What would you want in a mother's group?

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MooCowSteph

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I am starting a mother’s group at my large parish and I am hoping for some (name removed by moderator)ut while in the planning stages. I am not starting just a playgroup; I want something that’s going to minister to moms. Fellowship, faith formation, crafts and other activities. Probably directed children’s activities lead my a mom.

Tell me about your mother’s group, what you like and don’t like, or what you would like to see in a Catholic mom’s group.

Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut!
 
What I would like in a Mom’s group would be:

-encouragement

-learn something about the faith

-learn how to evangelise as a Mom, like in the grocery store

-time for Mom’s to discuss a practical idea that has made their life simpler as a Mom…

-prayer partners, I would rotate these, a special prayer partner to lift each other up everyday
 
Personally, I would not want to lead crafts. I’d want everyone to mind their own kids while the moms talked.

When moms are around and someone else is in charge of the kids, it opens a can of worms (appropriate behavior, who can correct a child if mom is near by, how the craft mom deals w/ other kids etc)

Bringing in speakers might be fun. Arranging to go to Adoration together (w/ or w/o the kids) might be nice. A mom’s dinner out once a month could be fun as well.

If you have interest, I’d poll the women and see what they’re looking for in the way of support. Not far from here, there’s a big women’s Bible study that pays a babysitter (kids are in another room). There are currently 75 women and it may get to 100 in the fall!! Clearly these women feel supported. —KCY
 
someone on this site somewhere once mentioned watching people’s children during confession times so that they can freely go to confession when needed. i think that would be a great way for a group to promote charity!
 
Thanks for the (name removed by moderator)ut. I do plan on polling the moms to see what they would like. I am not sure yet when I am going to do that. We have a start date for March, and I want to heavily advertise over the winter, but I am not sure when I am going to poll. I am thinking in a month, maybe? I want to find out how many women would like to get involved, the ages of their children, if they homeschool, and what they would like to do about the children. But I wanted to get some candid responses on here as well 🙂
 
chsngtailodogma said:
someone on this site somewhere once mentioned watching people’s children during confession times so that they can freely go to confession when needed. i think that would be a great way for a group to promote charity!
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That’s an excellent idea. Maybe we can do some kind of extension into confession times on saturdays?
 
Consider these issues when planning:
1 - They may have older and younger dc and not everyone does daycare/preschool/school. I rarely do anything at my Church because I have children over age 4 and littles.
2 - Time and money are tough to come by. If you remove at least 1 of those issues, it’s easier for a mom to say Yes. Free gatherings over resturants or buying crafts.
Meeting after mass, so they save a trip out of the house.

It’s not that I’m against mothers doing those other things.
Just my .02 experience.
**Maybe you could have a “park and pray” day? Meet at a park (church playground?) and let the kid play while moms pray or have religious discussion? **
 
Here are some things I didn’t like about my experience (I gave it a year’s trial) with my parish’s Women’s Faithsharing group (maybe a little different from what you’re putting together, but women of all ages and kids of all ages were welcome):

1–Lack of structure or schedule / lack of leadership. Someone needs to be the one to say, “Okay, let’s spend about 2 more minutes for X and then we’ll move onto the next part of our meeting.”

2–Prayer “requests” always morphed into either a) gossip time or b) a crisis-dump by a “needier” person. (Sorry, I know this sounds uncharitable of me. I’m not saying we don’t minister to the person in need; but without #1 in place, it’s near impossible to contain the crisis.)

3–Comments contrary to Church teaching went uncorrected/unchallenged (again, see #1–lack of leadership)

The monthly group I attend now is part of a personal prelature and is structured as:

Come in, say “hello,” get yourself & your kiddos comfortable. Things start pretty close to on-time. Leader leads us in group prayer, then spends about 75% of time instructing/sharing on the announced topic. The remaining 25% of time is for chatting & refreshments.(We meet at one woman’s house; it’s been the same woman for years, I believe, and it’s totally kid-friendly.)

Maybe I like things a little more structured than the next, but it works for me!
 
