Building Community as a Work-From-Home Mom: I Can Almost Guarantee You Need More Propinquity in Your Life

I recently wrote an article where I shared the value I find in meeting with a regular mom group. While researching for it, I came across the idea of propinquity: taken in a social context, the way relationships are more likely to form when people keep seeing each other and spending time in the same places.

I think the concept deserves a little more attention, particularly because of the value it can have for us moms who also work from home.

So here, we're going to deep dive into what it can mean when it's part of your everyday life and what you can do to start getting more of it.

What the hecky is propinquity?

Ok, let's get the dictionary definition out of the way first: Merriam-Webster defines propinquity (pro-pin-kwa-tee) as nearness in place or time, basically a more formal cousin of proximity.

When you apply it to relationships, it comes out something like spending time near the same people = more opportunities to interact with them. Those interactions make people familiar, and familiarity gives a relationship a chance to develop.

There's a study connected to this idea from psychologists Leon Festinger, Stanley Schachter and Kurt Back. They studied people living in student housing at MIT and found that the physical layout of the housing helped determine who became friends. People who lived near each other were more likely to form relationships, and seemingly minor things such as where paths and staircases were located affected who crossed paths regularly.

The researchers' findings can be described rather simply: where people happened to live and walk played a major role in who became friends.

Think about some of the people you’ve become friends with over the years. There’s a decent chance proximity had something to do with it. You worked in the same office. Your apartments were close. You were both always early to something and got used to talking while everyone else trickled in.

Propinquity is a little like baking powder in a cake: not the main event, but without it, opportunities might never pop up.

Modern life's conveniences, unfortunately, remove opportunities for propinquity. But you can do something about it.

We can do a remarkable amount of life without regularly being around people. Think about how easily we remove everyday encounters from our routines:

• We can have groceries delivered instead of going to the store

• We can work out at home instead of going to a gym or class

• We can meet with coworkers and clients on a laptop instead of sitting in the same room

• We can bank, shop, order food and catch up with friends without sticking one teeny tiny toe across the threshold of our front doors

These conveniences are, well, convenient. But they also mean that some of the interactions that used to happen as a side effect of everyday life don’t happen as often anymore. Propinquity isn't gone, but we do have to be more intentional about putting ourselves in places where repeated contact can happen.

Before you reach for your trench and fedora—I’m not telling you to start loitering near your local roundabout. But showing up in the same place near the same people consistently is kind of what propinquity is all about.

This is where third places can help. These are places outside your home and workplace where you spend time around other people: coffee shops, libraries, parks, gyms, salons, community spaces, local businesses. Research on third places has linked them with stronger social ties and a greater sense of belonging, and they're the perfect places for a little "accidental" propinquity to grow.

Building community as a work-from-home mom: you're gonna have to get intentional about propinquity

If you work from home and care for your kids at home, two huge parts of your life are happening in the same place. That can be great for flexibility, but it also means you simply spend less time around other adults unless you make a point of changing that.

There’s research behind both sides of this. A 2026 U.S. study found that people who worked remotely three or more days a week had higher odds of reporting loneliness than people who never worked remotely. Separate research on mothers has found that loneliness is associated with dissatisfaction with life, while mothers with stronger social support tend to report fewer depressive symptoms.

Put those two things together and you can see why community matters so much for moms who work from home. You’ve taken away the built-in contact that comes with going to work, while also spending more of your non-work time at home caring for your kids. If you want more people in your everyday life, you may have to create those opportunities yourself.

You have to feel particularly lonely for propinquity to be useful, either. You can have close friends, a partner you genuinely like hanging out with, family nearby and plenty of people to text while still wishing your everyday world contained a few more familiar faces.

Motherhood can make this more noticeable because so much of the day can already revolve around home. Childcare starts and ends there. Sick days happen there. Babies nap there. You might squeeze work into whatever windows you have, then look up and realize you have been in the same few rooms for most of the week.

Propinquity can make that world a little bigger, and it doesn’t require building an enormous social circle to make a difference.

How to build more community into your work-from-home mom life

The good thing about propinquity is that getting more of it doesn’t necessarily require finding more time. A lot of it comes down to making the things you already do a little more repeatable.

With that in mind, look at your normal week and ask where you could give yourself more chances to see the same people again.

• Pick a regular work spot. If you work from a coffee shop, library or coworking space once in a while, choose one you like and keep going back. Same place, ideally around the same time.

  
  

• Choose recurring classes over random ones when you can. If you exercise outside the house, try the same yoga class, Pilates class, running group or gym time each week. The same goes for hobbies. A six-week pottery class gives you more chances to get comfortable with people than six unrelated one-night workshops.

  
  

• Use the routines your kids already give you. Story time, swimming lessons, daycare pickup, school pickup, playgrounds, sports practice. Pay attention to who else keeps showing up. You don’t need to turn every parent into a mom friend, but saying hello to the person you’ve stood beside twelve Tuesdays in a row is a pretty reasonable place to start.

  
  

• Create repetition around something that belongs to you. Join the book club. Go to the recurring freelancer meetup. Develop your hobbies by taking the same class at the same time every week. Volunteer somewhere regularly. Find a coworking day with other people who work from home.

  
  

• Become a regular somewhere local. A café, bakery, farmers market stall, neighborhood shop, gym, library branch, salon. Being a regular gives familiarity time to build.

  
  

• Leave a little room for the two-minute conversation. If you always see the same person at pickup, say something. If the barista recognizes you, look up from your phone. If someone from your workout class asks how your week went, let the conversation last a minute instead of treating every errand like a race against the clock.

  
  

• If you want more professional community, make it recurring. A monthly meetup where you see the same people again gives relationships more room to develop than bouncing between unrelated networking events. The same goes for coworking spaces or local business groups.

  
  

• Don't assume variety is always better. If your goal is community, constantly switching cafés, classes, parks or workspaces works against you. Propinquity needs repetition.

And don't forget: Community can include people you only sort of know. You don’t need every familiar face in your life to turn into a close friendship. Psychologists Gillian Sandstrom and Elizabeth Dunn have found that interactions with weak ties—acquaintances and people on the edges of our social circles—are associated with greater happiness and a stronger sense of belonging.

Your community doesn’t have to revolve around motherhood, either. Other moms can be incredibly valuable to have in your life, but they don’t have to be the only people you make room for. You’re still a person with a career, interests, hobbies and things you care about that have nothing to do with raising kids. Propinquity can help you build connections around those parts of your life too.

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You’re not the only one figuring this out as you go. 💚