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I promise I really did make my children spend time outside over spring break, just as I encouraged in my last blog. But I will also admit that I enjoyed a little quiet by binge-watching Virgin River. In one episode, a character said, “It takes a village to raise a baby, but it takes a country to raise a mother.” And that quote stopped me in my tracks.

I have thought about it over and over since then.

Parenting today can feel heavy. Beautiful, yes. Meaningful, absolutely. But also heavy. There is so much to carry, so much to coordinate, so much to worry about, and so much pressure to do it all well in the public eye. So when I heard that line, I started wondering if it was true. Does it really take a country to raise a mother? Who is my country? And whose country am I a part of? Was it a deep truth, or just one of those perfectly written television lines designed to tug at heartstrings?

As spring break went on, I started noticing things.

My kids had playdates, and the moms worked together to figure out the driving puzzle that made it all happen. At a dance competition, moms were passing bobby pins, safety pins, and fake eyelashes across the dressing room while others called out in panic because supplies were running low in their own dancers’ bags. At a middle school baseball game, parents were cheering not only for their own children, but for each child who stepped up to bat. When my daughter was under the weather, Ms. Garrett took time to talk with me at length about what might be going on. I see teachers thoughtfully pulling together work so parents can help their children stay on track after an absence. And then today, at Family Community Gathering, I looked around and saw so many parents. Parents coming from work and heading back to work. Parents standing behind multiple children as loving stand-ins for family members who could not be there. Parents showing up. Parents lingering in conversation long after their children had gone because connection, too, matters.

And somewhere in all of that, my lens shifted.

Yes, in many ways these are the moments of a village raising children. Adults showing up for children, caring for them, guiding them, cheering them on. But it is also something more. It is a country raising parents. It is adults quietly and consistently leaning into kindness, support, compromise, problem-solving, and citizenship. It is adults reminding one another that it is okay not to know everything. It is saying, I am here when I can be, and trusting that you will be here when I cannot. It is learning that pride does not have to be limited to your own child, and that joy grows when it is shared.

At Tatnall, I think we feel this in a special way.

We often talk about the strength of our community and the importance of partnership, but those words are not just ideas we print in brochures or say at events. They are lived out in the small, ordinary, beautiful moments that make up school life. On this campus, children are known and valued, but so are their parents. Here, families are not meant to do this alone. Our teachers, our staff, and our parent community create something that feels bigger than a village. There is room here for people to show up for one another, to step in, to step alongside, and to keep going together. There is something deeply comforting in that.

So maybe that line from Virgin River was not just there to make me emotional on my couch over spring break. Maybe it was true.

It takes a village to raise a child. But it also takes something bigger to hold up the people doing the raising. A community. A network. A country of people who understand that parenting was never meant to be a solo act.

And when I look around Tatnall, I feel grateful that this little corner of the world can be exactly that.