Rejected by moms in a playgroup- feeling hurt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My baby cried for 2 hours too when she was an infant. She cried so much one night she threw up. Next night, her nose started bleeding.

Oh my god.

[Anonymous]

How did we go from OP's original post about feeling to hurt to CIO?? I don't think OP has read any of the subsequent posts including the mean one from the 18 03. I am hoping she doesn't read it.

[Anonymous]

I too am amused that this thread evolved to a debate about CIO.

I return to the main point. OP, you are much better off now that you're freed from the neighborhood bitch fest. If they want to commiserate about their misery, great. While they do that, you can come find the rest of us who celebrate and learn from each other's successes, and like to talk about art, politics and books . . . or even just listen to others talk if we're too busy to keep up ourselves.

[Anonymous]

"They are really the only moms in my neighborhood so I dont have too much choice. "

when I first read this I thought OP must live in the middle of nowhere, but it turns out she is in Adams Morgan?!
There must be a thousand moms within a 1/4 mile radius!

[Anonymous]

Um, not that anyone cares about this topic but... well, does anyone like being a loner mom?

I think I do. I think my kids are hysterical! I find them terribly amusing, and don't really miss talking with "other moms" just for the sake of having other grownups to talk with. Freestyle, non-commital chit-chat at the playground is more my style, I think.

I have my good buddies whom I don't see as often as I used to, and my hubs. Oh, and my sisters. That's pretty much it. I guess I kind of like being a loner.

Anyway, OP, have you tried reveling in your loner-ness? It's kind of empowering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Um, not that anyone cares about this topic but... well, does anyone like being a loner mom?

I think I do. I think my kids are hysterical! I find them terribly amusing, and don't really miss talking with "other moms" just for the sake of having other grownups to talk with. Freestyle, non-commital chit-chat at the playground is more my style, I think.

I have my good buddies whom I don't see as often as I used to, and my hubs. Oh, and my sisters. That's pretty much it. I guess I kind of like being a loner.

Anyway, OP, have you tried reveling in your loner-ness? It's kind of empowering.

I like being a loner mom, too! But I think of it as more of me finally realizing that I'm more happy doing things that I like to do (like reading and being with my kids) then spending time with other moms. And same here with the buddies I don't see as often and family. They are enough for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here- its true- I don't truly click with the group, but it has only been a very short time, and I believe it takes a while to develop true friendships. I am new to the area and live in Adams Morgan and find it very hard to meet other stay at home moms in the area. My baby is only 5 months old so he is not acting out or causing problems. Everyone in the group has an infant and no one really knew each other before. I do not think of myself as overly dramatic or annoying. And if something I did annoy the group, I would want to know about it. Thanks for the kind words- it is very highschool. But it's hard not take it personally and I feel pretty low about it.

OP - I was a SAHM in Adams Morgan a few yrs ago. There were TONS of moms. Go to Walter Pierce, Kalorama park. If that doesn't work, try Stead Park, head to the Building Museum, cleveland park library, jonah's treehouse classes. There are sooooo many moms in the Adams Morgan/Woodley Park/Dupont area!! We also used to be at the zoo all the time.

Good luck - these don't sound like nice women! I met some WONDERFUL friends from my time as a SAHM. They're out there

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Um, not that anyone cares about this topic but... well, does anyone like being a loner mom?

I think I do. I think my kids are hysterical! I find them terribly amusing, and don't really miss talking with "other moms" just for the sake of having other grownups to talk with. Freestyle, non-commital chit-chat at the playground is more my style, I think.

I have my good buddies whom I don't see as often as I used to, and my hubs. Oh, and my sisters. That's pretty much it. I guess I kind of like being a loner.

Anyway, OP, have you tried reveling in your loner-ness? It's kind of empowering.

I know someone just like you and, while I find it bizarre, I'm envious that she's so comfortable being alone. Husband and kids just aren't enough for me. But I really wish they were.

[Anonymous]

When I was home with the baby i felt very lonely and yearned to hang out with other people. I tried getting together with a couple of mom groups and as much as the baby was the center of my life, there were other things I wanted to talk about apart from babies. There was a time when I wasn't getting any sleep because of the baby's bad sleeping habits, and I wanted to find out from others moms how their babies were sleeping, and same goes with other baby-related topics (I wanted to find out what I was doing wrong and learn from other moms). But at the end of the day, I was much more interested in talking about other things: life, the world, books, movies, relationships, etc, and not solely babies. So I decided to give up on mom groups because getting together to talk about babies only bored me.
There is something very artificial about mom groups. Something artificial and kind of suffocating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was home with the baby i felt very lonely and yearned to hang out with other people. I tried getting together with a couple of mom groups and as much as the baby was the center of my life, there were other things I wanted to talk about apart from babies. There was a time when I wasn't getting any sleep because of the baby's bad sleeping habits, and I wanted to find out from others moms how their babies were sleeping, and same goes with other baby-related topics (I wanted to find out what I was doing wrong and learn from other moms). But at the end of the day, I was much more interested in talking about other things: life, the world, books, movies, relationships, etc, and not solely babies. So I decided to give up on mom groups because getting together to talk about babies only bored me.
There is something very artificial about mom groups. Something artificial and kind of suffocating.

Loner mom here:

I guess I sort of felt that way... not quite that the mom groups were suffocating, just not friendships based on the same varied interests as say friends I made while single and then married and childless. I did find other mothers interesting as mothers, and I liked to ask them questions when I was looking for information for myself. And then chit-chat here and there to pass the time on the playground, library, or museum. I guess I made several acquaintaces over time. But only once did I feel like striking up an actual deep friendship with another mom-I-met-while-mothering. I don't think I'm unfriendly or anything--to the contrary, I smile and hopefully seem nice enough... just don't usually feel like something "sticks," and if it doesn't, I don't bother to follow up with excursions beyond incidental run-ins at the playground.

