“I Just Want Mom Friends”

Why is it so hard to connect?

Amy Lowe

People—moms especially—want community, and know they need it, but can really struggle to find it.

I was feeling the need for a mom community at my church a little while back, so I started a group text. I hoped to get moms together at a nearby Chick-fil-A during the time between drop-off and pick-up once a month, during Wednesday night church services for our kids.

There was tremendous enthusiasm, in theory. The moms loved the idea. But very few showed up, and sometimes nobody did at all.

When Community Sounds Good but Feels Hard

This basic pattern has repeated elsewhere in my own life and in the lives of other women I know from church. We moms need and want community now more than ever, but we also struggle to commit to showing up.

And a lot of things standing between modern moms and the community they need. For one, most moms just won’t prioritize themselves! When forced to choose between an event for their child or family, and an event for themselves, they’ll let go of the event that supports them nearly every time.

Moms are also very, very tired—in part because they tend to juggle extremely busy schedules. A surprise conflict is one of the most common reasons for people to say yes and then ultimately fail to show up. We often manage medical visits for the whole family, school pick-up and drop-off, extracurriculars, church, social obligations and full- or part-time work. Understandably, a hangout with fellow moms tends to get lost in the shuffle.

But we must continue to choose community. We must continue to choose to show up for moms and families that will help us grow in love and charity. It’s good for us—and once we do it, most of us find it feels better too.

When One Invitation Changes Everything

When my son graduated from fifth to sixth grade, I knew I wanted his friend group to be largely kids from our church. But I also knew that wouldn’t happen on its own. So I organized a pool party for all the kids from his class who went to our church. Everyone came out.

I was shocked at the turnout. But we were able to speak sincerely to these kids about their faith, together, as a community of families. We were able to encourage them, help them bond and set the tone for the coming school year. It was an incredibly fun and meaningful experience, for the kids and parents alike. But it wouldn’t have happened unless someone took the steps to make it happen.

These are the experiences we get to help create when we initiate or participate in real-life events. Sadly, they are also the experiences we miss when we give in to the temptation to self-isolate.

We Were Made for This

In community, we get to love people as they actually are—not as they are online. We get to be loved by people for who we are. God shows up in the middle of us, in the middle of our mess, and does some of His most important work there.

This isn’t just true today. It’s an essential, biblical truth about relationships. Recall the story of Ruth and Naomi, for instance. Naomi urged her widowed daughter-in-law to return to her family. But Ruth chose—out of love, devotion, and determination—to honor their relationship and stay with her.

“For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge,” Ruth tells Naomi. “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16 ESV).

Our friendships aren’t familial relationships. We aren’t bound to this extent to the people we go to church with. But we are, in fact, bound to them. And love, devotion, and a sense of commitment to relationship exists everywhere we have or seek community. The key is that we have to choose it, rather than wait for it to happen to us.

So this summer, take advantage of your extra time. Develop little routines of connection. If you want, start with just a few people and grow the network from there.

• Get coffee once a month with a friend you wish you knew better.
• Schedule a park date with a fellow mom.
• Help schedule a kid- and family-friendly Bible study.
• Prioritize simple plans with easy-to-remember timelines: once a week, once a month.

And don’t ever feel bad about double-texting. God wants us together, even if it takes three weeks and four attempts to schedule it.

He made us for community, and community isn’t easy. But it is good.

Amy Lowe is the director of WinShape Camps for Girls and oversees WinShape Camps for Families. She has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Samford University and a Master of Arts in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. Like most other moms, her hobbies include laundry, running the robot vacuum, and unloading the dishwasher.  https://winshape.org/