The Village We Forgot to Build
Written by Elif Köse, Founder & Editor
Elif Köse is the Founder and Editor of The Confidence Magazine, an empowering publication that amplifies women's stories, visibility, and confidence-led leadership. Drawing on over two decades of entrepreneurial success, from building a UK fashion house to championing brand development, she is deeply committed to helping women showcase their true impact and leadership presence.
We all know the saying. It takes a village to raise a child. We repeat it to new mothers. We print it on cards. We nod along when we hear it. Then most of us go home and try to raise our children, run our businesses and hold our households together almost entirely on our own.
I grew up in Turkey, where the idea of a village was not a metaphor. Neighbours fed each other's children. Aunties stepped in without being asked. Doors were open, and help arrived before you knew you needed it. When I came to the United Kingdom (UK) as a young woman, I brought my sewing skills and my determination, but that village did not come with me.
So I did what so many women do. I tried to become the village myself.
The woman who held everything
My first business started on a bicycle I bought at a car boot sale for a tenner. I cycled door to door with a box of pins, offering alterations to anyone who would open the door. That bicycle grew into a fashion house with a real team and a loyal client base.
But I never really let anyone, or anything, carry the weight with me. Even with people around me, I was the bottleneck. Every decision, every client, every problem came back to my desk. I had built a business, but I had not built a village around it.
When I became a mother, that gap became impossible to ignore. Suddenly there were two worlds that needed me, and I was trying to be the only support beam holding up both.
I know I am not alone in this. Through Confidence Magazine, I am surrounded by a community of over 15,000 women, and so many of them are mothers running businesses. They are talented and driven. So many of them are trying to be the village for everyone else while having no village of their own.
Why modern mothers are so tired
Our grandmothers often had extended family next door. Our mothers may have had neighbours they trusted with a spare key. Many of us today live miles from family, in busy cities, working from kitchen tables and building businesses in the margins of the day.
We have more opportunity than any generation before us. We can build a business from a laptop and reach clients across the world. But we have also lost something. The everyday, informal support that once surrounded mothers has thinned out, and nothing has automatically taken its place.
So we fill the gap ourselves. We become the scheduler, the receptionist, the bookkeeper, the marketing department and the customer service team. Then we close the laptop and become the cook, the homework helper, the bedtime storyteller and the one who remembers it is a non-uniform day on Friday.
That is not a lack of resilience. It is a lack of support. No amount of early mornings can make up for a missing village.
What our children are watching
There is something else I think about often as a mother. Our children are always watching how we work.
They see whether we are stretched thin or steady. Whether we can put the phone down at dinner. Whether success, to us, looks like exhaustion or like a life we enjoy.
If they only ever see us carrying everything alone, they learn that this is what being capable means. That strong women do not ask for help. That love looks like depletion.
I want my son to learn something different. I want him to see a mother who works hard, loves her work and is supported in it. A mother who knows that asking for help and building good structures is not weakness. It is wisdom.
Rebuilding the village, piece by piece
The good news is that a village can be rebuilt. It just looks a little different today. Part of it is people. The friend you swap school pickups with. The community of women who understand your life because they are living it too. This is why community sits at the heart of everything we do at Confidence Magazine. Women need to be surrounded by other women who see them, cheer for them and tell them the truth.
Part of it is professional support. A virtual assistant for a few hours a week. A bookkeeper. A childminder you trust.
Part of the modern village is the systems that hold our work when we cannot. This is the part many mothers overlook, and it is often the easiest place to begin.
For me, that system is HighLevel. I have used it for years, and it holds so much of what I used to carry in my head. Clients book themselves into my diary. Follow-ups go out without me remembering to send them. Invoices are issued and payment reminders follow. My newsletters reach our community on schedule. Every client conversation lives in one place, so I can pick things up when it suits my family rather than the other way round.
It does not replace the people in my village. It makes room for them. Because when the system carries the repetitive work, I have energy left for the relationships that matter, at home and in my community.
Help when you need it
I know that for many mothers, the idea of setting up a new system feels like one more job on an endless list. I felt the same.
What made it a yes for me was that HighLevel does not leave you on your own. There is a real support team available around the clock, so when I get stuck, real people help me. In a way, that support line became another member of my village. Someone I can call on, any time of day, so that I never have to figure it out alone.
Because I want the mothers in our community to have a real chance to try this, I negotiated an extended trial. Instead of the usual 14 days, you can try HighLevel free for 30 days. A full month gives you time to set something up around real family life, school holidays and all, and see how it feels.
Where to begin
You do not need to rebuild your whole village this week. Start with one piece. Perhaps it is reaching out to another mother in business and offering to swap an afternoon. Perhaps it is joining a community where women support each other honestly. Perhaps it is letting a system take over one task that keeps pulling you away from your family, whether that is your booking diary, your invoices, or your follow-ups.
Each piece you add makes the whole structure stronger. Each one gives you back a little more of yourself.
You were never meant to do this alone
When I think back to that young woman on her bicycle, far from the village she grew up in, I wish I could tell her this. You do not have to become the village. You are allowed to build one around you.
At Confidence Magazine, we believe that confidence is remembered, not built. Part of what we remember, when we strip away all the conditioning, is that women have always raised children and built livelihoods together. Doing it alone was never the natural way. It was simply the way many of us were left to do it.
What you cultivate within becomes what you give to the world. When you cultivate support, your children see it, your clients feel it and your community grows stronger for it.
If you are ready to add the first piece to your village, start your free HighLevel trial of 30 days here and let something hold your business while you hold your family. If you would like me to send you the details personally, comment SIMPLIFY on my latest post at @confidencemagazineofficial and I will send everything straight to you.
Read more from Elif Köse
Elif Köse, Founder & Editor
Elif Köse is a dynamic editor, speaker, and strategist dedicated to helping women overcome self-doubt, reframe limiting beliefs, and step into their highest potential. Known for her authenticity and actionable insights, Elif combines neuroscience, mindset reprogramming, and deep empathy to guide leaders, visionaries, and change-makers toward lasting transformation. From fashion designer to transformational coach, she draws on her own story of reinvention to inspire others to reclaim their voice, purpose, and impact as empowered female leaders.
