Longing for Community

Community is a popular buzzword. We hear about online communities and food communities. President Obama made community organizing a household word. We know that community is important, but what is it? How do we know when we have community?

Community literally means to be together with unity, to be one with unity. The form that community has taken, however, has evolved over time as we’ve moved from homogenous to more diverse societies.

Early definitions of community in Western Europe from the 1500s have to do with holding goods in common, and the first definition in the Oxford dictionary today includes “common ownership.”

Definitions from the 1700s were more secular; not only were communities organized around a religious faith, but also certain neighborhoods, districts, and countries qualified as communities.

We all have a sense of the communities we are part of—in the world, in our country, our local region, within our extended family, among our friends, in our immediate family, and finally with ourselves. In this age of high tech, community is more important than ever. While we connect with others online, being alone with our computer can be isolating and ultimately makes us crave the company of real people. In fact, high touch is the counterpoint to high tech.

I was listening to the radio game show Wait Wait
. . . Don’t Tell Me! some time ago, and the question was asked, “What number came first, one or two?” The answer was surprising: two. The number two came before the number one. This must mean that as humans we perceived ourselves as part of a dyad before we perceived of ourselves as individuals.

Community then is an intrinsic need of human beings. We need other people. In community we have uninhibited communication, mutual understanding, and common valuing. In community we experience intimacy.

In the days of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, all communication took place within one community. Now we are part of many. To get a perspective on how things have changed: We are preceded in time by 10 generations of industrialists, 100 generations of farmers, and 100,000 generations of hunter-gatherers. And in recent times, the pace of communication is accelerating.

According to Luc de Brabandere, author of The Forgotten Half of Change: Achieving Greater Creativity Through Changes in Perception (Dearborn Trade, 2005),

The first acceleration occurred when the agrarian world segued into the industrial world. The second and far more dramatic jump occurred when the industrial world transmuted into the digital world. While electricity and the telephone took some 50 years to reach 50 percent of American homes, e-mail and DVDs were adopted by most Americans within a mere ten years.

Another example of accelerated communication is the plight of the daily newspaper. In the last few years, the front page of the New York Times has become old news before it’s printed. We’ve already heard the news on the Internet before we see the morning paper. Some of us are afraid of this new technology, afraid that things are moving too fast—but the word technology simply means tool. Like any tool, technology can be used or abused. The good news is that because this digital technology facilitates more rapid communication it also creates more community.

We see this on our website, Mothering.com, where we have 135,000 members of our discussion boards, 1 million total threads and 13 million total posts. In fact, our online discussion boards are the second largest parenting forums on the entire Web. There has been an explosion of moms’ groups in the last ten years. When I was a new mom there were only two groups: La Leche League (LLL) and International Childbirth Education Association. Now there are Holistic Moms Network, National Association of Mothers’ Centers, International Moms Club, Mocha Moms, Moms Rising, Mothers Acting Up, and the Mothers Movement Online, to name a few.

But before we consider reaching out to these or other organizations, we want to strengthen the root of community with others: that is, our relationship with ourselves. Looking for community is part of a circle that begins with and returns to us. It helps if we can cultivate some self-awareness.

It can be hard to remain self-aware when we are in the company of others. If that first community after ourselves is our immediate family, then I’m sure we all know how easy it can be to lose track of our own center when we are caring for others.

I often felt as a mother of young children that any communities outside of my family were almost more than I could handle, that I required all of my reserves for the unexpected things that kept happening in the life of my family. As a new mother, though, I needed outside communities. I longed to see my friends. Even when I was overwhelmed with babies, I wanted to talk to my friends on the phone.

I also cherished organizations like LLL, where I could see other parents doing what I was learning to do. I craved good models, so although it was hard to round everyone up to attend a conference, it was worth it, as it gave me sustenance for an entire year. Interestingly, many of my friends when I was a new mother were people I might not have met otherwise. Our shared values made our other differences insignificant.

From the security of a new community, we can experiment with new ideas. When we are in a process of change—as when you first discovered Waldorf schools and were still contrasting them to other educational methods or perhaps when you first considered a homebirth—it can feel like we are entering an entirely new world, and we are. At these times we especially need community. Even those of us who have lots of friends or who feel just fine about our social lives may feel isolated when facing an unexpected problem or change in our lives and may seek an entirely new community to help support that life change.

