Dear Village: Letters for the Babies Who Belong to All of Us
Dear Mommy
VILLAGE LETTERS: AN ARCHIVE BEGINS
For years, we have done some version of this activity at baby showers, gathered around tables or spread out on floors with paper, stickers, scrapbooks, glue, and hope for the expanding family.
We wrote handwritten letters on paper onesies, addressed to the mother, the father, the new baby, and sometimes an older brother or sister — small messages of welcome, wisdom, and encouragement.
Guests could embellish their page, but their letter was more than enough.
Later, the family could reread the book and revisit their beginning — an origin story told through the handwritten notes of loved ones.
BECOMING THE ELDER
In my own family, we have two very different stories about a new baby’s homecoming.
My older brother and I were only fifteen months apart. When I came home, he would hold me and whisper, “My baby, my baby.”
Fifteen months later, when my sister came home, I mostly wondered when she was going to leave.
That contrast has always stayed with me. Older siblings are often asked to welcome a baby before they fully understand why the whole world has shifted around them.
Both responses deserve care.
Dear Big Sister
Dear Baby
BECOMING THE VILLAGE
Village Letters invite us to be tender with each other.
They give us permission to stop and to speak gently across generations.
It takes many small acts to create a village.
This is but one.
~ The Village Sisters
THE VILLAGE AT WORK
