To the Ones Who Don’t Have a Tribe

You’re probably familiar with the term “tribe” referring to the group of people who helps support you when you start a family.

They’re the people who are supposed to be there for you when your kids are growing up, to check on your well-being (both mentally and physically) and look out for your children as if they were their own.

I always looked forward to having a tribe.

I imagined what they would be like – who they would be, which other moms would be around me while I’m raising my kids.

And then I had my first child.

When my daughter was born, we were over the moon excited! We called all of our family and spread the news…and we slowly started to realize that our phone calls weren’t being returned, and family was ceasing to reach out.

The family I had been around for so long was no longer there. They hadn’t moved, they just stopped staying in touch.

Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. It all stopped.

My growing family started to move on without the help of the tribe we thought would be around us.

And we quickly learned that family wasn’t everything people had led us to believe they would be. If family could abandon us that easily, what was stopping anyone else?

My college friends married and moved away. My closest friends were now in another state, and I was struggling to find other moms my age, in my situation.

I joined a MOMS club, and for a time that sufficed. But it still wasn’t a tribe.

Those were moms I could hang out with for an hour during the play date, but who wouldn’t call or check up on me if I stopped coming to monthly meetings.

I am so thankful for the friends I’ve made over this last year through my blog and through social networks. They have truly become some of my closest friends and confidants. But I hate that we don’t live close enough to each other to physically be with one another.

I’m still looking for the girls I can hug when I’m having a rough day, who I can laugh with when they tell me some crazy thing their kids did while they weren’t looking, who can support me when I solo-parent for too long.

Motherhood is isolating enough as is. We need to surround each other as moms and as women, and not be afraid to be vulnerable with one another and lift each other up.

If you’re like me, looking for your tribe and feeling abandoned by the people you thought would be there to support you – leave me a comment, or better yet email me so we can become friends.

We’re in this together. Whether the people around you want to believe that or not.

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