My other 'real' friends mostly don't have children, or their children are much older (I'm a late to the game mum), so we don't really talk about kids. And we see each other pretty rarely, like maybe once every few weeks.

Well, anyway... everyone has their own style and needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Um, not that anyone cares about this topic but... well, does anyone like being a loner mom?

I think I do. I think my kids are hysterical! I find them terribly amusing, and don't really miss talking with "other moms" just for the sake of having other grownups to talk with. Freestyle, non-commital chit-chat at the playground is more my style, I think.

I have my good buddies whom I don't see as often as I used to, and my hubs. Oh, and my sisters. That's pretty much it. I guess I kind of like being a loner.

Anyway, OP, have you tried reveling in your loner-ness? It's kind of empowering.

Another lone wolf mom here... I am realizing at 40 that I am also happy alone, and in fact, need to be alone in order to recharge my batteries. I am also comfortable being alone with my kids, or taking my kids somewhere with just me. I think it strengthens our bonds more to have the one-on-one (or two) time without the distraction of other kids or me talking to another mom instead of them.

So, I'm good with all that and understanding myself better... until my daughter started elementary school. Now I can see that I have likely handicapped her at school, because all these little girls have moms who are tightknit into little pods and each pod is linked to other pods, so everyone pretty much knows everyone else (or have at least formed an opinion) My neighborhood is small enough (3 elems) that people really do start to cross paths everywhere, and it's easy to play 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon here!

Anyway, point being, now I'm learning quickly that I need to socially plug in at least for my daughter's sake so that she's not left out in school (and she is shy and awkward, and has this hilarious SNL style sense of humor that little kids don't think is funny AT ALL...) In addition, she is definitely NOT introverted, so I am having to break out of my shell and seek out friendships with other moms now so their kids can come over to play with my daughter. So, you do have to walk a balanced line even if you are perfectly happiest being a loner, because you may get extroverted kids and school friends can be hard to make when the kids have all been playing together for years already.

I'm still my most comfortable in my own family's company though. I like that about myself!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Another lone wolf mom here... I am realizing at 40 that I am also happy alone, and in fact, need to be alone in order to recharge my batteries. I am also comfortable being alone with my kids, or taking my kids somewhere with just me. I think it strengthens our bonds more to have the one-on-one (or two) time without the distraction of other kids or me talking to another mom instead of them.

So, I'm good with all that and understanding myself better... until my daughter started elementary school. Now I can see that I have likely handicapped her at school, because all these little girls have moms who are tightknit into little pods and each pod is linked to other pods, so everyone pretty much knows everyone else (or have at least formed an opinion) My neighborhood is small enough (3 elems) that people really do start to cross paths everywhere, and it's easy to play 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon here!

Anyway, point being, now I'm learning quickly that I need to socially plug in at least for my daughter's sake so that she's not left out in school (and she is shy and awkward, and has this hilarious SNL style sense of humor that little kids don't think is funny AT ALL...) In addition, she is definitely NOT introverted, so I am having to break out of my shell and seek out friendships with other moms now so their kids can come over to play with my daughter. So, you do have to walk a balanced line even if you are perfectly happiest being a loner, because you may get extroverted kids and school friends can be hard to make when the kids have all been playing together for years already.

I'm still my most comfortable in my own family's company though. I like that about myself!

Hi, I was one of the ones that posted about liking to be alone. My son started kindergarten this year, and I've found that it helps that I joined a mom's group a few weeks ago because then since I'm in the mom's group, then I have met some of the moms and can coordinate drop off playdates. Now, I hardly ever go to the mom's group stuff at all, but it did help my son out just to join. So you might consider joining a group, because even if you hardly go, you're still "in" the group, and that helps your kid.

[Anonymous]

Wow. I just read 18:03's post. Well, OP, you have your answer. The women in that group are mean and exclude people because of the smallest of things. You don't need them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:*shrug* Without knowing them, none of us can say whether OP is, in fact, insufferable or the group that booted her are "painfully cliquish." You know it's possible there's some truth to both. I don't honestly believe someone asked, "Does your baby sleep through the night," she answered yes and the group simply turned around and stopped calling her as a result. I HAVE known people who never stop going on about how wonderful, fabulous, blessed and lucky their lives are. And good for them! But down here on earth, I want someone who will commiserate with my little tribulations, and I don't know that I could relate to someone who has none.

Maybe you should join their playgroup then.

You wound me. All I was suggesting is it's possible the OP is portraying herself in the best possible light and that the truth is a little more complicated than poor, poor sweet OP and the mean mommies who stopped calling her for no reason at all. But that's fine.

PP I was joking but trying to get a point across that - believe it or not some women do have 'great' babies. I mean isn't that what we women say to another baby that's calm, sleeps well, eats well...that she's a 'great baby'? My sister had a great baby. Many women can and do have great babies. Mine was colicky. But I would not reject anyone because they had an easier life than mine andit made me jealous to know about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So you are friends with everyone who has ever entered your life? I don't think that's possible. You get thrown together with lots of people, you get along better with some than others, you choose the ones you want to spend more time with, and if you're lucky, they choose you too. You can call choosing not to be friends with someone "rejecting," but then we're all doing a lot of rejecting every day.

I didn't say that. What I'm saying is that in the 4th grade, or when we are younger, our moms probably wanted us to grow up to be polite, fair, just, and secure with ourselves so that when we meet people, peers, who have more than we do, whether it be a bigger house, bigger income, better husband, better babies, whatever, we can be fair and give them a chance to see if we can make a friend or at least an acquaintance out of them. But never to reject them because we're jealous they have an easier life than ours.