Abbie: Hello and welcome to the CosmoParenting Podcast brought to you by the CMM Institute for Personal and Social Evolution. In this space, we invite you to see yourself as someone who is curious about and actively participating in creating your own meaning around parenting.
Today, we are beginning a new month and new theme, so this is our ‘Appreciate’ episode, where we introduce the theme and offer questions to reflect on that help us appreciate where we are and where we’ve been. Let’s begin.
*music*
Abbie: This month is all about communities. We first want to offer two truths that will guide us in our conversation this month, like we always do. And this month our truths are this: (1) communities can offer support, resources, and connection and (2) communities vary in size and can change over time.
We are social creatures, and our ancestors have always lived in tribes and relied on each other. But community doesn’t always just happen, especially now in our disconnected modern world. So, our real question this month is: how will you seek out community for you and your family?
First, I’d like to invite you to take a moment and think about a time when you felt a strong sense of community. Maybe it was on a sports team in school, or a friend group that you’ve known for years, maybe it’s among the other parents at your child’s school, maybe it’s none of those things. Again, every individual and every experience is unique, so the examples I share in these episodes are not meant to be prescriptive or to say this is the only way. There are many ways to parent like there are many ways to live, and although everyone listening might be parenting, you may have had vastly different experiences growing up and being parented. So, maybe you have never really felt a strong sense of community. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t cultivate it for yourself now.
Community is about a give and take. So, think about what kind of support, what kind of resources and connection do you need? But also, what kind of support, resources, and connection can you offer in return? By creating, maintaining, and engaging with communities, we are acknowledging our own interdependence and really living into that as a strength rather than a weakness. It is beautiful to rely on each other and to make ourselves available to be relied on.
Thinking about that second claim that we made, that communities vary in size and can change over time, something that I imagine you will know to be true, but may watch your children learn for the first time, is that communities change over time. Friends move away, people grow apart, new time commitments change relationships. While we help walk our children through these experiences and the feelings that come with them, you may walk through them in your own ways, too.
I think one valuable thing for us to remember and to teach children is that there are so many avenues to build community- it doesn’t just have to be who lives in your neighborhood. With technology, we can build global communities. Community can grow around a shared mission or belief or around a shared love of something. And you can be a part of many communities at a time, both large and small, both local and virtual. And the support and connection you give and receive will look different in different communities.
As we wrap up this episode, I want to offer some questions for you to reflect on for yourself. I am going to ask the questions here, but you can also find them written in the show notes of this episode, or on the Substack.
Where did you find community growing up?
Where do you find community now? Where can you cultivate community where it doesn’t yet exist?
What are existing communities that you can join, rely on, and contribute to?
Okay, those are the questions I’m leaving you with today. I invite you to spend some time in reflection after this episode ends and throughout your week thinking about these questions. And I invite you to do some of that reflecting in conversation with others. Thinking through these questions is great, but talking through them out loud is wonderful as well. And another space that you're welcome to do your reflecting is by commenting on this episode in the CosmoParenting Substack. That is a great example of a community that you can contribute to and rely on.
I also want to point you toward the additional resources we have available for free at www.cosmoactivities.com. There you can find all of our other resources for kids of all age. So those are great activities to pair with what you're learning in CosmoParenting as you invite your children to learn along with you.
Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the CosmoParenting Podcast. We are so grateful to be with you on this journey. And we will see you next week to hear a parenting story.
*music*
