The Community as Extended Mother

Rabia lived within a rich community of spiritual seekers and her love extended indiscriminately to all beings as expressions of divine presence. This challenges the modern isolation of nuclear family bonding and suggests that infants are neurologically designed to bond with multiple consistent caregivers. The traditional village model, where grandmothers, aunts, and community members share caregiving, actually aligns with infant neurobiology better than exclusive parental dyadic bonding. In early bonding, this concept legitimizes and celebrates the presence of multiple loving figures—not as supplements to a primary bond but as essential components of healthy attachment security. Each person who holds the infant with genuine devotion contributes to their sense of belonging in a wider human circle. This distributes the weight of parental responsibility and models for the child that love is not scarce but abundant, flowing from many sources. In contemporary contexts, this might mean intentionally building circles of trusted caregivers, creating villages of support, and teaching infants that they belong to a beloved community. The practice counters modern parental anxiety and isolation while honoring the infant's capacity for multiple secure attachments.