At some point, we have all been on the receiving end of care. Maybe from a mother who stayed up through the night when we were sick, a neighbour who kept an eye on us while our parents were at work, or a grandparent who wrapped our fingers around a warm cup of chai on a cold morning. Care is everywhere in India—woven into our relationships, our routines, our lives.

And yet, for something so fundamental, it is rarely acknowledged as real work. It is expected, absorbed, and carried forward without question. Those who provide it—mostly women—do so without formal support, often at great personal cost. The “village” that once softened this load is shrinking. Joint families have given way to nuclear ones, neighbourhood ties have loosened, and work schedules have stretched to the point where even asking for help feels like an imposition.

We say it takes a village but where is the village now? And if it no longer exists in the way it once did, can we rebuild it differently?

Care as a Collective Act

Growing up, many of us had informal networks of care that functioned without being named. The house help doubled as a caregiver, the older child watched the younger ones, and the entire neighbourhood played its part—lending sugar, advice, a watchful eye. But today, care is increasingly individualised. Parents struggle alone, elder care is left to family members without real support, and the expectation is that paid caregivers—ayahs, nurses, domestic workers—will fill the gaps.

And yet, shared care has always found a way to exist, even in new forms. Today, mothers turn to WhatsApp groups for advice, sharing worries and wisdom with strangers who understand their experiences. Parenting forums, community chat rooms, and even the small exchanges in children’s parks—asking another parent to keep an eye out for a moment—are all part of this ongoing, evolving network of care. In different ways and in different spaces, we have always reached beyond our immediate circles to seek and offer care. The question is, how do we rebuild that sense of shared care in a way that fits today’s realities?

Some of it could be as simple as rethinking the spaces we inhabit. Apartment buildings with shared childcare arrangements. Workplaces that recognise elder care as much as parental leave. Communities that build crèches not as a luxury, but as an everyday necessity. And maybe most importantly, a shift in mindset—where care is seen as work, and those who provide it are treated with dignity.

Letting Go of the “Perfect Caregiver” Myth

One of the biggest barriers to collective caregiving is the need for control. If someone else is watching our child, we want them to follow our routines, our rules, our ideas of what good care looks like. But real shared care means letting go of some of that control. It means trusting that other caregivers—whether family, friends, or paid professionals—will do things differently, but with the same intention of care.

We see this resistance everywhere. The hesitation to leave a child with a neighbour. The reluctance to let a caregiver make decisions. The belief that no one else will do it the way I do it. But care does not have to be perfect to be meaningful. A grandmother’s indulgence, a friend’s different parenting style, an ayah’s quiet comfort—these are all acts of care, even if they don’t fit neatly into a singular idea of how caregiving should look.

Care Is Not a Private Burden

For too long, caregiving has been treated as a personal issue—something for families to solve within their four walls. But in reality, it is the foundation that keeps society functioning. And yet, it is undervalued, unpaid, and often unseen.

What if we started treating care as essential infrastructure, like roads or electricity? What if we designed our homes, workplaces, and policies with caregiving in mind? What if we normalised asking for help, offering help, and receiving it without guilt?

The idea that “it takes a village” still holds true—it just needs to be reimagined. Maybe the old structures are gone, but new ones can be built. Maybe care doesn’t have to be an exhausting, lonely responsibility. Maybe it can be something lighter, more fluid, more shared.

The question isn’t who cares about care? It’s how do we care differently? And maybe, if we stop treating care as something to be managed alone, we’ll realise that the village never really disappeared—it just needs to be found again, in a new form.