Author Bunmi Laditan wrote a powerful essay a few years back called "I Miss the Village." In it she says that she goes throughout her everyday tasks in her "four-walled house while the world buzzes around me busy and fast." She talks of raising her child in her home, but missing something she calls "the village I never had."

You'd know me and I'd know you. I'd know your children, and you'd know mine. Not just on a surface level-favorite foods, games and such-but real, true knowledge of the soul that flickers behind their eyes. I'd trust them in your arms just as much as I'd trust them in mine. They'd respect you and heed your "no."

I miss that village of mothers that I've never had. The one we traded for homes that, despite being a stone's throw, feel miles apart from each other. The one we traded for locked front doors, blinking devices and afternoons alone on the floor playing one on-one with our little ones.

What gives me hope is that as I look at you from across the park with your own child in tow playing in her own corner of the sandbox, I can tell from your curious glance and shy smile that you miss it, too.

While her piece is addressed to mothers, she makes a poignant point about the disconnectedness that many people feel deep down. Throughout history our ways of living have adapted and changed, and there seems to be a growing realization that maybe some of those changes aren't for the best, that maybe in our overvalue of isolation and entertainment, we've actually missed out on something essential and worthwhile-deep relationships with others.