Why is making mom friends so hard?

My fingers poised over the screen of my phone, which was currently lit up with a text message. The text was inviting me to spend time with the neighborhood moms, and I was contemplating how to respond since my schedule was so full. 

I was desperate for mom friends. Visions of hanging out with women while our children played at our feet had been with me since the two lines appeared on the stick. That was what was fed to me by movies and books, so it seemed like that would be my life now. 

The reality wasn’t as rosy. 

My pre-baby friends were divided into two camps. The one camp wasn’t going to have kids. The other had their kids more than a decade ago (the joy of waiting for my own). All had some level of freedom that was no longer mine. They could move around in a world I used to inhabit that didn’t include worrying about what to do about that crying baby at home—what did it need to eat, what would it wear, was it developing correctly, who would watch it while I was gone? No, they didn’t worry about any of that, so we all were suddenly very separate. 

And I was just so very alone. 

That meant I needed new friends. It sounds super simple and like something I should be able to do with a snap of the fingers now that I had a baby on my hip. In reality, it was much more complicated. First off, my daughter was so little at first. When I took her places, she needed all of my attention, so we were an all-inclusive unit and I didn’t have the mental capacity to look up to see who else was there besides us. And even if I could, no one seemed all that interested in showing up at some stranger’s house to have their baby play with my baby. They were their own all-inclusive units. And that meant that first year of being a mom was very, very lonely. 

But then my daughter looked up from our unit. She wanted independence from me, which meant her own set of friends. I couldn’t let my lack of social skills set her back, so I watched as she chased after kids, asking to be friends. 

My daughter is a little different than most kids. She started off chasing kids who were five to six years older than her. The moms of these kids laughed at her. The kids were either annoyed or interested in mothering her. It wasn’t good for either of us. To say I was grateful when she finally tired of the rejection would be an understatement.

She finally moved on to kids who were closer in age but not quite close enough, and these moms started sniffing around a lot more seriously than the initial set of moms. “How old was she?” She’s a petite girl for her age, I’d say apologetically as I revealed her age. Their eyes would widen as they realized she was even younger than they had anticipated. 

I don’t know if it was because their child wouldn’t likely get as much out of her as she would out of their child, but we were starting to be shunned when the age gaps weren’t nearly as large. Apparently less than a year was a big deal, even if the kids were happily playing. 

After more time went by with not much to show for friends for either of us, I had to start taking this lag seriously. My daughter needed others so her extroverted self could shine. I needed others who understood what I was going through. These twin needs were greater than my dislike of talking to complete strangers. Instead of being a passive participant in this dance we kept finding ourselves, I started looking around. 

At every activity we attended, I observed who my daughter played with and if she enjoyed them. Then, I would approach the mom and give her my number. The implication being, I want to be your friend. Mom after mom took the number I forced on them. 

I didn’t have high hopes, but then I started getting texts. Maybe I wasn’t the only mom who was unbelievably lonely.

But something started happening that my desperate eyes had refused to see: I had nothing in common with these women. I waited to have my daughter, so these women were much younger than me. That alone was no big deal, but there was little common ground to build on. Even our ways of raising our children were completely different. I was the strict mom, which is comical when I feel like I’m overly permissive out of pure exhaustion. 

So casting this big net based on my child was not only not working, it was starting to make me think there was something wrong with me. 

It’s so much lonelier to be with those who you are not comfortable with than to simply be alone. I looked at my child who was so happy within herself and was starting to attract so many more kids who wanted to be her friend. I needed to keep trying. But it needed to be different. I returned to the search with a new perspective: Our search for friends didn’t need to be solely based on her preferences. Instead of looking at who was playing with my daughter at activities, I looked at the parents who were actively participating or who were willing to make jokes with me. If I meshed with their energy, I invited them to another of our activities—much less pressure than a phone number. 

Suddenly, phone numbers were given to me, my phone number was requested from mutuals and new playdates were on our calendar. Things got easier. 

Which brings me back to the text I was staring at. Did I want to meet up with a group of moms for game night? I looked at our schedule and realized that it was a very full week. My introverted self couldn’t add one more thing to it. 

“Can’t make it this time. But ask me next time?” I wasn’t desperate anymore. I could pick who we hung out with and do it when it suited our schedule. No more squeezing anything in that didn’t work for me. 

“I GET IT. I’ll text you next time.” And she did.