Nobody Builds Alone — They Just Pretend They Do

I am the person who makes the plan. 

I am also — and this took me longer than I'd like to admit — the person who used to insist on implementing it, too. 

The plan, the strategy, the execution. All of it. I was wired to handle everything that could be handled, solve everything that could be solved, and carry everything that could be carried. That is what a career in Washington builds in you. It is also, as it turns out, a significant liability when you become a mother. 

When Lexington arrived, I was a single mother, but I had support. I had a nanny. I had my best friend Nakia — who eventually moved in and became one of the two people in this world I trust completely to get things done. I had Deidre, my older sister, who moved in and became my biological family presence that kept the home running.  Both she and Nakia made it possible for the world to keep moving around me and in support of Lexington. At work, my associate, Ebony, became more like an extended version of myself. I also had my parents in Dallas, who held Lexington across the distance in the seasons when the village needed to stretch.  I learned that proximity in parenting sometimes requires leaving your heart somewhere else for a short period so that you can sustain, provide, and protect in a way that is required of you as a parent. 

Even knowing that they only meant the best for my daughter and I, I did not always make it easy for them to help me.  Remember, I’d read all the books, did the research, and had a plan, a backup and a contingency for everything. 

Here is what I have come to understand about the way I was built: I was so precise, so specific, so prescriptive about the “what” that was needed and “how” it should be done.  In most settings, I was not actually giving people the space to take responsibility. I was giving them a script. And when you give someone a script, you're still doing all the writing. You've outsourced the labor without reducing your workload or releasing control for things outside your presence. And that means the weight never actually leaves you — it just changes shape.  I learned during that season that in order to reduce the weight you have to in some ways release the reigns of control.  I built trust that Nakia could support me in this way at home and trusted that Ebony could be my right hand and trusted person with work. 

The lesson during this reset that was important was learning to understand the difference between a prescription and guardrails. 

What do I mean by this? A prescription tells someone exactly what to do, how to do it, and when. It accounts for every variable. It leaves no room for interpretation. It also leaves no room for the other person to actually grow into the role — to become someone who can hold part of your world without you supervising every corner of it. 

Guardrails are different. Guardrails tell someone where the edges are and then trusts them to move inside them. They give permission. They create space. They allow someone else to bring themselves to the task — not just execute your instructions. 

Most high-performing women I know have never been taught the difference—until they become mothers.  We were built for precision. We were rewarded for getting it right. We were not taught how to hand something over and tolerate the uncertainty of what happens when someone else carries it.  Being a mom teaches us that at some point we must relinquish things to stay successful and allow others— including our kids—to learn for themselves. 

I am still learning this. But the village I have now — the one that stuck with me and held me through more seasons than I can count — was curated in building guardrails, not prescriptions. And the difference is everything. 

If you are trying to build a village, start there. Stop prescribing. Start giving people the edges and trusting them to move inside them. And then — this is the hardest part — let go of the rest. 

The village will not show up on its own. You must build it. Deliberately. Person by person. Permission by permission. 

But when it's really built — when the people inside it actually trust each other — you will feel it’s effectiveness and finally feel the weight of trying to control it all lifting.

#ResettoRecalibrate#BuildingTheVillage #IAmJenniferMStewart #Motherhood #Womanhood