Latest / Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship / #164 - Making Mom Friends: Challenges and Opportunities (Alex Reed)

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#164 - Making Mom Friends: Challenges and Opportunities (Alex Reed) · Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: If I can inspire at least one person to do something for their community or to gather or to introduce themselves to the mom that they always see at music class, if they think it's really cool.
0:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Go for it.
0:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Just do it.
0:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
0:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Dier Nina Conversations About Friendship.
0:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Today is a topic that is actually surprising I have not done before.
0:24
[SPEAKER_01]: How is it possible?
0:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I have not done the topic of making mom friends.
0:29
[SPEAKER_01]: The challenges, the opportunities, both are a part of the picture.
0:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to acknowledge that not all of my listeners are moms.
0:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I hear from people who chose not to have kids or didn't choose not to have kids, but don't have kids.
0:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And this comes up as part of their friendships.
0:46
[SPEAKER_01]: We do address that a little bit at the end of the episode, but it is not what this episode is about.
0:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I have an episode about that, coming up, about that specific topic of when you don't have kids.
0:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of the people around you do,
0:59
[SPEAKER_01]: This is different than having a partner in life or not a spouse or a partner or some kind, having kids and not having kids, I think can be a bigger divide than being in a romantic partnership or not.
1:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, that is going to be an entirely separate episode.
1:12
[SPEAKER_01]: This episode is about mom friends, the opportunities, the challenges, and I'm really
1:17
[SPEAKER_01]: glad to have a guest who is new on that journey, new her.
1:21
[SPEAKER_01]: She has a two-year-old.
1:22
[SPEAKER_01]: My kids are so much older that early time of making mom friends was so long ago for me.
1:29
[SPEAKER_01]: My oldest is 21 as I am recording this.
1:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I have three more kids.
1:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I have an eight-year-old and a 16-year-old and a 13-year-old, so I am thrilled to have a guest on who is new.
1:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Much younger, she is in her early 30s, and she has a two year old, her name is Alex Reed.
1:45
[SPEAKER_01]: She's a full-time job in the tech industry, but the part of her work that she does on the side that I think listeners will be really interested in and can relate to is an Instagram and a subset that goes along with it that is a lifestyle account focused on food, flowers, friendship, and entertaining.
2:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called Roses and Ridicchio.
2:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I will have a link in the show notes.
2:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Alex focuses a lot of our content on gatherings with friends, big and small, where to meet new friends to bring into your circle.
2:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Alex and I met several months ago through Instagram through the Friendship work that we both a lot about.
2:18
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a lot to say and I know that there's a lot more to say on this topic.
2:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love to hear from you after the episode if you were able to connect to it.
2:26
[SPEAKER_01]: If there's more you want to hear about on this topic, find in my show notes how to reach me anonymously.
2:31
[SPEAKER_01]: How to reach me.
2:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Not anonymously.
2:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to keep it anonymous.
2:35
[SPEAKER_01]: like to.
2:36
[SPEAKER_01]: That's up to you.
2:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Without further ado, we are going to bring on the fabulous Alex Reed.
2:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi Alex.
2:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Dear Nina.
2:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi Nina.
2:44
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you?
2:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I am really excited to do this topic because you would think it would be one I've done before and a podcast that is over four years old.
2:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I am sometimes reluctant to talk too much about mom, friend topics because I have four kids, which anyone who has heard this podcast knows.
3:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I
3:01
[SPEAKER_01]: do mention, often, because it is part of my life, then I have the voices of worry in my mind.
3:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, it's not going to apply to everybody if we talk about my friends, but then I think about all my episodes and I've done single friends and all kinds of things work friends.
3:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is a really big topic to have at North.
3:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so glad you reached out and that we are doing this important one.
3:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, that was what I thought about in my pitch was I had read your pitching guidelines and had done just a lot of research and was taking a what was essentially an iPhone note of a brain dump of my thoughts on this topic and I also talked with a lot of girlfriends and you know people who follow me on Instagram and it was a resounding yes, but it's one of those things that it could be 15 conversations together, you know, but I'm really excited to dive in and chat more about it.
3:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just start broad.
3:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Why did you feel, and you're someone who's listened to a lot of my episodes, I know that and you're someone who also thinks about friendship a lot.
3:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Why did you feel this topic is so important to cover why can't be tough to navigate mom friendships make mom friends keep mom friends all of that.
4:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I was very lucky I had a really long maternity leave because I work in the tech industry.
4:06
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was on maternity leave, my strategy was I went really external for different types of community support.
4:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I joined a mom group, I signed up for Baby and Me music, I did, you know, the stroller meetups, I did all of those different things.
4:18
[SPEAKER_00]: What I kept finding was people were craving community.
4:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It was making me feel great, but I was also seeing everybody else really needed it, so I started to look into the research and kind of dive in a little bit deeper and what I found was moms are really lonely in that first year postpartum, like in the Perry needle period of being pregnant in the year postpartum.
4:37
[SPEAKER_00]: and motherhood is such a transformative time in general, and then you add in the hormones, the isolation potentially of maternity leave, all the changes you're suddenly navigating, you need a village, but sometimes you don't have one, you might not have your mom living nearby, or your sister next door to you, or something like that, making friends takes time, a lot of episodes have covered this, but in motherhood we're also so often struck.
5:00
[SPEAKER_00]: for time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the primary focus is often archiled and their needs, especially in the early days.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you then turn around and make friends?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I felt like there was this weird problem to solve of you.
5:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, you have all these moms who are really lonely, but they're craving connection.
5:14
[SPEAKER_00]: But everybody might have a different approach and strategy.
5:16
[SPEAKER_00]: You also don't really have a lot of time and you have
5:19
[SPEAKER_00]: this tiny baby who needs you and that's who your primary need is going to.
5:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do we solve this and talk about it more and come up with different strategies to meet that need for people who want to drive forward and do the work and you know, making a mom friends and kind of go into this new chapter setting themselves up for success.
5:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad you're out of maternity leave because there's that piece to a lot of people to go right back to work.
5:39
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you see there is like the average amount of time people are given.
5:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I definitely think I will caveat everything I'm about to say in this episode with it is a huge privilege to have a long maternity leave and there are a lot of services and programs that disproportionately benefit people who have longer maternity leaves that are associated with jobs like in the tech industry for instance versus if you're a government employee or you work for a small company or you work for yourself and you're looking at either no maternity leave outside of short-term disability.
6:09
[SPEAKER_00]: or you are looking at a really, really small window of six or eight leagues versus there's people who are dealing with months on end.
6:15
[SPEAKER_00]: What I've seen on average is a lot of folks who are in the private sector like me who have those longer about at least a quarter of maternity leave about 12 weeks.
6:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But I've also seen people have as little as six or eight.
6:28
[SPEAKER_00]: That is really tough.
6:30
[SPEAKER_00]: obviously it's a whole other episode and topic to talk about like the need for paid family leave.
6:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's a big caveat and an important disclaimer to put on all of this is many suggestions and things I'm going to talk about are geared towards people who have that time off.
6:45
[SPEAKER_00]: there's plenty of people in the law so stay home.
6:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I stayed home for a couple of years.
6:51
[SPEAKER_00]: 100% 100% even, you know, I'm helping my church set up a mom group that they're revitalizing that they used to do a while ago when we were designing a survey to go to people.
6:58
[SPEAKER_00]: We had to stop because I said, okay, well, none of these questions are geared towards people who are working full-time, who might not be able to meet up at 10 a.m.
7:05
[SPEAKER_00]: on Tuesday for a play date.
7:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So why don't we design a subset of questions for moms who are working outside the home?
7:13
[SPEAKER_00]: staying home with your kids.
7:14
[SPEAKER_00]: That is work still.
7:15
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a tough job.
7:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to clarify because I said just now that I stayed home the first few years.
7:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Just so that everything's on the table for this episode.
7:23
[SPEAKER_01]: What I mean by that is I wasn't doing any writing.
7:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I had been at a teacher.
7:27
[SPEAKER_01]: My first son was born in July.
7:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was very, very pregnant to the end of the school year.
7:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I had it.
7:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I stayed home.
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: and I was still home full time with my second child as the kids got older.
7:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I still was home, but then had started working on writing and freelance writing and teaching writing and all these other things, but it was not a full time job.
7:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was very much in a privileged position.
7:49
[SPEAKER_01]: What I would get sometimes that I really didn't like and I'm sure we will continue to address this issue is I had a hard time babysitter so that I could work on the writing.
7:58
[SPEAKER_01]: go to the dentist.
7:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
8:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I would use that time in a variety of ways.
8:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember somebody saying to me, well, she didn't say to me.