Another way we support new life changes is to create a nourishing environment at home, to make our home a sanctuary, a place where we feel safe and can fall apart when necessary.

We also need house rules that allow for everyone to have private as well as community space. One of the things that people learned from the communes of the sixties was that even good community could be too much sometimes.

Many new centers, coffeehouses, and restaurants are popping up to serve the community with children. Natural Resources in San Francisco is one example of a retail, library, and meeting space for parents. In Manhattan, the Upper Breast Side is a boutique that offers breastfeeding resources and supplies. Mom’s Breastaurant is a portable tent that goes to outdoor conferences and events and provides a shaded and quiet place for moms and babies. In El Paso, Texas there’s a new café, the El Paso Baby Café, where moms can drop in for mother-to-mother support as well as professional breastfeeding advice.

Over the years, we’ve published articles on the international cohousing movement where families live in close proximity to one another, share meals, and other resources. We recently received an article about a couple that bought land and built a house along with his parents and her mom. They all have private wings of the house as well as shared common spaces. A friend told me that her house had recently been sold to two families, who would be sharing the house together.

One of our most popular articles ever in Mothering is “Finding Your Tribe” by Teresa Pitman, the story of a young mom who spends days with her friend. They cook together, clean together, and help each other with their children. On Mothering.com we have very popular Finding Your Tribe threads with “tribes” of online forum members who regularly meet for picnics, meetings, and get-togethers in their local areas.

So how do we find community? We don’t. We attract it. We find it where we are. We go deeper with people we are already with: neighbors, coworkers, other parents. How do we find time for community? We start where we are!  Here are four universal principles for communication recommended by anthropologist Angeles Arien: 

Show up.

Pay attention to what has heart and meaning.

Tell your truth without blame or judgment.

Do not be attached to outcome.

We hone our skills of communication because we need each other so much. We need community. If you’re feeling blue it’s for a good reason. Don’t turn against yourself in tough times. Visualize what it would look like if you felt part of a tribe, part of a community. Describe it to yourself. What is one community you want to know more about? What is one step you could take toward that one community? Break it down into small steps and take just one step.

How do I meet new people? First I imagine what it is that I would like to share. Next I have to make a plan to achieve this connection. Then I need to take the first step, whatever it is. And, finally I have to practice my new learning again and again, by getting together with my new community regularly—and pretty soon I will belong. I also have to be patient with myself when leaving a less supportive community, just allowing myself to start over again without making a big production about it.

We’ve been living in an age in which the individual has appeared to be more important than the collective. Current economic challenges underline just the opposite. But these times are just a reminder of what has always been: We need community regardless of the times. There is nothing wrong with us if we can’t go it alone. We’re not supposed to.

Though we can’t go it alone, we also do not want to give ourselves away. We want to look for communities that offer us respect and optimism. I love this quote from African-American poet Nikki Giovanni about good boundaries in community.

There is always something to do. There are hungry people to feed, naked people to clothe, sick people to comfort and make well. And while I don’t expect you to save the world, I do think it’s not asking too much for you to love those with whom you sleep, share the happiness of those whom you call friend, engage those among you who are visionary and remove from your life those who offer you depression, despair and disrespect.

Peggy O’Mara is the mother of four grown children. She has gained international celebrity as publisher, editor and owner of Mothering Magazine. She is also the author of four books: Having a Baby Naturally: The Mothering Magazine Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth, Natural Family Living: The Mothering Magazine Guide to Parenting, The Way Back Home: Essays on Life and Family, and A Quiet Place: Essays on Life and Family, all of which can be purchased in the Mothering Shop. A dynamic speaker, she has lectured and conducted workshops in conjunction with organizations such as the Omega Institute, Esalen, La Leche International, and Bioneers. She has appeared on numerous television and radio programs and has been featured in national publications including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Mother Earth News, and Utne Reader.

Read Peggy O’Mara’s editorials for philosophical information and practical advice about Natural Family Living

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