We live in a society that is seemingly anti-women supporting women, making it very hard to build a community for moms. The general atmosphere of being a mom in 2025, especially with the mom influencers, quantity (if not quality) of mom lit out there, and the all out mommy modern warfare between parenting styles: gentle parenting versus free range versus helicopter versus lawnmower versus lighthouse (a never ending list but I will stop here for your benefit and also stop myself before digressing into venn diagram-esque comparisons between these choices and where they overlap) situates the mom-verse as being incredibly oppositional and at the very least, competitive.
I spend a lot of time talking to other moms however, and from the moms I have met at the park, I disagree with this notion and instead challenge that it is just social media that propagates this competition, that the actual normal women who are just taking their kids out for fresh air seek not to compare or chalk up their child to the other children at the park, and instead look for only one thing: reassurance from people in similar situations that she is doing ok. In the world mentioned before, amid the overload of advice and videos, how can we really know we are doing a good job with our normal, midwestern millennial parenting style? Are our kids banzai trees to be specifically groomed and maintained, or wildflowers to be celebrated for creativity and individuality? Who are our kids? Who are we?!
Case in point, while at the park one day, the conversation turned to baby names, the art of picking, the journey of acceptance, and, in her case, not acceptance. A woman we had just met told my friend and me that she had a different name picked out for her second son, but since she had taken the lead with her first son, she had thought it only fair that her husband take the final say and make the decision for the second. This mom assumed that when the baby was born, he would transform into his legal name. The problem: this transition never happened! She confided in us that during the day, while her husband was at work, she called him by her preferred name and only switched back when her dad returned. Wow! This was pure moms-you-meet-at-the-park top-shelf material. The thing too, the mom wasn’t asking for our approval or absolution, she was just telling us. And we just listened. I laughed, but in a supportive, understanding way (knowing that I had single-handedly selected our little one’s name and that my husband had been supportive from the get-go, very fortunate because I would not have budged).
So what is it about the moms that you meet at the park that provides such an opportunity for a drive-by connection? Why do so many women who are standing by me not talking or sometimes staring straight at their phones, open like flowers as soon as initial contact is made. Is it that these moms are almost my captives as we are at a small (or sometimes not) park with nowhere to really escape, especially since our kids are happily occupied? Or, and I actually think this might be it: is it that they are so taken aback that someone has spoken to them and crossed the invisible barrier of awkwardness that they are shocked into responding, and then the basic social nature of human beings takes over? More often than not, moms will look at me once spoken to and look behind them, checking to see if I have an acquaintance lurking behind their left shoulder just out of their sight. They will question, “Sorry, are you talking to me?” like I had mistakenly spoken out loud looking in their direction and maintaining the start of direct eye contact. But then, they will respond. And conversation is born.
When recalling these conversations, it has become apparent that the moms you meet in the park very rarely speak about their kids. Instead, almost all conversations are about us: the moms. It’s a breakthrough in a day dedicated to others: to ensuring that another person (or multiple persons) is taken care of and provided for, is nurtured, that all the creases are ironed out to ensure happiness and contentment, often at the sake of ourselves. So, these conversations that are grappled between pop-up visits from our kids asking us to hold a cool rock, wiping endlessly running noses, comforting a crying toddler after an unfortunate trip, arguing that no it’s not time for snack when some other kid sits down and is handed a squeezy applesauce and no spill cup of goldfish (a little act of betrayal to the rest of us), are a true outlet. A small act of self-care in the production of the daily show of taking care of small kids. These moments are everything.
