Letters from the founder · No. 01
Where is my village?
Parental burnout: what it is, how it feels, and what actually helps.
At my antenatal group, we were asked to picture our support systems. When the facilitator asked who didn't have family nearby, eight of the twelve of us put a hand up.
It was something I had barely considered before I had my son. It turns out we were fairly typical: Zoopla's 2024 research found that around one in three parents in the UK (32 per cent) receive no childcare help at all. No grandparents, no aunties, no wider family stepping in.
It's not that I don't have family. Both my parents and my parents-in-law have helped us more than I can say. But when your village lives across Ireland and France, it can only stretch so far. They can't pop round on a difficult afternoon, or take him for an hour so I can sleep.
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