I have the most embarrassing story to tell you about trying to make mom friends. But I’ll get to that in a bit…
Trying to make mom friends can feel like wandering through the halls of your high school on the first day of freshman year. Except this time the hormones are even CRAZIER.
You see the big group of seemingly confident moms at the park chatting it up at a 1-year-old birthday party, or two moms pushing strollers together. They seem to have exactly what you want and desperately need: confidence, connection and support.
It seems lighter for them and less lonely. It’s a humbling feeling for someone who has already spent 30~ years building a social circle and a life. You might be the coolest girl with a million non-mom friends, but getting into a mom group still feels so out of reach.
You just need someone to smile at you and ask you how you’re doing. You need one of those stroller moms to stop you and invite you to eat lunch with them. But, we know all-too-well from high school that it just doesn’t quite work that way.
It can feel like an overwhelming compulsion to have mom friends, because it kind of is, we need mom friends for our sanity. Talking to other moms is our reality check, our troubleshooting and sometimes our only adult conversation of the day.
You try to make friends at the park or music class, but you have to step into the awkward dance of moving from once-a-week IRL convos to “can I have your number?” Is that even the cool way to phrase it? Will she think I’m coming on too strong?
Then, if you graduate beyond that stage and finally make a mom friend, it can feel like there is no one else. You’ve got to make this work. You’ve got to fit in at all costs, even if it means making a couple of personality adjustments, concessions on parenting styles or letting some down-right judgmental comments slide.
Then, you think you’ve made it. The door is cracked open, you’ve made contact with a mom group and boom, the door is slammed shut by a cliquey mom, and all the other moms follow suit.
Back to my embarrassing story. I was one of those lucky moms who got into a mom group when I was pregnant and I would not be the mom I am today without them. I thought I was golden, I wouldn’t have to do the mom friend dance. But, then preschool happened.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.