I am happy to admit that without help I am pretty insufficient. If my husband is at work for many hours, I need someone else around. If I had a village to help out, that would be great (I do not get the easy baby types), but as it is, I have to employ an assistant. When I lived with extended family, it was great, 7 other adults around for my kids to learn off and love and allow me to make dinner while they watched my kids. Without them, my kids experience would be less rich. So again, responsibility is key - help is useful and advantageous, but it's always our job to raise our kids no matter the help. With or without a village shouldn't add or take away from our ownership of our kids.

Also does Centrelink upvote your posts if you're outlining what a bad system Centrelink is? I mean they're just the workers, they don't make the entitlement laws, so my gripe is not with them totally, but I do wonder if they'd still upvote it.