Can SAHM & WOHM be friends?

[Anonymous]

Sure. Lots of my friends are SAHMs.

[Anonymous]

Our nanny takes DD to weekday play dates and hosts play dates with mostly SAHMs (who all love the nanny). DD certainly isn’t missing out on any socialization.

Once in kindergarten, it all evens out. Play dates are after three (nanny) or on weekends (DH or me).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For sure yes. I have an amazing nanny who takes my 3yo to playdates with mostly SAHMs and they are fine with her, and she is fine with them.

I am friendly with some of the moms and we will go to dinner without the kids sometimes, or meet for coffee on occasion. I think the key is to try to build some kind of relationship with the mom - maybe you can invite kids over for a playdate on a weekend or something.

I do admit I feel left out sometimes because the moms will meet for lunch before school pick up, or grab coffee after drop off and I generally can’t do those things, but it is what it is.

Where do you live? Have they tried to poach your nanny yet?

NP here with a fantastic nanny. Everyone tries to poach her.

[Anonymous]

I have a really good friend from before we had kids. She ended up SAH and I WOH but with a flexible schedule, so we'll get together for a playdate 2-3x weekday afternoons. We talk about everything under the sun, not just kids. Often we'll let the kids (preschoolers) play and largely ignore them unless a sharing-related intervention is needed, so that we can chat.

I do see some SAHMs from DD's preschool class who are cliquey, because they see each other frequently and don't see me as much (despite the flexible schedule, I do actually have to work sometimes). I think part of it is that they are intimidated because they had fluff careers before kids and they feel they have nothing interesting to say, but that's a wrong assumption. I'm a mother too, so of course I'll be just as interested in a conversation about potty training as I am in discussing politics or some complex analysis. The only time I stay silent is if they start complaining about how their DHs don't help with the kids or house. I'll put on a sympathetic expression, but I'm not really sure how to respond.

[Anonymous]

It may be that’s these are church SAHMs. Every religion/church is different but some are going to be prejudicial against working/seeking financial security for religious reasons. Probably not representative of all SAHMs.

[Anonymous]

I think your question should be can people with very conflicting schedules be friends? I wouldn't take this so personally, though I see why it's frustrating for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a really good friend from before we had kids. She ended up SAH and I WOH but with a flexible schedule, so we'll get together for a playdate 2-3x weekday afternoons. We talk about everything under the sun, not just kids. Often we'll let the kids (preschoolers) play and largely ignore them unless a sharing-related intervention is needed, so that we can chat.

I do see some SAHMs from DD's preschool class who are cliquey, because they see each other frequently and don't see me as much (despite the flexible schedule, I do actually have to work sometimes). I think part of it is that they are intimidated because they had fluff careers before kids and they feel they have nothing interesting to say, but that's a wrong assumption. I'm a mother too, so of course I'll be just as interested in a conversation about potty training as I am in discussing politics or some complex analysis. The only time I stay silent is if they start complaining about how their DHs don't help with the kids or house. I'll put on a sympathetic expression, but I'm not really sure how to respond.

SAHMs are not intimidated by working moms. I used to be a working mom before I was a SAHM.

We do have conflicting schedules. I have both working mom friends and SAHM friends. Most of my friends are busy whether they are corporate lawyers, PTA presidents, launching a new business. Or they are busy juggling multiple kids like me. I still make time for my friends.

I don’t try to make friends through my friends. Sure, I am friendly with my kids’ friends’ parents. We carpool, we sit together at the pool or school events but I don’t necessarily consider them my friends. My kids have friends of both working and SAHMs. When they get older, it is drop off and it really doesn’t matter. I host kids who come home with me or ride the bus with my kids. My kids have been invited over to plenty of kids’ houses whose parents work. It does seem norm for at least one parent to have a flexible schedule or work from home sometimes.

[Anonymous]

Pp here. I actually made more of an effort to host when I was working. I threw a lot of get togethers on the weekends at my house. This only works when entire families get along and become friends. We made a lot of friends when my older kids were in preschool. My oldest is now 10 and we still hang out once a month at least as families and we will do moms nights out, brunch, afternoon tea sans kids.

I will host football and we invite those friends we made when kids were in preschool.

When I made these friends, I was working. I now stay home and they are still my friends. Some work. Some stay home. Ironically many of us have flipped. The ones who used to stay home have gone back to work. I used to work and I now stay home. Your working status is not permanent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You resent their wealth, op. You are so blinded by it you cant let yourself find out if you can be friends with them. Don’t let this define you.

Wealth says nothing about you or them, good or bad. It’s just numbers. Take a half day off work to go to one of the play dates. Keep an open mind and be proud of pulling up in that smart money Honda. It sounds hokey but it’s all in your confidence.

There are sahm witches and wohm witches, but you can do something about your own class baggage and just let it go.

DP. Nah, if they really make the comments OP suggests, she's just found a nasty group of wealthy women. Not all SAHMs are like that, nor are all wealthy women.

Sounds like you just need to forget about the church moms, OP.

[Anonymous]

Pp again. Just wanted to add that the friends we made when kids were in preschool were not necessarily at the same preschool. We just happen to meet when kids were ages 2-4. If you get along with one family, they introduce you to their friends and vice versa.

Op, it sounds like you haven’t found your people yet. Join a moms club, put your child in an activity, go to a different church. You will find like minded people eventually.

