finding your tribe - older moms

[Anonymous]

One thing to remember is that most of the friendships you form will be fairly shallow. They are driven by age group (baby meetups) and kid interests (soccer, scouts)... As kids grow older, become more independent and have own interests, many (if not all) of these friendships will fade away. At least this was my experience. Maybe it’s just me. At the time, I thought I was forming all these great bonds. I had a lot of fun, met many people thru baby groups etc but it was at a superficial level

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had my second at 40. I'm 53 now. By my 40s, I simply did not have the patience for many other moms, much less mom groups. Too much backbiting, too much gossiping, too much unhappiness, too much willingness to sell out another mom's kids, too much of a tendency to talk badly about their own spouse and kids, too much comparison of each other's kids, too much bad energy. It's almost like if one of the women in the group was unhappy, then she worked double time to get the other women to feel unhappy in life, too.

Eh, no. By my 40s I didn't want any part of that stuff. Mature enough to sit by myself at the park with no problem. I had two moms in my neighborhood I would hang with at the playground, but otherwise I avoided these mom groups like the plague. Shudder.

This.

I say hello then park it on a bench or help my child. I was never awesome at chitchat for the sake of it, now I feel free to choose when to interact or not. It’s refreshing. When I was younger there was always pressure to fit in. I do make connections, but I don’t try as hard to make something work. We gel or not, and that’s ok. I’m also really not super interested in the school board conversations which gives me an out right now.

[Anonymous]

Secular, liberal leaning private school.