Rob_s_Wife said:
Consider these issues when planning:
1 - They may have older and younger dc and not everyone does daycare/preschool/school. I rarely do anything at my Church because I have children over age 4 and littles.
2 - Time and money are tough to come by. If you remove at least 1 of those issues, it’s easier for a mom to say Yes. Free gatherings over resturants or buying crafts.
Meeting after mass, so they save a trip out of the house.

It’s not that I’m against mothers doing those other things.
Just my .02 experience.
**Maybe you could have a “park and pray” day? Meet at a park (church playground?) and let the kid play while moms pray or have religious discussion? **
Click to expand...
I’m actually hoping to add a homeschool theme and get some homeschool families, so I am assuming we’ll have some older ones. I am hoping to have some older homeschool girls to direct the young ones, but as my priest brought up, there are more and more regulations when dealing with young children, so that may not be a possibility.

I’m still trying to decide what to do about money. We’re going to need money for refreshments. We can either take turns, get the church to pay for them, or allow free-will donations. Not sure what to do yet. I’m going to nix the crafts, but there may occasionally be a book or some material to discuss that would need to be purchased, but we can deal with that when it comes up.

I hadn’t thought about having it after Mass. I don’t know if I want to do that, though. I suppose it would be after the 10:30 Mass, the one that’s most populated with families, but I know for me, Sunday’s are family time. I was thinking more of a mid-morning weekday, targeting stay-at-home moms. Is that unfair to working moms? I guess I figured they are not going to have the free time for something like this anyway.

Thanks, Martha, for your (name removed by moderator)ut. I always value your opinions. 👍
 
StephanieC said:
Here are some things I didn’t like about my experience (I gave it a year’s trial) with my parish’s Women’s Faithsharing group (maybe a little different from what you’re putting together, but women of all ages and kids of all ages were welcome):

1–Lack of structure or schedule / lack of leadership. Someone needs to be the one to say, “Okay, let’s spend about 2 more minutes for X and then we’ll move onto the next part of our meeting.”

2–Prayer “requests” always morphed into either a) gossip time or b) a crisis-dump by a “needier” person. (Sorry, I know this sounds uncharitable of me. I’m not saying we don’t minister to the person in need; but without #1 in place, it’s near impossible to contain the crisis.)

3–Comments contrary to Church teaching went uncorrected/unchallenged (again, see #1–lack of leadership)

The monthly group I attend now is part of a personal prelature and is structured as:

Come in, say “hello,” get yourself & your kiddos comfortable. Things start pretty close to on-time. Leader leads us in group prayer, then spends about 75% of time instructing/sharing on the announced topic. The remaining 25% of time is for chatting & refreshments.(We meet at one woman’s house; it’s been the same woman for years, I believe, and it’s totally kid-friendly.)

Maybe I like things a little more structured than the next, but it works for me!
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I really want something more structured like you are describing. My problem is that I have no experience leading large groups, and I am not the greatest at that…I ramble 😊 So while I am very happy to take a leadership roll to get this running, and still be a leader once it starts, I really don’t want to be the one to lead the group every time. What have I gotten myself into!!😊 ??
 
There are parishes not far from you that have Catholic Scripture Study. If your mom’s group doesn’t take off, think about joining an existing group. —KCT
 
KCT said:
There are parishes not far from you that have Catholic Scripture Study. If your mom’s group doesn’t take off, think about joining an existing group. —KCT
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I might do that, thanks. My priest was very happy when I bought my mom’s group idea to him b/c we have very little going on right now to minister to the young families. We are also in the process of building a multipurpose space in the basement, which will have a nursey and where are new group would meet. I am really hoping it’ll take off. We have about 3500 families - if i can’t get a group of women from that many members that wouldn’t look too good! :eek:
 
MooCowSteph said:
I really want something more structured like you are describing. My problem is that I have no experience leading large groups, and I am not the greatest at that…I ramble 😊 So while I am very happy to take a leadership roll to get this running, and still be a leader once it starts, I really don’t want to be the one to lead the group every time. What have I gotten myself into!!😊 ??
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Okay, some thoughts…

–your group might not be all that large to start with, so you’ll gain experience as you go.
–you might start by looking for a co-leader (?) just an idea
–I was thinking that this was probably a fantastic task/challenge for you to take on, especially since you’ve talked about feeling like you’ve lost your independence with your dd’s arrival, and how you like being organized, etc. (That was you, right?:p) Anyway, if so, I’ll bet you’ll probably over-prepare for your meetings in the beginning so that really, you just follow the schedule/actvity!

