As I grow older, I find making friends harder than it was when I was younger. Because I’m a mom, I am trying to make mommy friends so there can be kids for my daughter to play with as well.
I wrote a while ago about navigating through mommy groups, but I was thinking about the process of making friends. I think a lot of the women I’ve met in my mommy groups are pretty much acquaintances as we don’t have a lot in common beyond the fact that we are all mommies.
I met my best friend through our local mommies group, and while she lived right down the street it was easy for us to just hang out together. It was nice – she is a fellow geek and our kids adore each other. But then she had to move 2 hours away to Charlotte, so my comfortable little bubble was popped.
So, I’m trying to make mommy friends again, instead of just mommy acquaintances. It’s hard, because I’m a fairly shy person, especially around new people. But I’d love to find more friends with kids, for both my sake and for my daughter’s. But it can be hard to find other moms that I have things in common with and can make a connection to. But I’m working on it!
Do you have lots of mommy friends?
No, I have a tough time fitting in with the other moms. I am a “work-at-home” artist, and lately I have been doing a lot of pop-culture geeky designs (firefly, star wars, steampunk Disney) ….trying to explain what kind of art I do, I get a lot of blank stares. 🙂
No. I have exactly 2 “mommy friends” – and that’s only because we were friends before children came into the picture.
I have an extremely difficult time relating to other “mommies” – mainly due to my own insecurities and intense shyness. I am always feeling that any other mother in the world knows exactly what this “parenting” thing is all about while I am left struggling in the water… and darned if I’m going to let them know that I don’t know what I’m doing!
I honestly don’t think any of us really don’t know what we are doing most of the time. Parenting is hard!
Not a lot, I got burned pretty bad with the mommy play date groups when I first tried them so I have been a lot more careful about the mommies I am friends with now. I have 1 really good mommy friend who thankfully is patient with me and my insecurities but I also don’t judge her with any of hers so it works well for us. I have several other mommies that I am friends with, but not where we really talk about things other than the kids. A number of the friends came after enrolling our son in preschool part time and many of them came from my one mommy friend who is much more outgoing than me, she is the one who plans play dates and stuff with all kinds of mommies. Becoming good friends with a mommy so different from myself has really helped me settle into a new area and parenthood much easier and more happily than I probably would have otherwise.
I have never found it easy to make friends, but I joined a “Mommy group” when my first daughter was 9 months and after hanging out with the other members for more than 2 years now (she just turned 3) I feel like a few of them are real friends. I think friends are hard to make once you have kids because the first focus is always on your kids and not on nurturing this potential new friendship, so it takes longer for the relationship to develop into friendship. But it’s nice when it finally does!
If I get the opportunity to hang with a group of mommies, it’s first always about my sons and them finding nice playmates. It’s an added bonus when I click with a mom! However, I never get too sucked into a clique or group drama. I remember I had a friend who was SO upset that one mommy was invited to a playdate that she was not. She was devestated! We all have our own lives, and we’re big kids now. We should also be able to play with who we want when it’s convenient for us.
For anyone who is looking to be able to talk to other Geeky parents, there is a new FB group called Geek Parenting (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_217381291617963&ap=1). It’s an open group – it’s small right now but it could be a great resource to be able to talk about geeky things and parenting.
There are also forums here on GeekMom too!
I guess it’s a common thing for geeks to be shy, anyway, so it probably is this way for most of us. Well, maybe MANY of us. Guess I can’t speak for the majority.
All my real friends, period, let alone Mommy friends, live at least an hour away. I see them a few times a year at least! But I’ve always been terrible at making friends (hey! I’m not bad at KEEPING them at least!) and at least in school you were always thrown together with people for long periods of time, which made it easier for friendships to develop. I don’t think I’ve made a true new friend, one that I would do stuff with outside whatever-our-initial-connection-is, since college.* So it’s not so much making friends as a mom as much as making friends as an adult at ALL.
*(Unless you count online friends. I’ve made several of those. But as I’ve never met any of them in real life, it still doesn’t really break free of whatever-our-initial-connection-is, being The Internet, does it).
i don’t have a lot of mom friends at all. I always get the impression I am going in a first date when I am trying to find mom friends to, it is all uncomfortable and akward.
Yeah, I understand that awkward feeling – I think it’s almost harder for geek moms to make friends because our interests (in a lot of cases) are not very mainstream.
I have had pretty good luck with moms groups. I liked local, online groups so you can kind of get to know people online before meeting them. I met a couple of great friends through a group like that when we lived on the east coast and a couple more when we moved out west.
I agree that trying to meet other parents sometimes feels a lot like dating. When we first moved to this area I spent a lot of time at the park. On the rare occasion that I would meet another mom who I felt like I connected with, I would still feel awkward asking for her number or suggesting we set up a playdate for our kids. It was equally awkward responding to the advances of those who I knew I wouldn’t want to spend much time with but who were eager to set up further meetings.
I have a few friends, but I guess I’ve just come to accept that most of the other mommies I come into contact with won’t share my same interests, so I won’t necessarily be able to chat about the upcoming Hobbit movie, share Happy Towel Day, or laugh over the latest offerings on ThinkGeek. But that’s why I love reading Geek Mom! 😀
I have so little time to keep up with my friends beyond facebook and occasional texts and phone calls. All my close friends are not close enough for a quick coffee or dinner (as if I had time for that anyhow). When you have 3 kids going in 3 different directions and work full time, there’s so little time for friends. I am lonely, but I honestly don’t know how I could nurture a new friendship right now. I barely see my husband!
Other moms I’ve met, through being a room mom at school, are either as busy as I am, or they don’t work, so they have time to hang out with each other. Plus they just don’t get me, as others have said. We’re friendly, but not real friends. So hard…
Any of you geeky ladies live in Indianapolis, IN? I’d love to arrange a play date for my 2 yr old son. 😉
I’ve had a hard time making mommy friends, and it is even more difficult given that I’m in a career that is < 10% female (at work I have a 4-stall bathroom all to myself – good perk eh?).
I don’t live in Indy, but I know a geeky mom who lives there who is looking to make geeky mom friends.
If you want to email me at eoywin@gmail.com – I could see about introducing you!