Thirty-five years ago when I was a new-mom, Pete and I were in a new city in a little apartment. He was in school and working. I was happy to be a mom, yet something was wrong. Really wrong. It was loneliness—crushing, piercing loneliness. I didn’t have one friend with a baby.
Later that year Pete and I had a chance to go on a mission trip in Guatemala. Early in the morning, I watched women meet at the corn grinder to grind corn into maize together. In the afternoon women worked on their weaving in the courtyards—again together.
One day when I looked out the window of our little house, I saw a group of Mayan women in their brightly woven skirts with baskets of laundry on their heads and babies strapped on their backs heading to the lake. I was curious, so I followed them. Standing up to their knees in the water with their children splashing alongside, the women scrubbed their clothes on the rocks. They talked and laughed.
As I watched, I had a moment of profound understanding. “Something is missing in my life and now I know what it is. It’s community. My poverty is a poverty of communal life.”
Fast forward 25 years to 2012. My daughter Beth, a new mom, calls me one day and says, “Mom, I’m not going back to the mother’s group. I’ve been there three times, and all they talk about is their kids and what kind of diaper to buy. Isn’t there a place after college where women get together and talk about the real questions of life?”
I recognized in her voice that same loneliness I had as a new mom.
At that time, I had been giving talks to mother’s groups on the importance of reading. I found myself driving home from these talks sad. Women were not reading. In fact, not one woman was reading quality literature for her own enjoyment. I realized I wasn’t either. Everyone agreed that reading was important, but they said, “I don’t have time to read. I didn’t do well in my high school literature class. Where would I even start?”
I drove home sad because the talks I was giving only made the women feel guilty. The talks were a reminder of one more thing they were failing at.
So when Beth called that day, her desire for a place to talk about the real questions of life merged with my desire to read more, and Well-Read Mom was born.
The idea was simple. We would read books together. Beth would start a group with her friends in St. Paul and I would start one with my friends in Crosby, Minn. That was 10 years ago. Today there are over 500 groups across the nation.
I am passionate about women growing in friendship. We need each other. We need to have conversations that matter. We need to grow and mature. Cultural change begins with our conversion! St. Catherine of Sienna said, “Become who you are meant to be, and you will set the world on fire.”
At the Redeemed Women’s Conference, I want to share stories of women saints and how they helped each other as trusted sisters. I want to help us understand that we need each other to do the work we have been called to do. When we walk together as sisters, every load we carry is lightened.
I hope to see you at the Redeemed Women’s Conference on March 4 and 5! For more information or to register, visit fargodiocese.org/redeemedwomen.