When I became a mom, I craved connection almost as much as I craved sleep. So I did what a lot of us do. I joined a mom group. The other moms and I swapped sleep training advice, took tons of photos (maybe too many photos), and celebrated the tiny victories. It was great and exactly what I needed at the time. A village of moms you never knew you needed.
But here’s the thing nobody prepared me for: Mom groups can turn toxic. Not because the moms themselves are toxic people, but because the dynamic shifts into an ugly place with mean-girl behavior. I know this from personal experience. In my mom group, I started to notice that certain people would get talked about when they weren’t present, and not in a positive way. I realized that there were group text chains that didn’t include everyone, which led to cliques forming within the larger group. And after the third or fourth time of seeing social media photos of everyone else at a hangout that I didn’t get invited to, it felt like I wasn't really part of the group after all.
At that point, I had to ask myself: Why am I still showing up for this?
