My kids can make best friends at a park in 3.8 seconds. I'm talking....they've been down the slide twice and are holding hands and making play date plans already. Meanwhile most moms sit and watch and smile and wouldn't dream of walking over to another mom and trying to make a friend. Why?
Why is making friends after motherhood so difficult? Could it be because we are too busy judging one another from across the playground?
"Hmmmm..why isn't her kid wearing a sweater?"
"Hmmmmm did she really just watch him eat a cookie off the floor?"
"Wow. She's spending SO much time on her phone."
You know the thoughts. YES YOU. We ALL do it. The thoughts cross your mind before any thoughts of how nice it would be to get to know another mom in a similar situation as you.
As moms we isolate ourselves so unnecessarily. When someone asks "Hey how are you??? How's it going?" we reply with "Good. Great. Everything's great" instead of what we really want to say....
"My kids are driving me crazy. My house is a wreck. I had three glasses of wine last night. I've been picking clean clothes out of a pile on the bed for over a week."
Some days I STRUGGLE with motherhood. This year I forgot about picture day. That day we woke up with 15 minutes to get to school. It was literally enough time to feed my son breakfast, brush his teeth and put a clean shirt on him. A wrinkled Nike tee shirt from the clean clothes pile. ON PICTURE DAY. I remember thinking "wow! We did it! In 15 minutes! We weren't even late!" And then the pictures came in. I cannot be the only mom things like this happen to! LOL!!!
Why are we so afraid of being honest with each other. We spend so much time painting this picture on social media of how great our lives are and then continue to pretend that we just ROCK at life in person. What if someone needs to hear that this stage in life is hard and that they're not alone? How many genuine friendships could we have if we were honest and real and transparent? If we accepted that all moms have their faults and not all parenting styles look the same and it's OKAY. You can still be friends. Promise :)
One of my goals in 2019 is to be transparent. Mommin aint easy. Neither is being a wife or running a business. It gets stressful and balancing the three is LITERALLY making me go grey. (Or it's genetics. I'll never know. Thank the hair gods for touchups!) I know I'm not alone and I know that someone else needs to hear that behind the pages of Facebook this is a mom that cries sometimes because I am SO blessed and so happy but also because I want to PUNCH my husband some nights or because it's 6:30 and I STILL haven't brushed my hair for the day. Next time you're sitting alone and you see a mom that seems to have it all together, walk over and ask her how she's doing. Tell her you fed your kids McDonalds twice this week and can't help but feel guilty about it. You may just have made a new best friend.
xoxo-Madeline
