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Best of 2022
So my children (18) have invited around some friends tonight, to "chill" and drink and smoke weed and listen to music .... All these "children" are 18 😜They generally do all already congregate at our house during the day, and I'm pretty open with my kids 🫣....
.... Ive heard that my daughter intends to lose her virginity tonight ( hubby and I have date night out)..... She is not on birth control, and is emotionally (dare I say it) a bit immature. She has just about no dating experience, and this boy she's decided is the one , is also rather green. "Why the rush!" I want to shout!!! 🥺
I know she's technically a adult, but she's also my baby and I think this is all happening so fast. She's only known this boy 2 weeks!
I've always said"rather at my house than the backseat of a car/pub bathroom/ bushes/ etc, etc." ... But this mom isn't ready for this! 🙈
🎸EDIT:. I went out on date night, and the young adult children are all still alive, listening to music around the fire. A discussion was had with my daughter beforehand and we're on a plan to see the GP.. 💖
Fellow villagers - especially those who live in South Africa.
It has been tough living here during the last few months. The last few weeks even more so. You know the reasons - everything from loadshedding to corruption and schools and road etc. etc.
Theoretically it is possible to leave South Africa, but, truth be told, I don't want to. I'm on the cusp of 50, and I lived abroad in my 20s, and I found it hard and came back. My husband was in the US for 15 years, and came back. I don't think I can deal with the stress and being uprooted and in an unfamiliar environment, and probably financially much worse off.
Still, it is a choice not to explore a Plan B. It is a choice to stay here. It is choosing the devil I know vs the devil I don't, but the problem is - I know this devil. I know how it gets to me.
The negativity around me, and that I feel personally, is getting to me. How do the ones of us who remain (because hell, a lot of people are going) manage the reality of living in South Africa while staying sane? I don't only owe it to myself, but also to my children, to retain optimism and joie de vivre. I need to find a way to get rid of the dreariness inside and around me. I manage in parts, but I'd like to hear what others are doing.”
Yesterday was my husbands birthday …
We met when my daughter was only 2 … he fell head over heels in love with the whole package deal … and now she is grown and married and a mother … this is her post to him yesterday…
This is for all step parents in the group .. it might not feel like you making any difference to their lives but I promise it’s all worth it in the end …
He walked her down the aisle and gets to spend his birthday with his little grandson 🫶🏻
Am sitting at Cavendish, sipping a coffee while waiting for the shops to open. Feverishly fanning myself with my hands, cos you know, humidity, load-shedding AND menopause. And skinny, well-dressed young women are trotting past me like sweat-free gazelles. Bitches.
So my children (18) have invited around some friends tonight, to "chill" and drink and smoke weed and listen to music .... All these "children" are 18 😜They generally do all already congregate at our house during the day, and I'm pretty open with my kids 🫣....
.... Ive heard that my daughter intends to lose her virginity tonight ( hubby and I have date night out)..... She is not on birth control, and is emotionally (dare I say it) a bit immature. She has just about no dating experience, and this boy she's decided is the one , is also rather green. "Why the rush!" I want to shout!!! 🥺
I know she's technically a adult, but she's also my baby and I think this is all happening so fast. She's only known this boy 2 weeks!
I've always said"rather at my house than the backseat of a car/pub bathroom/ bushes/ etc, etc." ... But this mom isn't ready for this! 🙈
🎸EDIT:. I went out on date night, and the young adult children are all still alive, listening to music around the fire. A discussion was had with my daughter beforehand and we're on a plan to see the GP.. 💖
I’m finally ready to post about this, with full consent from my beloved daughter Lulu, aged 18.
For the past 5 years, Lulu has been recovering from severely dangerous depression. Throughout her busy over-achieving childhood, she had been masking her anxiety with what we thought were “typical” teenage mood swings.
Lulu’s desperate coping mechanism was self-harm via cutting. The physical relief of cutting was an addictive outlet for releasing her emotional pain.
For years, Lulu had been suffering in silence. By the time we discovered her illness, her buried anxiety resulted in a major depressive episode. She simply did not want to live anymore.
As a mother, I’ve never felt more frightened and helpless in my life.
This was the start of an agonisingly long and complicated road to recovery which involved hospital visits, medication recalibrations, twice weekly psychologist sessions, artwork, dog therapy, DBT techniques, endless jigsaw puzzles, mindfulness training, yoga, a supportive community of family, friends, teachers and more.
Lulu is now healthy and strong, but she still continues with her medication and regular therapy appointments.
The attached imagery is Lulu’s art for her matric finals which depicts this terrifying journey through depression.
Growing from the arms of the figurine, amidst razor blades and attempted suicide scars, are beautiful long-stemmed roses, which Lulu painstakingly crocheted hour after hour, petal by petal. The drawings represent her anguish, where her self-harm wounds are sewn into the paper as rose petals.
I’m posting this, because when Lulu was suffering all alone, she didn't think she could tell anyone about her illness. Not her mother, not her best friends, not anyone.
Now she is baring everything for the world to see.
Mental health is on the rise. It's our next pandemic.
Please reach out and talk to each other about your mental health. Check in on your community and colleagues. It is okay not to be okay, and there are so many great treatments out there.
The only way out is through.
#mentalhealth #art #mindfulness
Dear village
A slightly strange request...
On the 8th of December 2022, we tragically lost our youngest son, Archie, to an incredibly rare genetic condition. He lived for 114 days that irrevocably changed our lives.
Grief is the strangest of emotions, rather a smorgasbord of feelings that seem to have no consideration for one another. Attempting to process and accept the death of our precious baby boy, has been the most excruciating thing I have ever endured.
In the process, I’ve very definitively divided my life into ‘before Archie’ and ‘after Archie’. The wave of terror that overcomes my body when entering spaces where I was known ‘before Archie’ exceeds what I’m capable of expressing in words- as much as I LOVE talking about him, the intense fear of a receptionist who saw me pregnant cheerfully asking ‘how’s the baby’ is more than I’m currently in a space I can cope with. I just cannot manage other people’s shock and emotion when I break the horrific news.
Which brings me to my current first world dilemma. My hair has not been cut or coloured in well over a year as I traversed the heavy medical needs required, and I’m starting to resemble a yeti. I am told, that in moving through this grief that suffocates the very fibres of my lungs, a self care routine is vital and thus I am taking tiny steps to start to implement this. And so with all the strength I can currently muster, I have decided I need to take the step to get my hair cut.
This seems ridiculous to need to be brave for, but right now, where the depths of my broken heart sits, allowing someone into my space for the time needed to cut my hair is massive. I know I will not manage a colour at the same time, it will simply be more than I can cope with.
In my hectic compartmentalisation of the before and after, there is simply no way I can go to my ‘normal’ hair stylist. I need the strange comfort of a degree of anonymity.
So, JHB villagers... such a random, seemingly inconsequential need but can anyone recommend a hair stylist that;
(1) is not going to judge the fact that my blonde starts almost 20cm past my dark brown roots, and won’t try and upsell highlights because I’m too fragile to withstand any perceived judgement right now, and just don’t have the ability to sit for an entire colouring session, and I just need to overcome a cut
(2) won’t be offended if I need to put in some earphones and retract into my head,
(3) is great with blonde because I hope to be able to return in the near future for the colouring that I need
(4) has a chair in a calming, ideally luxurious space that I can just try and find some peace in. With friendly and non-judgmental front of house that won’t make me feel less than because of the state of my hair.
Strange and totally random... but would so appreciate any recommendations.
Midrand/Centurion/Woodmead/Irene first prize but I’ll drive for the right person who can tolerate this blubbering wreck and do a decent job on my hair. Xx
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