If you are a stay-at-home mom scrolling this right now, quietly wondering why everyone else seems to have their people and you are still trying to figure out how to make mom friends, I want you to know something first: you are not doing it wrong. The village isn’t showing up because nobody built it yet. And building it? That’s the part nobody actually talks about.
This episode is for you. And honestly, it’s also for anyone who has been sitting on an idea to bring people together, waiting for the right time, the right house, the right number of people to say yes before they try.
Molly Menning is a mom of two girls in Michigan who started a weekly drop-in play group at her house at the beginning of 2026, after months of real loneliness and postpartum depression following the birth of her second daughter. She didn’t have a plan. She didn’t have a big social circle. She had a Canva invite, a coffee machine, and the decision to just go for it.
Two moms showed up the first time.
It grew from there.
The Loneliness Nobody Warned Her About
Molly’s story starts somewhere a lot of stay-at-home moms will recognize. With her first daughter, things felt manageable. There were newborn groups, easy outings, other new moms in the same season. But when her second daughter was born and she became a full-time stay-at-home mom, everything shifted.
“All of a sudden, the loneliness just like whacked me in the face,” Molly said. “I knew, obviously, staying at home with kids can be hard. I had heard that before. But I don’t think I had heard a lot of people talk about how lonely it can feel.”
Her core mom friends had gone back to work. Their kids were older. The schedules didn’t line up. And she was home, day after day, with two little ones, carrying postpartum depression on top of all of it.
The advice she’d been given, the generic “go make mom friends” kind, wasn’t built for her actual situation. Playgrounds are hard when you’re on high alert because your toddler is heading straight for the edge of the play structure. Coffee dates are hard when you’re coordinating around a baby’s nap schedule. Mom meetups tend to be geared toward the newborn stage, and once you’re past it, you’re kind of on your own.
She knew something had to change. She just sat on the idea for months, because fear is loud.
She Sat on the Idea for Months
This is the part I don’t want you to skip over, because I think it matters more than the logistics.
Molly had the idea for a recurring play group long before she started one. She thought about it. She talked herself out of it. She waited. She wondered if anyone would even show up, if her space was big enough, if people would want to come every single week.
Sound familiar?
“I really let fear hold me back for so long,” she said. “And then at the beginning of this year, I knew this was the one goal that I absolutely had to commit to.”
So she made a Canva invite. It said “Let’s play.” It had her address, a loose time, a note about coffee for the moms and snacks for the kids, and at the bottom: invite whoever.
She sent it to everyone she could think of, including mom friends she wasn’t even that close with, because you never know who they might pass it along to. And then she waited to see what happened.
Two Moms Showed Up
I asked Molly specifically how many people came the first time, because I knew she was going to say a small number, and I wanted people to hear it out loud.
Two moms.
“I think a lot of people feel like if it’s not like a packed room, it wasn’t worth it,” Molly said. “And I say over and over again, almost every group started as two people.”
She’s right. And here’s what happened next: those two moms told other moms. Friends invited friends. A few people found her online after she posted about it. Some of the moms who came early were people she’d been loosely connected to for years but had never managed to actually spend time with, because nobody was ever taking the initiative to plan anything.
Consistent, low-barrier, same-time-every-week proximity did what individual coffee dates never could. It gave these friendships somewhere to grow.
If you want to hear how the group has evolved since those first two moms walked through the door, listen to the full episode at friendshipirl.com/episode191.
What “Casual” Actually Means
When Molly says the play group is casual, she means it.
“A lot of times, me and my daughters have still been in our pajamas,” she said. “People arrive as I am like getting snacks out or changing my daughter’s diaper.”
The play group runs from around 10:30 to 2:00, loosely. No formal end time. No RSVP required. Kids run wild. Moms drink coffee. Some weeks it’s seven or eight people. Some weeks it’s one or two. She hosts it outside in the backyard when the weather is good, inside in the living room when it’s not. She has even moved it to a nearby playground when she wanted a change of scenery.
The consistency is the point. Every Monday. Same deal. Nobody has to negotiate a time that works for everyone. Nobody has to send twelve texts back and forth about schedules. You just know: Monday morning, Molly’s house, come if you can.
She texts the group Sunday evening to confirm it’s happening. That’s the whole system.
And on the weeks she wakes up not feeling it? She hosts anyway. “There has not been a day where I’m starting the day feeling bleh, and then I host play group and I feel better after,” she said. Every single time, the energy of people showing up turns it around.
Offering Space vs. Entertaining: Two Very Different Things
Here’s the piece of this episode that I keep thinking about.
When most people think about hosting, they picture the entertaining version: the curated gathering, the theme, the effort, the planning. And there IS a place for that. I talk about it in Episode 6, The Secret to Hosting a Gathering (Hint: You’re Probably Doing Too Much), where I break down the six jobs of hosting. One of those six jobs is simply offering space, and offering space is something you can do entirely on its own.
