Since President Obama was named the Nobel Peace Prize winner last week, vats of ink, servers full of pixels and hours of airtime have been expended debating whether he deserved it, especially in light of the long careers of his fellow nominees.

It's lonely out here.

No one has mentioned my nominee, however: Lisa Snyder, a mom from Middleville, Michigan. Snyder watches her neighbors’ kids for about a half-hour each morning, filling in the gap between when their parents must leave for work and the arrival of the school bus, which stops in front of her house.

Admittedly, I’d never heard of Snyder until two weeks ago. Her 15 minutes of fame came up because someone reported her neighborliness to Michigan authorities as running an illegal daycare. Rightfully, the media coverage has taken a tone of aghast incredulity, and it looks like the law here in Michigan will be amended.

And yes, I’m being facetious about Snyder as a Peace Prize contender. But not a lot. Lately I’ve often found myself in a state of mind I’ve dubbed the “back 40 blues.” Everyone knows the beautiful proverb turned hackneyed political cliché: “It takes a village to raise a child.” My personal adaptation adds a coda: “It takes a village to raise a child – and I’m living on the back 40.”

Most of the back 40 blues trace back to having a second child, as I wrote on my personal blog last week. In a way I didn’t anticipate, the demands of two vs. one completely drain the reserve energy, patience and time I used to rely upon when everyday issues and inconveniences cropped up.

In other words, I’m far less able to cope with disruptions to daily routine – illness, car problems, daycare holidays – at precisely the same time the odds of such disruptions have doubled.

Look in the mirror, right? We didn’t have to have a second child. True. But that easy blame-guilt response doesn’t feel fair. I compare myself to my mom. She didn’t work out of the home when my brother and I were as young as my kids. But when we were in elementary school, she took a part-time teaching job three days a week – the same kind of schedule as my part-time community college PR gig.

Maybe she just handled it better. (She was, after all, almost 15 years younger than me at this stage of motherhood.) Or maybe it’s because, on our same block, she had three peer moms, all raising kids in about the same age range. A posse of Lisa Snyders, if you will. The kids were all friends. The moms shared toolbox and cupboard inventories without hesitation. Most importantly, they backstopped each other when it came to pinch child care and errand-running. Maybe my perspective’s skewed by green-colored glasses, but they all helped make everyone’s lives run more smoothly – dare I say peacefully?

I look at my block. The house next door was foreclosed on over a year ago and has been vacant for more than 18 months. On the other side, our elderly neighbors spend half the year at their second home. Though we’ve lived here six years, we have barely a nodding acquaintance with the rest of the block, which offers only one other home with kids. Several rentals, with their short-term occupants, challenge any efforts to develop my own backstop.

Beyond the block, I do have local in-laws half the year. But a cancer recurrence this spring effectively quarantined my mother-in-law in the village. Babysitters? Our most reliable moved out of the area in June, leaving us with one in the stable.

So what to do about it all? One of the ideas I didn’t get around to executing this summer was to host a block party, to allow all the neighbors to at least meet each other. Granted, it’s a big step from sharing hot dogs together to the communal snow shoveling, car pooling and backup child care that I envision.

But the Nobel committee said Obama, despite lacking a long list of accomplishments, deserved the award for inspiring a world vision of peace. Likewise,  Snyder inspires me. The back 40 could get annexed to the village. So on behalf of Michigan moms, I’m awarding Lisa Snyder a Block Peace Prize. And if she wants to move up north, the house next door is a steal.

Image credit: www.oklo.org