Look, I have nothing against the Mormons. I love the Broadway show, I find their group photos weirdly well coordinated, and I’ve probably funded half their Erewhon smoothies with their ShopMy links.
But it’s time to talk about them. Because after years of brushing up against the Westside Mormon mom clique, working out beside them at Equinox on the rare weekend I’m up before eight, small talk at the park, and one genuinely deep conversations about whether to have more kids, I finally have to ask the question I’ve been sitting on for a while now: what the actual fuck.
Here’s the thing: most of the Westside is out here trying to buy a village. We do it with tuition, with our muted group chats, with birthday parties where we invite the entire freaking class and the neighborhood and the person you met once at the park. That’s our version of community: expensive, effortful, and booked six weeks out.
But the Mormons… they just have one. Built in. Whether it’s from BYU or someone they know from BYU. In either case, it’s pretty enviable.
Oh, and you can’t join. Don’t even try.
The confusing part is that they are nice. It would be easier if they were openly mean, so we’d know to avoid them and move on with our lives. But they’ll compliment your baby (and talk about why you should have more), chat about weekend plans, and remember your conversations.
And then… they won’t even think about following you back on Instagram.
Is it a cold shoulder? A little, yeah. It’s also a full calendar: Tuesday youth group, Wednesday something else, Saturday the ward. In between, the sisterhood does the thing the rest of us keep hiring people to do: help, lend a hand, drop by, pick up the kids. It’s not a metaphor in a caption. It’s a real functioning system.
But if you ask for a car seat for your kid in a pinch…tough luck. They might be warm in the lobby, but don’t ask them for a favor. You aren’t part of their world.
The consolation, I guess, is that you wouldn’t fit in anyway. Because it’s a very specific kind of perfect: the houses decorated like a sophisticated nana, the (blonde) hair, the birthday that is a wellness class in a Santa Monica living room with the yoga mats already laid out because they have to match for the photo later. And yeah, we all do the Botox. This is the Westside, and nobody is going to pretend we don’t, but they do it as a group sport. Absolute curation. You don’t want that life.
But also, you do sort of, right?
So here’s where I land. I don’t want the theology (or the underwear). I don’t want the matching mats or the sophisticated-nana living room or the pathological ability to get your entire workout and face put on before 7am (though I might want their doctor). I want the part we keep trying to buy and somehow never own: the other moms who stop by on a whim, the “I’ll pick up your kids and you can grab them from mine,” the assumption that you’ll definitely see another adult today.
And that’s something to envy, for sure. Hands down. But also: they’re a little mean. So we can all stop pretending it’s only logistics or a scheduling problem, because it isn’t. Villages only work because they have an edge. And they guard that edge like the temple door.
So no, you can’t sit with them. But honestly, you wouldn’t last if you could.