That’s what Molly’s Monday play group is. Not a curated gathering. Not a themed event. Just: the door is open, come as you are, the water glasses are in that cupboard.
When you entertain, the vulnerability is in the effort. You put in the work. You sent the invite. You made the thing. Will people show up after all of that? That’s the risk.
When you offer space, the vulnerability is different. It’s in being SEEN. People see your actual house, not the staged version. They see that your cabinets are a little chaotic and your dishes don’t match and you are, in fact, still in your pajamas at 10:30. That is a form of letting people in. It builds something real without requiring you to perform.
Think about the difference between a mom you only ever see at school pickup versus a mom who has been to your house six Monday mornings in a row. You have insider knowledge about each other. You’ve seen each other’s real life. That is a different kind of closeness, and it happened without either of you trying to manufacture it.
Both types of gatherings matter. But I think a lot of us default to thinking that hosting MEANS entertaining, and that stops a lot of people from doing anything at all. Offering space is a legitimate, underused option, and Molly is proof that it works.
The Toddler Book Clubs (Which I Did Not Expect)
I did not know about the toddler book clubs when I invited Molly on. She mentioned them mid-episode and I was immediately obsessed.
A few times a year, Molly hosts a seasonal toddler book club. She picks a book with a theme, plans a little craft, makes themed snacks, does a story time. It’s more organized than the weekly play group, more effort, more planning. And it is the opposite vibe entirely.
The fall one, the first one she ever hosted, had almost everyone cancel within an hour of the start time. One mom showed up.
“I had to explain to my daughter in the middle of my disappointment what was going on,” Molly said. “And then help her manage the disappointment around people canceling.”
But they made it special anyway. The one friend who came brought her little boy. The kids had a tea party. The moms actually got to have a real conversation, the kind that gets crowded out when a lot of people are there. Molly’s daughter said at the end, “I had so much fun with my friend.”
Molly did the book club again for winter. More people came. Then spring. Now summer. The same friend who showed up that first time told her recently: “I’m so proud of you for just doing it again.”
“The Price of Community Is Disappointment”
Molly said something in this episode that I have not stopped thinking about.
“I think we’re seeing a lot of conversations on social media about how the price of community is inconvenience. I love that. But I also think that the price of community is disappointment.”
Yes. A thousand times yes.
Everyone cancels sometimes. Life happens. Kids get sick. Hard days hit. If you are going to build something real, you have to be willing to let people be human: to keep showing up even when the turnout is low, to make the one-person version just as good as the ten-person version, to give grace because you want that grace brought back to you.
I loved this line so much that I told Molly on air: I am making an entire solo episode about disappointment in friendship because of it. Stay tuned for that one.
Hosting Is a Mindset, Not a House
This was Molly’s closing point, and it’s one I want to make sure lands.
You do not need a big house to host. You do not need a Pinterest-ready space. You do not even need your own four walls.
“I really think hosting is a mindset,” Molly said. “If you want to text the moms and say ‘let’s meet at the splash pad at 10,’ that’s still hosting. That’s still being intentional about creating space for people and creating that community.”
I used to be a wedding planner. Most people don’t host their weddings in their own homes, and they are still the host of that wedding. The location is not the point. The gathering is the point.
If your house makes you anxious, host at the park. Host at the library after story time. Host at the splash pad. Episode 155, How to Host on Any Budget (and Not Fall Into the Martha Stewart Trap), is full of ideas for keeping these kinds of gatherings low-cost and low-vulnerability. Go listen to that one if you want more options before you start.
The bar for starting is lower than you think. Molly started with a Canva invite and two moms. She was in her pajamas. Her house was not clean. And it became the best part of her week.
How to Make Mom Friends: Start Before You’re Ready
If you are a stay-at-home mom trying to figure out how to make mom friends, here is what Molly’s story actually shows:
- ▪️ You do not need a lot of people. Two moms is a start. One mom is a start.
- ▪️ You do not need a perfect space. Pajamas, messy house, squeeze pouches from the pantry. That’s fine.
- ▪️ You do not need a big RSVP list. Invite whoever. Let people pass it on.
- ▪️ You do need a standing time. The same day every week is the whole system. It removes the negotiation. It gives people something to plan around.
- ▪️ You do need to keep going. When nobody shows up, do it again. When one person shows up, make it great. When people cancel last minute, let them be human.
The village is not going to appear. But it can grow, one Monday morning at a time, if somebody opens the door.
Somebody has to go first. It might as well be you.
If Molly’s story hit close to home, go listen to the full episode at friendshipirl.com/episode191, because the conversation about social anxiety, the weeks when she doesn’t feel like hosting, and watching moms from completely different walks of life become friends with each other is worth hearing in her own words.