One thing that the group from my parish did that I really enjoyed was to read (everybody took turns) the OT readings, Psalm and Gospel for the upcoming Sunday, and reflect/share on it. This was wonderful, because in the middle of Mass on the following Sunday, my ears would “perk” up and I’d recognize the readings & get so much more out of them the second time, even if I was busy & distracted with the baby at that Mass.

There’ve got to be some curriculum-type questions or points for reflection (usccb.org?) that you could use if you went that route.
 
StephanieC said:
Okay, some thoughts…

–your group might not be all that large to start with, so you’ll gain experience as you go.
–you might start by looking for a co-leader (?) just an idea
–I was thinking that this was probably a fantastic task/challenge for you to take on, especially since you’ve talked about feeling like you’ve lost your independence with your dd’s arrival, and how you like being organized, etc. (That was you, right?:p) Anyway, if so, I’ll bet you’ll probably over-prepare for your meetings in the beginning so that really, you just follow the schedule/actvity!

One thing that the group from my parish did that I really enjoyed was to read (everybody took turns) the OT readings, Psalm and Gospel for the upcoming Sunday, and reflect/share on it. This was wonderful, because in the middle of Mass on the following Sunday, my ears would “perk” up and I’d recognize the readings & get so much more out of them the second time, even if I was busy & distracted with the baby at that Mass.

There’ve got to be some curriculum-type questions or points for reflection (usccb.org?) that you could use if you went that route.
Click to expand...
That’s a fantastic idea about the reflection! I like that a lot. That was me on the other thread…I really do think I need a “cause”, something outside of the home to get invloved in, be a part of. I am nervous, but I think this is a wonderful opportunity. And yes, I am very organized 🙂
 
MooCowSteph said:
I’m actually hoping to add a homeschool theme and get some homeschool families, so I am assuming we’ll have some older ones. I am hoping to have some older homeschool girls to direct the young ones, but as my priest brought up, there are more and more regulations when dealing with young children, so that may not be a possibility.
hmmm, are you thinking this may spill over into a parish hs group later or now or??? This is a VERY important question in how you shoudl go about gathering ladies for this!
**Don’t get me started about the regulations stuff! :cool: **
However, that’s not really the issue with getting older siblings to sit with the kiddies. It’s that they are usually at home watching their OWN siblings and thus are not at the group’s disposal.
This is very much the case in our decent sized hs group.
I’m still trying to decide what to do about money. We’re going to need money for refreshments**…** there may occasionally be a book or some material to discuss that would need to be purchased, but we can deal with that when it comes up.
**That’s my recommendation. Wait to talk about purchases. Just plan about 2 occassions and, after you see how those go, you’ll have a better idea of how to proceed. Some groups get together and everyone is fine with eating out and doing this or that and giving money for whatever. **But don’t feel you HAVE to buy anything at all. There’s nothign wrong with everyone having a BYOBasket.
The first time I’d host some basic tea/punch and snack items, but after that - ask what they want to do.
Also, timing of the event can make all the difference. For example, right AFTER lunch for 2 hours wouldn’t need more than simple coffee and cookies.

I hadn’t thought about having it after Mass.
I meant a weekday mass. You’re right Sunday is all God and our own families. This is especially good if you want to attract hs-ers who often attend daily mass.
For example you could have noon or morning mass
play and chat time over coffee and cake
then maybe a saint study, book discussion, or share idea on how you are going to integrate the liturgical calendar into your lives next month (what craft for Triumph of the Cross or how to make st. agnes flowers or what saints make cool “halloween” contumes?)
Is that unfair to working moms? I guess I figured they are not going to have the free time for something like this anyway.
Know this from the very beginning:
You cannot please everyone.
So please God and yourself.
**If YOU need to have it during certain times, then that’s the best time for YOU to plan it.🙂 **
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