I do find it helps if your husband is social and well liked. If the dads hit it off, it is much more likely that you will hang out on their weekend time.

[Anonymous]

Which church? There are some churches where the divide may be more of a church thing. For example I grew up in an area with a lot of Mormons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It may be that’s these are church SAHMs. Every religion/church is different but some are going to be prejudicial against working/seeking financial security for religious reasons. Probably not representative of all SAHMs.

+1

(Pp who grew up around Mormons. The not working out of the home thing is big. Which is why so many do MLMs.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the preschool ages, it is hard to get the kids together when you have the working parent divide, absolutely. As a SAHM, I deliberately booked playdates during the day (and to get me through the day, since it can be isolating as a SAHM!) so that evenings and weekends could be family time. Now that the kids are school age, this is a non issue. First off, many of the SAHMs will return to the workforce when their youngest hits full day school anyway, so more of those moms becomes WOHMs. And like pp said, playdates move to the after school/weekend times anyway, and sports/extracurriculars become the main focus of socializing and play time.

Agreed. I think this is a temporary issue, op.

This is a temporary issue, but it does keep going passed preschool. I became good friends for a while with a clique of SAHMs in my neighborhood (all of my kids are in elementary school, I have two in elementary and two in pre-school still). I work from home twice a week so I would try to organize get-togethers with them on those days. It started being hard though -- they were always getting coffee or lunch or going places in the middle of the day, and even though they understood that I couldn't come on days I was actually working, they still made comments sometimes like I was picking work over them (which duh yes of course I was). I came to realize that I would never really be "in" with them or really best best friends with any of them, because I just couldn't commit to spending that much time with them during the work week, and my kids took the majority of time outside of weekend/evening. Things like taking a day off to go to Tysons Galleria with them to look at the bargain racks just aren't possible. Ditto with taking a day off to take our kids hiking in Shenandoah in the middle of the week. My kids are in camp if I'm not working. So I stopped trying, and now we're still friendly, but I'm not really in their clique anymore. They don't really include me on group text chains anymore, and I don't really go out of my way to hang out with them anymore. That's fine with me. As the OP said, I have other friends (though not as many as I once did), and I have to focus on what's important in my life right now (which unfortunately is financial security for me and my family). They legitimately have more time than I do. That's fine. I don't judge them, hopefully they don't judge me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the preschool ages, it is hard to get the kids together when you have the working parent divide, absolutely. As a SAHM, I deliberately booked playdates during the day (and to get me through the day, since it can be isolating as a SAHM!) so that evenings and weekends could be family time. Now that the kids are school age, this is a non issue. First off, many of the SAHMs will return to the workforce when their youngest hits full day school anyway, so more of those moms becomes WOHMs. And like pp said, playdates move to the after school/weekend times anyway, and sports/extracurriculars become the main focus of socializing and play time.

Agreed. I think this is a temporary issue, op.

This is a temporary issue, but it does keep going passed preschool. I became good friends for a while with a clique of SAHMs in my neighborhood (all of my kids are in elementary school, I have two in elementary and two in pre-school still). I work from home twice a week so I would try to organize get-togethers with them on those days. It started being hard though -- they were always getting coffee or lunch or going places in the middle of the day, and even though they understood that I couldn't come on days I was actually working, they still made comments sometimes like I was picking work over them (which duh yes of course I was). I came to realize that I would never really be "in" with them or really best best friends with any of them, because I just couldn't commit to spending that much time with them during the work week, and my kids took the majority of time outside of weekend/evening. Things like taking a day off to go to Tysons Galleria with them to look at the bargain racks just aren't possible. Ditto with taking a day off to take our kids hiking in Shenandoah in the middle of the week. My kids are in camp if I'm not working. So I stopped trying, and now we're still friendly, but I'm not really in their clique anymore. They don't really include me on group text chains anymore, and I don't really go out of my way to hang out with them anymore. That's fine with me. As the OP said, I have other friends (though not as many as I once did), and I have to focus on what's important in my life right now (which unfortunately is financial security for me and my family). They legitimately have more time than I do. That's fine. I don't judge them, hopefully they don't judge me.

I meant their kids are all in elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:According to my SAHM acquaintances the answer is “No.”

My DD has a few circles of friends - kids of our friends, school friends, camp, church, activities etc.

All of our (grown up) friends are dual professional households. We moved her to a preschool with a similar makeup of dual professional households. I’m the “dumb” one without a PhD.

Our church is in a more affluent zip code (DMV - fill in the blank). Her church friends primarily have SAHMs. She loves those kids but when we try to make plans the SAHMs always work-shame me. “Oh, we do play dates on Tuesdays at 1 pm” or “Oh, you work? Like full time?? It didn’t make sense for me to work because of DHs career and I feel being at home for little Timmy is important” as they drive away in BMW to their McMansion.

It makes me feel like garbage but my kid is insisting on being friends with the kids so I keep trying. The answer is usually “weekends aren’t good. How is Tuesday?” or last minute cancel. It’s multiple moms from this group, not just one.

Maybe it’s me? Rolling up in my Honda? I have friends so I’m pretty sure I’m not a social pariah. I just feel bad for my kid

.

Np It sounds like you want your kids to be friends of these parents, rather than you want to be friends. Personally, if the schedules conflict than there really isn't anything you can do Unless the SAHM are willing to pick up your kid at school than I don't see it happening.