You see them everywhere. Groups of moms at the park having a picnic, a cluster of women chatting at soccer practice, even the moms that just ran into each other at Target and are taking up the whole aisle catching up. How did they meet? How are they all friends? Don’t worry! You can find your own person to clog the aisles of Target within no time! Let’s talk about the easy ways to find mom friends!
Making Friends as an adult can be super awkward
Finding new friends as an adult can be daunting. First of all, because you’re not going to the places where you used to meet people pre-babies. You might not be working or in school anymore, which is the easiest and most obvious place to meet people. You don’t frequent bars or clubs anymore, so that’s out.
Second of all, finding an adult friend but also a mom friend is even more tricky because what if you find out your parenting styles are totally different? Their kid might be a jerk. Your kid might act like a jerk too and if the kids don’t get along this friendship is over before it started.
Not everyone at Starbucks wants to chat. They probably just want to finish their latte in peace. So, then where should we look for our new BFF? Until Target starts a Moms Group, (Can we get on that, please?) these are my best ideas.
ECFE
This stands for Early Childhood Family Education and I talked about this in my previous blog post, Sometimes You Will Have A Parenting Fail. This has been the #1 lifesaver for me since becoming a mom. I’ve learned so much and also some of my best friends that I still have to this day, started there. If you’re not familiar, it’s a community education class that you sign up for (and pay for it, but it’s generally on a sliding scale based on income and I’ve found it to be very reasonable) There’s an Early Childhood teacher and also a Parent Educator in the class. You alternate between playing with the kids in a large room with toys, organized crafts, songs and stories, and a separate time for parent discussion.
This is helpful because you can see naturally who your kid gravitates to and who they like to play with. You can see if you want them playing with the other kid, they’re not the kid who eats the crayons, right? Ok, great. Then you hone in on the mom and see if you guys vibe too. In the parent discussion, so many issues are discussed-potty training, discipline, sleep training, etc that you can quickly figure out who you would mesh well with, and others not so much.
Baby or Toddler Gymnastics
I had my daughter in a baby gymnastics class when she was less than a year old. No, I was not grooming her for the Olympics. I was home alone all day with an infant and I desperately needed to talk to adults, and this was close to our house. It was in a large, open gym and there was lots of time to chat to other moms. Taking a class like this is especially nice because based on the time of day you do it, you be with other parents with similar schedules. If you attend class on a Tuesday morning, you’re more than likely with other SAHM’s and similarly, if you do it on Wednesday evening or Saturday morning, you’re probably going to meet women who work outside the home. It’s important to have mom friends with the same schedule as you, because otherwise how are you guys going to hang out? I met 3 amazing mama’s in this class that I still talk to 9 years later.
Sports
This one seems like the obvious first contender for meeting friends, but this is my least favorite of all. Kids (ok, MY kids) don’t want to participate in a sport unless they know someone on the team. You sign your kid up your kid with Billy, you’re going to sit by Billy’s mom. The mom groups are already pre-assigned in that way.
Another tricky thing about this option is you’re sitting the whole time, as opposed to gymnastics or ECFE, where you’re walking around and mingling, but it can still be done. What I would do when I signed my child up for 9 am T-ball on Saturdays, would find the mom with the baseball hat and coffee. She’s not wearing wedges on the grass, hair curled already with perfect eyeliner even though it’s 9:15 am. (we were late a lot) Find your people.
Library Story Time
If you are not utilizing your local libraries already, what are you waiting for? They probably have more than 1 story time a week and probably even music time. The one I went to when the kids were young, was a combo so they didn’t have to sit still the whole time and it had a little free play at the end. The great things about this are that it’s free and only 45minutes long. If your kid hates the library, oh well you won’t be there long anyway. And since it’s so short it’s always easy to say to a potential mom friend, “hey you wanna grab lunch after this?”
So this one takes some guts but I recently just saw someone post to our local Facebook group something like “New to the area, I have a second grader and preschooler and we’re looking for cool mom’s and kids to hang with,” I scrolled past with a relief thinking “Thank God I already found my tribe.” I saw it again later and you guys, it had 34 comments and 50+likes! If you are brave enough to put yourself out there, you will find a friend you really click with! That just proves so many moms are lonely but they don’t know where to turn, especially when your kids are a little older and ECFE and Library storytimes are not your jam anymore. This would be a great route!
now what
You have identified your target. A laid-back but attentive mom who is wearing the same brand black leggings you are, and she has a stain on her shirt that she seems oblivious to. But, now what? This is where you can feel like you’re in high school or college all over again, wanting to say the right thing and hoping you’re cool enough for people to want to hang out with.
I start with a knowing smile or nod, work my way up to “which one is yours?” and segway into “do you live close by?”
The demeanor of the other mom is going to give you all the cues you need. I have been involved in more conversations than I’d like to admit, where I could tell they were just not that into me. Maybe it was me, maybe they didn’t need to add more friends to their circle, either way, I knew that this was going to go no farther than the park bench. That’s ok! I tried!
You will find your people, and it’s ok that it might take a little while because when you do they will be your people forever, and they are definitely worth waiting for.
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