Care, a social practice composed of relationships of interdependence to meet concrete, emotional and psychological needs, it’s a collective need and, at certain stages of existence, is the defining condition of an individual (GUIMARÃES, 2021). As care is inevitable, thus there is always a someone in charge of its execution: this burden usually falls on families and, within them, on women. However, its universal nature prevents care from being the exclusive responsibility of a certain group without this generating distorted dynamics of isolation for those responsible. The family is in direct interaction with and under the reciprocal influence of other institutions. Regarding care needs, these entities have in women's actions what Faur (2014) calls a “non-explicit assumption”, that is, both the market and public services are structured assuming that they, silently and invisible, will meet the demand for care discovered by social structures. This is especially true in extremely unequal societies, in which the State and market do not reach the needs of parts of the population and, due to their absence, are structuring of a type of care inserted in the poorest neighborhoods: community care. Such connections originate in contexts in which there are no resources to purchase services on the market (such as hiring a nanny), nor public policies (such as daycare centers) to meet needs (GUIMARÃES, 2019). These exchanges can be delimited by the concept of "care as help", by Guimarães (2021). It defines connections based on the strength of neighborhood networks that have reciprocity as the main (although not exclusive) currency of exchange. These bonds, in general, assume their own logic of retribution and solidarity, including the transgression of traditional concepts of family and the creation of particular power dynamics (MORENO, 2019; FAUR, 2014). Instigated by these considerations, the research developed in this work explores women's perception of the care demands present in their routines, including neighborhood exchanges as significant instances for reflection on the relationship between care and democracy.