Find Your Fire: Kick-Off Meeting 2018

First Meeting of the Year!

Written by Joanna Metheny

I don’t know about you, but I am SO excited to be starting up a new year at MOPS! Today was our kickoff meeting, where this year’s theme, Find Your Fire, was introduced. After some announcements (Pumpkin Patch play date on October 15^th!) and going over a few logistics, we watched a short inspirational video of women running around a city, holding posters and banners with encouraging messages like “you are loved” and “everything is going to be ok”. Then MOPS CEO Mandy Arioto spoke about how fire has long been a symbol of transformation, and how a simple spark can start a wildfire of change.

After the intro video, we saw another with this week’s main speaker, Amena Brown, who spoke on the importance of needing girlfriends. She shared a story of how when she was little, her mother would put her to bed so she could stay up late talking with her girlfriends, having “grown women conversation”. She talked about how essential it is for all of us to have a tribe of people with whom we can have “grown women conversations”. She also talked about how now that we are adults, we get to choose our tribe, and stressed the importance of not only recognizing, but pursuing diversity in our tribe. She suggested we look for people who are in our exact same phase of life, but that we should also pursue relationships with women further up the chain, women who are past the stage of life we are currently in (like our Mentor Moms). She talked about finding women for our tribe that are either younger than us, or maybe currently going through a stage we have already successfully (or not so successfully!) navigated. She suggested looking for women of wildly different backgrounds, or on entirely different life paths than ours, because this diversity in our tribe of trusted friends will only enrich our experiences, and help us break down developing an attitude of “us and them”.

I found this last bit of what she said SO important. It seems that the current socio-political environment in this country is so divided, and just keeps getting worse. Rather than us falling further and further down the rabbit hole of division, and thinking anyone who is different than us are “other”, we need to look to the idea that we can learn something from everyone we meet, and everyone deserves to have their person and opinion respected, no matter how wildly they may differ from us.

This brought up memories for me of my first few meetings in MOPS three years ago.

I’d just moved to the area, didn’t know a soul, and joined MOPS to try and meet some other mothers with young kids. I recall feeling kind of awkward at first, and feeling like I really didn’t have anything in common with the women at my table. But I kept showing up, because let’s be honest, a hot breakfast you don’t have to cook with no kid interruptions is reason enough, but as I kept showing up, and we all started opening up to each other, I found our differences mattering less and less, as we all started to realize how similar the experience of motherhood can be. Whether we are happily married, or single moms, mothers of one or many, being a mom creates a unique bond amongst us all, and we were able to find such common ground among us, that not only did our differences in interests or backgrounds no longer matter, they came to enrich our relationships and open us up to new ideas and ways of approaching life and motherhood. I feel like MOPS takes us back to how making friends was as a child. Making friends when you are little is so easy, like breathing. Kids all have the common bond of simply being kids and that is enough to create connections. I think MOPS provides us all a rare opportunity to live in a similar space, where our common stage in life lays the groundwork for some truly great friendships to begin and flourish.

Overall, I found Amena’s talk so positive and encouraging. It made me miss my close childhood friendships, yearn to have similar ones now, and gave me hope that we can all find great friends here in MOPS. Here’s to a great year!

-Joanna Metheny