, making sure that her children are connected to a variety of adults was a response, in part, to the untimely deaths of her parents. “I took it for granted that I was going to have family around me. I didn’t think my mom would die so young. It became important for me to have my kids connected to the rest of their family and to others for support.”
New Family Structures
The act of consciously building a community around children is not new. In the 1980s when divorce and remarriages became more prevalent in North American society, many families were faced with the need to redefine parenting roles and expand their definition of what it meant to be a family. Blended families learned how to involve more than two parent figures in a child’s life, forging new ground in the extended family model. Today, we are seeing a similar process taking place among adoptive families and in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities.
As the opportunities have grown for LGBT people to be parents while also being open about their sexual identities, a variety of parenting and family arrangements have developed, such as same-sex couples parenting with a third person with whom they can conceive children or co-parenting arrangements by individuals and couples with no romantic connection.
Durish, whose children and partner’s child have multiple parenting figures, sees tremendous benefit in the innovative structures LGBT families are creating. Her children have access to love, security and support from each partner as well as other biological parents, ex-partners and individuals who have been chosen to be part of the family. “Family doesn’t always have to be blood relations,” says Durish. “That’s a wonderful thing about being part of the LGBT community. So many people are isolated from their families so we consciously build families and it works.”
Complex family configurations do demand additional considerations. Multiple parents need to clearly communicate expectations and share responsibilities in a manner that ensures that children don’t fall through the cracks. As well, with more adults taking an active role in a child’s life, more parties are involved in decision-making. “You can have lots of people to negotiate around rules and your child’s time,” says Durish. “When I have to make a decision about my kids, I have the say in the end, but I consult with my ex-husband and my kids’ other parents.”
It is this kind of consultation that raised red flags for many adoptive parents as the professional thinking around adoption evolved from a practice of complete anonymity to encouraging openness between adoptive and biological families. Many adoptive parents still resist openness at the outset, worried that the birth family will intrude on their family. This often isn’t the case. “Adoptive families have to truly embrace the idea that we don’t own our children,” says Karen Madeiros, executive director of Adoptive Families Association of British Columbia and an adoptive mother of two. “Openness is about developing a broader kinship network for our kids.”
Open adoption views adoptive and biological families not as adversaries but as allies who are both invested in the well-being of the child. Madeiros understands the resistance some families feel about trying new family configurations, however. “Unlike many other cultures where broader kinship networks are well established and taken for granted, opening up your family to people that you have no previous connection to, apart from your children, is hard. Blended families can teach us tremendous lessons in figuring out how to involve many different adults and kids in their kin networks.”
In the case of adoption, the onus generally falls on the adoptive family to set boundaries and build a community that benefits everyone involved. “I see openness as a bit like drawing a picture of a child and then placing around it all the people who are important to that child. Adoptive parents must figure out who among those people is willing, able and most appropriate to be involved,” says Madeiros.
Well chosen networks of support can connect a child’s to his or her history and expose them to individuals who can relate to their experiences. Durish has been conscious to make sure that her sons are exposed to other LGBT-led families. As international adoptions become more popular, adoptive parents are taking steps to embrace their children’s culture and expose them to adults who reflect that heritage.
As family configurations take on new and innovative shapes, parents and parent-figures are demonstrating that there are a variety of ways to build loving and nurturing families for children. Strong parenting partnerships promote strong parent-child relationships. Regardless of how an extended family forms around a child – whether through biology, remarriage, co-parenting, adoption or other choice – consistency and a focus on the well-being of the child is paramount. A village will only take hold if open communication and a long-term commitment are made to being part of the child’s life.
Want to comment on this article or this issue? Fill out the form below or e-mail catalyst@familyservicetoronto.org
Note: After submitting the form you'll be redirected to the main page of the latest issue of Catalyst on-line. You'll also receive a copy of your submission at the e-mail address provided.
355
Church St., Toronto ON M6C 1L9