I saw a mommy blog recently where a mom said, "I was promised a village. Where's my village?" I have compassion for the lonely mom who asked this question, but my gut says she wouldn't really like my answer to her problem. I was transplanted to my current home with a six week old baby and no friends or family in my new town. My heart longed for a community, a village. What happened from there is miraculous but was also really hard work. My answer to that lonely mom is you have to be the village before you have a village, and sometimes you have to be the village over and over and over again before you find yours.
As a former lonely mom who now has an amazing, better than I deserve village, here are my suggestions:
1. Show up- I am an introvert. New places full of strangers and small talk are uncomfortable for me, but in order to find my village, I had to show up every time I was invited. I met one of my now closest, most treasured friends when I showed up to a church organized playdate at her house that ended up being just the two of us and our kids. I had never met her before, and we are both introverts. You can imagine the discomfort, but showing up produced a new friendship. So lonely mom, practice saying yes now. Show up when you're invited even if it makes you uncomfortable.
2. Show grace- I remember a mistake I made with a now friend's daughter that kept me up an entire night worrying. I didn't intend any harm, but my actions were misguided. When I apologized, my precious friend lavished grace upon me and thus set the stage for a friendship and partnership in kid raising that adds immense value to my life, and I hope hers as well. Her response taught me an important lesson. Show grace first. Show grace often. Show the grace you hope to receive.
3. Show unconditional kindness- I am a terrible cook. I am not only bad at it. I don't enjoy doing it, but in the early days of village building, I always slapped on a smile, prayed it was edible, and showed the kindness of a meal for every baby that was born or loss that was experienced. I babysat other people's kids and helped with the kids at church, because I realized it was important to be the friend I wanted to have, to show kindness regardless of what I received in return. What I couldn't have predicted, lonely mom, is that several years later when my second daughter was born, I didn't cook for two months because people crowded our doorway with meals or that when we had little loves in foster care living in our home that we would be consistently covered with loving kindness in the form of babysitting, housekeeping, cooking, and friendship.
Is building a village hard? Yes! Is maintaining a village hard? Yes! Is all that effort worth it? Yes! As we are vulnerable enough to expose our weaknesses and needs to others and selfless enough to show grace and kindness without keeping score, we slowly become better people and better supported people. My village is a consistent, undeserved blessing that makes my life sweeter and richer. Lonely mom, be the village even when you are too tired to be the village, and one day you'll look up and realize you are surrounded and supported in exactly the way you need at exactly the moment you need it.
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