Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Making new mommy friends

I have come to discover as I get older that making new friends is not as easy as it used to be.

When I was growing up my family moved around a lot. When I say a lot, I mean A LOT! Before the age of eighteen I had moved seven times and attended seven different schools.  Those are all the moves I remember... There could have been more. My family was very mobile and we went where there were job opportunities. Needless to say I adapted and learned early on how to make friends. Whenever we moved to a new town my little sister and I would go door to door asking neighbors if they had any children we could play with.

As an adult, this type of behavior seems a little inappropriate. Can you imagine a grown adult scouring the neighborhood, going door to door asking for friends? A little creepy right?

When I became a mom I decided to stay at home with my children. Although I love being a stay at home mom, this job is not for everyone. Some people go stir crazy. Some people have to have the daily dose of adult interaction. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a working mother

I don’t know about you but when I became a mommy it became a lot more difficult to get together with my old friends and even more difficult if they didn’t have any kids of their own. When I became a stay at home mommy I found myself feeling a little lost and somewhat alone. I needed to make other mommy friends, people who I could relate to and bounce ideas off of.

If going door to door was out of the picture, how was I as a new mommy going to make new mommy friends?

  • I started going to my local library during their Babies & Tot’s Story Time every week. We would sit and sing and dance and read books. It was great. I met other moms and learned about even more ways to meet other stay at home moms.
  •  I was introduced to MeetUp.com by a mother from my library group and decided to give it a try. MeetUp.com is an extremely organized way to find local play-groups. There are all different types of groups you can join. I did this until my morning sickness kicked in with my second pregnancy.
  • Now I take my kids to different parks in the area. My kids get to be outside and burn off energy. They also get to interact and socialize with other children. I get to observe other mom’s in action with their children. If I think we have similar parenting styles I will usually start up a conversation with the other mom’s at the park. Recently I was told I was “cool” by another mom at a park. We exchanged telephone numbers and have set up a play date for our kids (yeah right- for us moms).
  • I have also recently made a great mommy friend through my church/in laws (Here is your shout out Joyce). She is fabulous!

Making new friends only gets more difficult as you get older simply because we as adults don’t put ourselves out there as much. We are no longer sitting in a classroom day in and day out. We do not see the same set of people every single day. We have to make more of an effort to maintain relationships. I think putting myself out there and making the effort is worth it.

Some days I want to pull out my hair because my kids are acting crazy and having a bad day. I need to vent to someone who understands. Sometimes I am completely clueless as how to handle a situation and I need to bounce ideas off of someone else who is also living in the trenches. Moms need other mom friends. At least I know I do.

6 comments:

  1. OMgoodness! my first shout out! Laura - I have moved (this being my 3rd state since having kids)- you are absolutely right - it is so hard to make new friends - and to make new friends that are, if not likeminded parents, are at least willing enough to not judge my parenting mistakes! I figure we're all just winging it, right?

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  2. Joyce- you are too funny.

    We all fall flat on our faces, the trick is to learn from your mistakes and to try not to repeat them.

    I love hearing other peoples mistakes and sharing some riduculous things that I have tried and failed at. You live, you learn, and you move on.

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  3. I totally feel you on this. I am a SAHM/WAHM and just added my own blog on top of it all. Now that all my girlfriends work and have their own kids it is so difficult to get us all together. I sure do miss adult conversation!!

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  4. TY for following me from the Alexa hop! No1 ever comments back .. they all say they will. (LOL!) anywho - following you now. TY again!

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  5. Hi Laura, thanks for stopping by Supermomplace :)

    Girl I so understand you on this one, I'm a working mom with 2 little girls. I work with mostly men, foreigners, nerds (no offense to the nerds) social skills are non-existent. I guess it's been rub off on me, it is so hard for me to make new friends this days, i was so happy when a lady at my church invited my girls to her kid bday party and introduce me to some of the other moms... still difference in schedule still makes it hard to keep in touch.

    so if you ever need to vent or scream, I'll vent and scream with you :)

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  6. I totally understand. Most of my friends are online. I have very few real life friends. I am just now starting to make friends and it feels so good!

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