On Community and Why We – As Moms – Need it So Badly

Moms. We do and we do and we do for our kids, our homes, our jobs, our partners. We spend hours taking care of others, and maybe we do take care of ourselves too. We get the occasional mani/pedi or haircut, we pick up a latte in the drive-thru, we order a couple new shirts – on sale – online once in a while, and we scroll through Facebook after the kids are down (or while they’re watching a third episode of Daniel Tiger. No judging here, girl.).

But moms – what do we do to take care of our hearts? We are wired to be in community, to have a village that’s holding us up, to not do everything on our own. But somehow that’s gotten lost in a whirl of playdates and neverending to-do lists and things we think we should be doing… instead of things we need to do, the things that feed and fill our hearts. Having a village is becoming more and more rare, but the desperation to have a village is increasing (at least among the moms I know).

I’ve felt a pull in the last year to be brave and welcome  friendship into my life, and to do what I can to create community where I’m at. I’ve become more intentional about not putting off sending an encouraging text message or card in the mail, about joining moms groups that separate kids and moms for a while, about sharing my stories with others in hopes that they feel able to share their stories with me. And because of that intentionality – I’ve felt a difference in my whole being. I feel like I actually have a support system that cares about me, and I have real live girlfriends! =) Because I choose to say yes to a girls night, even if I don’t know everyone there or worry about feeling awkward or have a mountain of work that night, I’ve started to belong to a community and I am a better mom because of it.

Fostering friendships is a huge and scary and vitally important thing. So – where do you have community? Are there two or three other mamas you could gather, and start being intentional with? Is there something you’ve wanted to join – a Bible study at church or a PTO-ish group at your kids’ school – but haven’t because you’re afraid? What baby steps could you take towards building community in your life – not for your kids, but just for you? These are the big questions we have to ask ourselves, and eventually answer, in order to start creating our villages. It’s not selfish and it doesn’t make us weak to need each other. We need a soft place to land, people to start a text thread to when we have one of THOSE days… we need friends.