Nobody's Coming to Save You: Life Without Our Village.This week Jill, Mati & Tahj get into the one thing nobody warns you about when you raise a family in the diaspora: doing it all without your village. From the aunties, grandmothers and church family who raised us, to FaceTime grandparents 17 hours away, marriages that have to become a two-person team, and the bittersweet pull of a home that feels further away every day. Zimbabwean 🇿🇼 African American 🇺🇸 Zambian 🇿🇲 , pull up a chair, it's giving group chat.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━IN THIS EPISODE━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- Why "the village" is about so much more than childcare, it's identity, belonging and autonomy- How raising kids far from family forces a marriage to become a real team ("nobody's coming to save you")- The romanticised village vs. the reality and the autonomy you trade for the help- Parenting gems: "big girl chats" and the mummy–daughter journal- Reframing the mental load as a team meeting, not a personal failure- The ache of FaceTime grandparenting across time zones━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 – We're back: Season 2 is here2:51 – Raising a preteen & the questions you're not ready for6:54 – Big girl chats & the mummy–daughter journal11:24 – Tahj's surprise for Reggie14:46 – 4 months off?! Long service leave vs America17:08 – Doing life without our village19:27 – Gogo & the village we grew up with25:38 – Why home still pulls at us27:20 – When it all falls on the two of you29:45 – Marriage back home vs the diaspora33:14 – The FaceTime grandparent struggle40:21 – "Ashy but on time": parenting & timing━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT THE SHOW━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━What Left the Group Chat is a podcast made by us, for us,three friends in Naarm (Melbourne) talking relationships, culture, motherhood, identity and everything in between, from a diaspora women-of-colour lens. New episodes once a week.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━FOLLOW & LISTEN━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━▶ Subscribe on YouTube: @whatleftthegroupchat🎧 Spotify & Apple Podcasts: "What Left the Group Chat"📱 Instagram & TikTok: @whatleftthegroupchat🌐 http://whatleftthegroupchat.comIf this one hit home, tell us in the comments who your village is, and don't forget to like, subscribe and share with a friend who needs to hear it. 🤍#WhatLeftTheGroupChat #TheVillage #Diaspora #BlackWomenPodcast #Motherhood #Zimbabwean #Zambian #AfricanAmerican #Naarm #MelbournePodcast #Sisterhood #DiasporaDaughters

Our first season was a massive achievement, marked by engaging discussions and heartfelt connections. We initially envisioned our audience as women like us, navigating life and its challenges. However, the feedback revealed a much broader demographic, including listeners from various backgrounds who found resonance in our conversations. This unexpected outreach has been heartwarming and proves the power of shared experiences.The very essence of What Left the Group Chat is about fostering community. In today’s world, where connections can sometimes feel fleeting, having a space where we can celebrate our stories is crucial. We aim to uplift women who look like us, empowering them to share their narratives and connect across the globe.Chapters00:00 Introduction and Audience Connection07:22 Personal Growth and Family Connections12:00 Navigating Life's Challenges25:03 Travel Experiences and Family Dynamics38:11 Community Building and Cultural ConnectionsWebsite - https://www.whatleftthegroupchat.com/TikTok - h / whatleftthegroupchat Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/whatleftthegroupchat

In this final episode of season 1, Mati, Tahj and Jill explore the complexities of adult friendships, sharing personal anecdotes about friendship auditions, parenting, and the challenges of maintaining relationships. They discuss the importance of resilience, the dynamics of making new friends, and the emotional weight of friendship trauma. The dialogue emphasises the need for understanding and flexibility in relationships as life changes, and they reflect on their own experiences with friendship expectations and how they individually navigate friendship breakups.Chapters00:00 Introduction and Light Banter03:04 Audition Experience and Resilience06:08 Overwhelm and Life Events09:01 Friendship Dynamics in Adulthood11:50 Making New Friends as Adults14:57 Navigating Old Friendships18:02 The Role of the 'Mayor' in Friendships20:59 Friendship Expectations and Changes23:59 Handling Friendship Breakups26:56 Embracing Change in Relationships30:09 Conclusion and Reflections