Before the birth of my daughter, I had visions of all the “mom clubs” I would join. There would be the park mom club where we gossip and sip juice boxes as our children play quietly in the sandbox. The daycare mom club where we yell across the parking lot when spotting each other at pick-ups. The sports mom club where we sit back in camp chairs, sharing hidden sips of wine and cheese puffs while our kids play in the dirt and chase a couple of balls.
That’s what I envisioned would happen. That I would FINALLY get an invitation to the exclusive mom club.
But that’s not what happened. I’m three years into my motherhood journey, and my mom friend count of new friends who are moms is at a whopping zero. Sure, I have friends that are moms, but I haven’t made any new friends that are moms.
I believe there are many reasons for this, but below are a few of the top:
COVID fear.
While my daughter was born before even a whisper of COVID-19, her first years were during the heat of the pandemic, which meant no birthday party invites and no volunteering at school functions. Outside of daycare, we didn’t go anywhere to make friends. And when it came to daycare, I had no idea who the kids in her class even were, much less the parents as we weren’t allowed inside the facility most of the time.
Being a mom doesn’t make me less awkward.
Sure, now I’m a mom. But I’m still awkward, which makes me an awkward mom. With my particular case of awkwardness, I am prone to just blurting things out. For instance, one of the few parents I know from my daughter’s class attends the Mommy and Me gymnastics class we go to. Now, my daughter has come home a couple of times with bites from her little boy, as told to us by our daughter. Not a big deal as we understand that’s totally common in daycare, and we weren’t even mad about it. But being the awkward person I am, I went up to her at gymnastics and just blurted out, “Oh, did you hear your son bit my daughter again?” Silence and awkwardness. Needless to say, I did not get a social media invite from that mom.
It’s hard to make friends when you’re chasing after a toddler.
We make regular trips to the park but none of those trips have resulted in a new mom BFF. While I thought park trips would be a nice opportunity to rest and catch up, in reality, it’s an opportunity for my daughter to run wide open from playground to playground while I chase after her, trying to keep her from tripping, face-planting, or falling off numerous structures. There’s no rest for the playground mom. I can barely say “hi” to fellow moms — I’m too busy keeping eyes on my tornado of a child.
Our children don’t always like each other.
Unfortunately, my daughter has my difficult personality. She doesn’t like everyone, and she knows RIGHT AWAY whether she likes someone or not. On a particular park trip, a little girl was a little aggressive in her attempts to play with my daughter. My daughter was NOT about it and kindly yelled, “NO! GO AWAY FROM ME!,” which awkwardly left me to explain to the girl’s mother standing next to me that my daughter just needs a lot of personal space. They promptly moved to the next playground.
Everything is hard.
In my motherhood daydreams, making mom friends would be so easy. Our kids would just get along seamlessly and we would always be at the same places at the same time. Even our husbands would be best buds. Pre-mother me was so naïve!
In reality, everything with motherhood and parenthood is hard! When we do go to the park and library, we never see the same kids twice. Our schedule is like a revolving door sometimes. There is no guarantee where we will be, and more importantly, what time we will finally get there. And getting my daughter to even talk to another kid at planned activities is like pulling teeth. The phrase, “Say hello!” is a trigger for my daughter to run a full sprint in the opposite direction.
As my daughter grows and figures out more of who she is and what she likes, I am hoping our paths cross with a few moms and kids who are similarly aligned to us. I still have hopes that I will find my perfect “mom club” where all our kids are friends, we watch the same terrible television shows, and our husbands all tolerate each other.
But for now, if I ignore you mid-sentence on a park day to run after my child and you don’t see me return, trust that there are no hard feelings, and I most likely had to leave the park early, screaming toddler in tow.
