Question: I keep hearing the term ‘building community,’ especially when it comes to parenting. What’s all the hype?
Michelle Answers:
Great question! It’s true; finding a supportive, sustainable group of people you connect with is something that a lot of parents are looking to find – or create! – these days. People are social creatures, and raising your kids in the nuclear family box can feel isolating for some, especially at-home moms (and dads) who spend several hours a day alone with the kids. Some people like to have other parents with similar goals and values with whom to converse and share parenting ideas; others want to be able to do childcare trades or help each other with meals or around the house. Not only does it benefit the individual, but being an active participant in one’s community is a way that a lot of families are ‘giving back’, boosting neighborhood pride, and it can teach your kids about interdependency with the world around them.
For years I had been wanting to play a more participatory role in building community, and over the past couple of years I’ve had many life changes which have allowed that to become a natural part of our life. Supporting local arts, volunteering, and getting to know those involved in the community are just a few of the ways it is happening. I’ve met some amazing people, and I feel good not only about what we’re doing but the fact that the girls are learning these values through experience. They are meeting new friends, learning how to “give back” with your time, how to gauge a situation and a new person — who to trust and when to stick by Mom, and what really matters (e.g. people, community, love, strength as a team, working toward a common goal). By the way, I am learning about all of these things, too. 🙂
Yes, I might as well admit it – I’m one of those with a ‘do-gooder’ streak in me, and I’m also a person who has a hard time feeling sane when it’s just me and the kids, the rat and the cat, day in and day out. So I don’t just feel good when I help the community — I need community; I crave it. I’d rather let the neighbor kids come into the yard and pick & eat every last strawberry than keep them all to myself; I find myself saying “I hate gardening!” when it comes to weeding the raised beds by the side of my house, but put me on the street’s empty community garden lot and I will play in that dirt under the hot sun all day long. 😉
Now that the kids are old enough to attend these projects with me, building community has become a big part of our lives. We found where people hang out, those who are passionate and want to gather and create it themselves. We have gotten involved in community-strengthening projects. Many of the people we gather with are not like-minded in parenting but they share a passion for other things that we do.
The two aspects that have made me feel most successful in this endeavor have been:
(1) Expanding my own perspective on what “community” is or what would satisfy this need. Here’s an example. We participated in Grow Saginaw, a new community garden project last spring/summer. It didn’t really meet my needs for having help around the house, co-parenting the kids, etc. But it did meet a need I hadn’t quite articulated: the need to be a part of something “bigger” (and arguably more important than this impossible little household) and gather with people around me who are of like mind. This, incidentally, led to meeting many new people and making friends with other parents who now do provide me emotional and childcare support. Needless to say, there’s a greater return on this investment than simply fruits & vegetables.
(2) This is a little more philosophical… but here it is. Continually practicing the art of being satisfied, even while our needs are not being met on a fundamental level. If you can hold the vision, and trust that things are progressing toward what you want, it’s easier to continue creating your dream than if you get hyper-focused on the fact that it’s not happening.
I say this from where I am now, because I feel like after doing these things, suddenly and quite unexpectedly a blessing of the kind I was looking for, fell right into my lap. A friend of mine who is also a single self-employed mama found herself looking for a home for a few months, and she came to live with us, supporting one another and co-parenting. A microcosm of community for our family that I had been hoping to create all this time.
Now, this: GreatLakesBayMoms.com, an amazing, wonderful, and powerful resource for building and creating community, so that we can take our knowledge, our experience, and our connections and support one another not only online, but in the real world! Let’s do it, Great (Lakes Bay) Moms and Dads!
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Michelle Mersy, C.P.C. is the mother of two wonderful children (who love their local community garden), and a certified Life and Parenting Coach. She affirms, “Stop just wishing things could be different. They can be, if YOU do something different. Coaching will make that difference.”
989-397-8386 ~ [email protected]
www.MichelleMersy.com