Mom groups. 

They’re awesome. They’re so helpful. I would have been sunk without the online mom group I joined when I was pregnant with my first 9 years ago.  There is nothing like being able to share the joys and miseries of the particular stage you are in at that moment.   I have learned a million things from the shared experience of my mom friends. I’m pretty sure we know more about each other and our parenting journeys than some of our own families do.

But these groups also have the potential to create as much or more anxiety than any one mom can drum up by herself.

Shared information is wonderful and terrible. The Internet has given us so may things to obsess about. 

Do you have the right car seat? Do you give the flu shot? Do you let baby cry to sleep? Do you send them to school on the bus or carpool? Do you let them have a pacifier? Do you give too much screen time? Do you let the fever run its course or give Tylenol? Do you give them a phone?

So many of the questions we have as moms have no right answer across the board. You do what you do and you have to trust your mama instincts, the best information you have at the time, and ultimately, you have to trust God.

Let’s all give a collective sigh of relief knowing that there is only so much we can be aware of in a minute or a day or a month.

Let’s share what we know, but let’s take what we hear with a grain of salt. Paranoia doesn’t make for gracious living.

Grace. Let’s hear with grace–humbly accept wisdom from someone else who has experience or knowledge that we do not.

Grace. Let’s speak with kindness. We share perspective, but we can’t assume the way we see it is the only way.

Grace. Let’s receive what we can process in a day and give ourselves and our family grace to handle what we can, without beating ourselves up about all the possible ways we could do better.

Grace. The Father knows what we need, and He knows that we do what we can. We can rely on Him and His leading. We can rest in knowing that He has the best interest for us and our children in mind.