Mommy Dating

Cloth diapers.  Check.  Skinny jeans.  Bad idea.  No make-up.  Check?  Bowl-cut.  Yikes.

It's the mommy dating scene, and don't tell me you haven't been there.  We meet on playgrounds and are simply desperate for companionship.  We spy the mom with a relaxed stance, a playful quality, a dusting of fashion, and we wonder if she's available.  Does she already have an intimate network of friends, or does she have room in her life for me.  I offer my number.  She accepts.  I see her another time, and she's laughing with Yoga Pants, unaware of my presence.  Do I let our previous afternoon of blissful adult dialogue morph into the mommy-walk-of-shame?  I leave with my child-in-stroller.

Being a stay-at-home mom is delightful in many ways, but when it comes to suburbia's non-answer to community, it sucks.  So we date other moms.  No one walks down the hallway of an apartment complex and joins another family for morning coffee.  Does that even happen in the urban world?  I've been told in generations past, that's how moms got through the day.  Today we meet up on Facebook, at the playground, and during library story-time.  We hope to find a moment of relief from our three-year-old's questions and our toddlers constant curiosity.  We want to meet and find support.  And if it could be as simple as connecting via text, gathering at the park, welcoming one another into our family rooms, we'd be all set.  But mommy ideologies have become so complex today.  There are lines we draw without even realizing it, and somehow we sabotage our quest for community.

I was fortunate to almost entirely skip the life-partner dating scene.  I met my husband only two short months after leaving the convent, and believe me it wasn't planned that way.  We just knew it was our destiny to be together.  I have friends who know that calling me for dating advice is pointless.  They tell me about their boyfriends, but we have an agreement that I mostly listen.  There's no pressure for me to come up with some knowledgeable experience to help them through Bad Date #7.  My best advice is, "If he's a quality man, don't give up in the first three dates....no matter how awkward things might be."  Ask me how I know.

But Mommy Dating---now that's an entirely different cinematic experience!  I'm getting SO much experience in that area that I could write the screenplay.  No one told me that I was going to have to date other moms in order to find the right friend-fit, but I'm figuring it out...like, yesterday.  This past year I had a friendship start and end over our active, first-born sons.  We met at the grocery store.  We discovered we both had unusually active toddlers---the kind that only a handful of women really understand when you describe them.  We exchanged numbers, and we actually got together!  More than once!  I even threw her a simple baby shower for the second boy she was expecting.  It was looking promising.

But now it's over.  Our parenting styles were not compatible.  I grieved.  I'm still grieving.  It seems so bizarre to lose a friend over the way my son plays with her son.  She is afraid of her child getting hurt.  Isn't that what happens when two boys get together?  In my understanding, there was nothing unusual about how our boys played.  But in her world it was just too dangerous----running and falling over each other is an alarming thing.  Really?

I shouldn't judge her.  She has every right to establish a certain level of  protection around her children.  And maybe I'm far too laid back?  I am the mother that has kissed countless boo-boos.  Regardless, we are no longer dating.  There just wasn't the right kind of chemistry.  And we both use cloth diapers!  Go figure.

I won't give up.  I'll keep dating other moms.  I will date ones that smoke pot for medical reasons.  I will date ones that don't smile when you first meet.  I will date ones that have thick accents (although I might have to stick to texting instead of phone conversations).  America has become so proud of the mantra, "Think Globally/Act Locally," but I don't think they know how that works when it comes to friendship.  Maybe I should save this for another post, but it's worth saying more than once!  Turn around and love the person right next to you, folks!  Don't look for friends that have the right fashion or parenting approach for you.  Just be a friend.  Do it now.  It's more important than Pinterest, hosting parties, and checking Facebook.