You've heard the old expression, "It takes a village to raise a child." Since most of us don't live in anything that resembles those villages, complete with crisscrossed family relations and other close-knit folks who contribute to the multiple tasks of child-rearing, it depends on us to create our own villages, or reasonable facsimiles thereof.

After all, what is the reason for a village? Every child and family need a group of people who care about them enough to be there for support, help, advice, example and silliness when needed during the long years of helping children grow and develop. Children need other adults to observe and hang out with, to learn that the world has many different styles and ways of living.

Last week I was reminded of how we create our own villages, when I received a photo of a friend's new granddaughter, just born in Los Angeles. (Grandma and Grandpa live in Connecticut - no village there.)

The picture included some wall figures of Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore and the gang, and the note "I brought these Pooh items to Maggie ... you sent them to me when Greg was born."

And they were the same figures that had been on the wall in my own boys' rooms when they were small, now hanging in the room in the second generation of a friend's family, and no doubt destined to come back across the country to us when my granddaughters have families of their own.

The figures are the tangible evidence of a close, lifelong friendship. My kids' memories include being taken for nights out by the friend and her husband before they had children, to give my husband and me a night by ourselves, as well as a myriad of memories of shared activities over the years.

We are not family with these friends, but we are close enough that the times together have been influences in my children's lives, so that the children ask about them when they haven't seen them in a while.

Growing up, most of us had a gaggle of honorary "aunts" and "uncles" - individuals not related by blood but nonetheless important in our lives, with whom we shared time and experiences, who helped lighten the load of parenting for our parents.

These are the individuals with whom  parents share small milestones and major celebrations, knowing that these folks care about and are interested in our children's welfare.

Long ago, one such couple asked us to promise to care for their children should anything happen to them, knowing that we would be both more able and willing to do so than blood relatives. (Those children are now long grown, and only needed our assistance as members of the village, not to take over as parents.)

So we choose our friends for our mutual pleasure in shared activities, but know also that they become wider sources of understanding of the world for our kids, who watch and listen to the conversation and our choices of activities together.

Kids are reinforced and stimulated by the interest of other adults. Parenting is much harder in isolation. Your kids thrive when you create your own village. Who's in your village?