Reply to I meet a lot of moms, but no one wants to be my friend

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, I have felt like you do. One thing I've learned is to try and have low expectations for my mom friendships. I wouldn't say any of my mom friends are a "best friend" and there are even times when I don't feel close to any of them. But I do have several mom friends and I derive a lot of support from them even though I keep the expectations super low and don't really ask much of them. Examples:

- Met one friend at a mommy and me class when our kids were babies. We live near each other and our kids became friends. We do a lot of family socializing via playdates and family get togethers, but honestly she and I don't do a ton of 1:1 time -- maybe 2 or 3 times a year. It's hard to find time. But we do other things for each other. Like we provide babysitting for each other. It's not togetherness time, but wow do I appreciate it and it makes me feel tender towards her. Plus it has allowed me to get to know her kids well and I love my relationships with them. I feel a bond with her over this even though it's actually time we spend apart. That's an interesting thing to learn about friendships -- they don't always have to be based on time together.

- One mom friend is the wife of a close friend of mine from grad school. We have NOTHING in common except having become moms around the same time, being close in age, and of course she's married to my friend. But otherwise we are polar opposites in terms of interests, personality, everything. But we have this specific mom kinship based on having kids the same age and also the fact that both of us were unexpectedly SAHMs for a time (layoff for me, Covid-related for her). I've come to realize it's actually wonderful to have mom friends who are really different than you. I feel zero competition with her even though we're the same age and have kids the same age. We just have very different lives and priorities. So it's great because we can talk about our kids, our lives, struggles we're having, be supportive, but there's very little comparing. We've made different choices and are respectful of that.

- One mom friend was a friend before I became a mom and honestly we weren't even that close before. But during Covid, I reached out to her and just said "I'm struggling with parenting through this, can we do a text thread where we vent about the hard parts of this because I honestly just need to be able to get this out to someone who gets it maybe once a week or every other week." And she was like "YES" and we have done this since then. Like our entire friendship is based on an agreement to validate and support when the other person is at their wit's end with whatever -- tantrumming kids, school shut downs, unhelpful partner, demanding parents/ILs, etc. There is an unspoken rule of no advice, no judgment. Just listening and affirming -- yes that's annoying, or yup I've been there or omg I can't believe he did that. It is cathartic and so great to have this very specific outlet for this kind of vent. It keeps the "mom rage" (it's a thing, look it up!) in check and keeps me from feeling totally isolated on my worst days as a parent.

And those are my mom friends. Not a perfect confidant or bestie among them, and that's a-ok. Sometimes I go long periods without interacting with any of them, sometimes I'm reaching out to all of them on the same day because I need support. Also -- they don't know each other! No mom crew for me. They have met at my kid's birthday parties, but otherwise they are way too different to be friends with each other.

Sometimes mom friendships look different than you think they will or from the image of friendship you might get from the media. I just took the approach of figuring out what my actual needs for companionships, support, etc., were and just finding peopel who could fill those needs, even if it's an amalgam of a few different people. Would I love a best friend who totally gets me and with whom I have a standing date to catch up and support each other? Well, yeah, I would. Especially since my mom is not supportive like that at all and my sister isn't either. But short of that, what I have works pretty well.[/quote]

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