The idea of a village (or the lack of it these days) was brought up by our village families many years ago and reinforced by authors such as these below:
It Takes a Village – Surrounding your family with other families living their faith
Extracted from book “How to Catholic Family” by Tommy & Karen Tighe.
“… Being a Catholic family, and especially a Catholic family who takes the faith seriously, can be lonely. We are living in an extremely secular culture, and most people we encounter in the course of our day find our lifestyle a hit odd.
After all, as we’ve said, being a Catholic family in today’s world is a seriously countercultural choice. We believe that marriage truly is “until death do us part.” We oppose the horror of abortion. We tend to have more kids than most because of our stance against contraception. We believe in standing up for the oppressed, the poor and the persecuted.
Sometimes we might want to give up rather than push on as a Catholic family. Wouldn’t it be easier to go along to get along? Wouldn’t it be better to go with the flow rather than risk losing friends because of our pro-life stance? It can feel that way, to be sure, but still we push on.
As Dorothy Day reminds us, we need community in order to overcome the loneliness in the long struggle of life. But where do we find that community in a world where people turn in on themselves and reach for the screen rather than actual human contact?”
When we were dating and then first married, the idea of needing to have Catholic friends didn’t occur to us. Sure, it was nice to hang out with Catholics — we got each other — but we didn’t feel a strong need for community. With the arrival of our first child, however, that need groaned within us.
We can attribute this, in part, to the fact that having children made us take our faith more seriously. When you have kids, you realize that they’re watching you, observing to see if you’re living an authentic life, if you practice what you preach. This awareness helped us strengthen our commitment to being Catholic. The other part is realizing we needed Catholic friends as we saw just how hard it is to raise children and start a family apart from a community….”
Also “Chapter 1: It takes a Village” in Brick by Brick by the Regnier Family (CCO.ca)