Peggy O’Mara on Finding Your Tribe
We are happy to share with you the third installment of our exclusive interview this week with the legendary Peggy O’Mara, editor of Mothering Magazine. She will be coming to Vancouver April 18th & 19th for the Healthy Families Conference. Watch for new blog posts from our interview later this week and next – and be sure to enter the conference contest by leaving a comment below – each day counts as an extra entry!
A few days ago we shared Peggy’s thoughts on Simplicity and yesterday she shared her wisdom on how to maintain our Optimism in today’s world. We received this gem of a comment from Bernadette Noll of Slow Family Living:
“There is nothing gained from spiraling into the worry, but there is everything gained from using any time we can to slow down, connect and enjoy our time together as a family.”
In our Mothers Unfolding and Mama Renew groups we often see mothers express their desire for more community and connection with other families. With family so often living far away it becomes all the more important to have a strong community of families supporting one another as our children grow. We asked Peggy to share her words of wisdom:
Mama Renew: In an increasingly complex world of options, parents are seeking trusted information, connection, and a community of support. How can we support parents in building healthy community?
Peggy O’Mara: When I first started out with La Leche League I believed that information and support were what we all needed. Then a midwife friend who had all the information she could possibly need gave birth with a lot of interventions. I realized that wow, information didn’t protect her from something she didn’t want. More than information, we really need community, which is for me what the idea of support really means.
With the isolation we feel in modern industrial society so many of us don’t feel that core sense of community. One of our most popular articles and board forums on Mothering is called Finding Your Tribe – about a mom who had a friend who would hang out for the day. One liked to cook, the other didn’t, and they helped each other in their parenting throughout the day to resolve the isolation.
We have to see each other in the literal sense, like at the upcoming Healthy Families Conference. We go for the speakers, but we really go to see each other. We look around and say, “I’m not so weird…I’m not alone, and look at all these cool people thinking like me or with similar values.”
We will be sharing more of our interview with Peggy O’Mara over the next few days, including “Doing it All” on Friday, and Healthy Families on Monday . Be sure to read our companion article in Babyvibe with Peggy’s thoughts on intuition and trust.
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Win a Free Pass to the Healthy Families Conference & One Night in a Hotel
April 18th & 19th in Vancouver!
Sounds good to us…
To enter leave a comment below sharing your thoughts on finding your tribe… Each comment you leave this week counts as one entry.
Want to double your chances? Visit the Natural Pod Blog and let them know just how much you would enjoy the double treat of the conference and a night away from home!
To triple your chances, join the Healthy Families facebook page
Contest ends at midnight, Tuesday, April 14th. winner will be announced Wednesday, April 15th. Good luck!
[...] leave this week counts as one entry. Want to double your chances? Visit the blog of our friends Mama Renew and share your thoughts on what helps you maintain a positive outlook. Each comment you leave this [...]
[...] earlier this week with Peggy’s thoughts on “Doing it All”, Simplicity, Optimism, and Finding Your Tribe in today’s world. Also enjoy our article in Babyvibe with Peggy’s thoughts on intuition and [...]
I’ve been fortunate to meet a wonderful tribe of mothers through my Mother’s Unfolding group. As a new parent, having a supportive community is essential to my well being and we try to get together every week. My greater tribe of family and friends are located far and wide, but fortunately I’m able to stay connected with them on the internet.
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When my first daughter was born, I stayed home alone a lot and did not reach out into my community. I was adverse to making friends with people just because we had kids.
After about a year and a few play dates & birthday parties I started meeting like minded “alternative” mothers. I soon found my tribe and we supported each other through so much.
We formed something called “The Saturday Night Club”‘ where we would take turn with each others kids one Sat eve a month from 6-9, so each couple could go out 3 sat eve’s a month. Sometimes we just ended up hanging out together and not even getting out!
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I think that for me finding my tribe has been the connection I have felt with other like minded people on the internet. While my tribe may be spread out, it is tight knit. When I am home in NS my family is my tribe. They still are and the internet makes that possible.
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The thing I’ve found the most interesting about parenting thus far is how tribes change over time. I parented my first child elsewhere and was a University student at the time. My tribe consisted of University students who were also parents…a mish mash of us.
When I had more children and was a stay at home mom, La Leche League, Mothering Dot Commune (the Mothering discussion forums) formed the foundation of my tribe.
Now that my children are older and LLL and MDC are no longer on my radar, I find that I’m carving out a space in my kids’ educational community.
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Here in Austin we are in constant pursuit of ways to help parents build their tribe. The new mama circles that we hold are often the jumping off point for such tribe building. Parenting among like-minded parents makes it all so much easier and better and more connected. When my olders were little, I would often go to a friend’s or she to my house and we would clean each other’s house. Way more fun to clean someone else’s house with company than to clean your own alone!
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[...] response to yesterday’s post on Finding Your Tribe, mother & marketing consultant Andrea Coutu mused,“I’m so thankful for that and for all [...]
Great thoughts. When my first child was born, my community health nurse and my family doctor talked about how important it would be to build my community. I was fortunate to find many ways to do that…and to connect with some amazing people who have not only become part of my tribe, but also connected me to other like-minded people. In the post above, there’s a link to the Mothering.com article on Finding Your Tribe. The part about spending all day with a friend, cooking, lying in bed together nursing little ones, and going beyond a “visit” really struck me, because that’s how I got through those first two years of motherhood. And I’m so thankful for that and for all the people in my tribe…and for people who get the idea of having a tribe. Thanks for this post.
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[...] Mama Renew’s third instalment, Peggy O’Mara talks about “Finding your tribe” you can read her [...]