Recently I have been thinking about mom friends. You know the ones who you can get together with, your kids play together and you chat about life.
I recently moved and have been spending a lot of time at our new park, there is a great splash pad and park with a covered area with benches and tables. As I sit there I notice the ladies chatting, their kids are all playing and the moms are talking and enjoying themselves. I sit there by myself with my iPhone, Facebook and Twitter. While all of those are great I miss the actual company of a physical human beside me.
I don't notice it all that often but it seems to really be in my face at the park. Could be because I work at home all day by myself.
Yes I just moved into a new neighbourhood and I still need to meet people, but even in my old neighbourhood I went to the park by myself. People were a lot friendlier there. While we live in this great new neighbourhood there are no kids around us. Makes me sad as we had that in our old house, up until the last month when a great family moved in with 3 boys the ages of my kids.
So tonight at dinner I started thinking to myself about how sad it makes me that I don't have any mom friends who I can call and ask them to meet me, or ones that call me.
Sure I have friends, not like I am all pity me because I am a friendless loser.
But when my kids were little I had "Mom" friends that I regularly saw, our kids played and we chatted about life. I met a great group when my 1st was born, we still continued our regular play dates as we all started having 2nd kids but then something happened...
I started Grace Announcements when my son was 1 and by the time my daughter was born I was busy. I didn't have as much time, I needed to use nap time for working not forgoing it for human contact. And now that I am at a point in my life where I want it, it isn't there.
Shows the importance of nurturing friends along with family. With making it a priority to stay in contact with friends. While I know that I will have friends in my life that will always be there, no matter how much time goes by it doesn't matter. We can pickup right where we left off. I am very lucky to have a lifelong friend like that, unfortunately she lives in Ottawa so we don't get to just see each other whenever we want.
Do you make it a priority to keep all your friends close? Or do you have friends which whom you have grown apart from?
But then you have friends who you put a lot of effort into, you try to contact, you try to setup "dates" but it never works out.
Do you forget about them?
Does it also get to a point in life where you have friends who are moms but you don't ever get together with kids?
10 comments:
Why not go over to those moms and introduce yourself?
I have a group of mom friends, and even though we don't see each other as much as we did when the kids were younger, we make it a point to have a girls night out every couple of months. We also keep in touch through Facebook. We are a friendly bunch. :)
I also have this problem. Life is so busy that I'm not sure I have time to maintain friendships with 'moms' that I met during my first mat leave (1 kid was easy) or during my second mat leave. I seem to only keep the mom friends that have kids the exact same age as mine.
But I do agree with Jennifer, introduce yourself to the other moms at the park. Even if you have nothing in common with them, it's will be nice adult conversation about a common theme--kids!
I get this. I am home now after a career out of the home. This is my first summer alone and it has felt a little lonely! In fact, I just wrote a post about it today :) One decision I have made is to let the friends that are too hard to coordinate with go....it is disappointing to me when it never works out. Love and Luck!!
Hey there! Sometimes mom friends come and go and we grow apart for whatever reason, move, kids grow up and have different interest etc....but be blessed to have great friends. Try to join a moms group., or try to make contact with the "new moms" and tell them you are a new mom on the block.You might be surprised they might become great friends to you, you just need to make that 1st move perhaps. And you can always call me for play dates :)
Thanks everyone!
I have an issue with just going up to people and saying "hi I am new here". Maybe I need to get over that! I have chatted with a few who seem nice but most of them are there with other moms and don't seem to have any interest to have anyone join in.
Steviesara - It is hard at first, but does get easier. Most of the time I enjoy my alone time. I too am an extrovert, too bad you didn't live close, we could energize each other!
Lindsay, I was thinking the same thing...too bad we aren't close ;)
I'm in "friend flux" currently... Not jiving with old ones as much. Can't say I have a "bestie". Hoping to click with someone close again.
I don't have mom friends like that either. My neighbourhood is too diverse and many cultures seem to like sticking to themselves. I cannot wait to move to a new neighbourhood and meet new people. My favourite 'mom friend' moved away and life is busy. We do make as much effort as possible to get together. Our sons are best friends (seriously) and we nurture that friendship. Our whole families have become close and the boys think they are cousins. lol. I say bring something kids can't resist to the park and use it as a lure to start a conversation with their parents. (thinking some sort of cool, sharable toy)
Lindsay, I couldn't have written a truer-to-me post. I can count on one hand the number of friends I have (moms and prior). At the park I don't feel comfortable walking up to ppl who know one another already ... that's just my own insecurities.
What does help me is business. By communicating with others online, I've forged some great bonds. And from those I've been lucky enough to meet up with, I indeed call them friends. My biggest hurdle is *no one* lives in my area. Perhaps we should start talking ;)
Lindsay and Jackie - I'll be your bestie ;)
I've been trying to get together with Tunde for weeks but work keeps getting in the way :(
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