8:05
[SPEAKER_01]: She said it to a friend of mine who said it to me.
8:07
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a whole other episode topic.
8:09
[SPEAKER_01]: She was so curious why you would have a babysitter.
8:11
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you so busy doing?
8:13
[SPEAKER_01]: This judgment just felt like what I was doing couldn't have been an important enough to leave my kid unless it was, you know, big high paying job, which it was not.
8:20
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, if I were to do a whole other episode on that, what I would really be focusing in on and is why did my friend feel the need to repeat that to me, because in fairness to the other person, the third person that third person was not even someone I was friends with, sure that was not nice that she made that comment, she didn't say to me, why did someone feel the need to say it?
8:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, maybe my friend have the same question.
8:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are you taking the time for yourself when you have this little baby who needs you?
8:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I'm getting at is all of that
8:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think that that ties into and you're making new mom friends is it's so important to make sure that you're aligned with people.
8:58
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are someone who firmly believes that a stay at home mom, who is working in the home, essentially raising her children, not doing, you know, traditional work in an office,
9:10
[SPEAKER_00]: should never have a babysitter to go to the dentist or go to the grocery on her own or take a nap.
9:16
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't believe that she should ever have that and your friends with someone who that's their situation, okay, maybe we need to pause and maybe that's not someone who you should become super close friends with because you have a bias or like a judgment towards them kind of right out of the gate.
9:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I also think it's really tough too because again, motherhood, what I've seen is if you have a lot of perfectionistic tendencies that you are applying to yourself,
9:40
[SPEAKER_00]: when you're in that first, especially your postpartum, you might use your outdoor voice and say something that you've been saying to yourself that maybe isn't correct or true or kind, and you don't even realize it, but you might be saying it to someone who that is their lived experience, and it's actually really hurtful to them.
9:58
[SPEAKER_00]: See what I'm saying, and so that's the part that it's really tough, and that's where it comes into, you gotta give people grace, but it's also an examination of our relationships with ourselves
10:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll be very honest.
10:10
[SPEAKER_00]: There were things that my son and I struggled with kind of early on and I had people who I knew who they were really gung ho about that topic and their way or the highway and they were putting pressure on themselves about that topic.
10:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just kind of leaning into like, okay, I'm going to be a free bird here, and I'm going to pivot and I'm going to adjust and do this and do that.
10:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Create a tension with people I think when somebody might not even realize that that they're being a perfectionist about ex-topic.
10:39
[SPEAKER_00]: The best analogy I can give is imagine if your kids are older, and you've got the mom who is...
10:44
[SPEAKER_00]: completely obsessed with getting her kid on the travel soccer team.
10:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And you decide, hey, you know what my approach is going to be.
10:51
[SPEAKER_00]: If they don't get on travel soccer, oh well, they're going to be fine and I'm going to be okay with it.
10:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And you get really vocal about that approach.
10:57
[SPEAKER_00]: That mom could feel like you're kind of inadvertently targeting them or whatever.
11:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And it leads to this friction and it becomes this thing that is the elephant and the room that no one's talking about, but it's really obvious what the conflict does.
11:07
[SPEAKER_00]: It's basically being aware that you are aligned with someone from the start, or pretty early on, in the relationship.
11:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So Anna Goldbarb talks a lot in her book, a modern friendship, which is fabulous about how you need your values to be aligned in friendship in order for it to be successful.
11:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think when you're meeting a new mom, friend, that's...
11:28
[SPEAKER_00]: also something that you have to figure out pretty early and often.
11:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's ways to do that.
11:32
[SPEAKER_00]: You can listen to how they talk about certain topics, what they say is important to them.
11:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And if that's not something that is an alignment with what you're feeling or what is important to you as well, maybe that's not someone who's going to be the person who you take out of the play group and start hanging out with one-on-one in addition to this big thing or whatever or music class or whatever you guys need in whatever capacity.
11:54
[SPEAKER_01]: actually there's a perfect transition to how our people meeting these days.
11:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So my youngest, like I said, is 13, but I wasn't really doing meet new mom.
12:03
[SPEAKER_01]: People's stuff when he was born was really more 20 plus years ago when my first was born.
12:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm curious, because now we didn't have smartphones then just to get everybody an idea that was 2004.
12:14
[SPEAKER_01]: There was maybe, I don't even think I had a blackberry.
12:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Or maybe, did we have blackberries and palm trees?
12:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have to look
12:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Alex, I had a palm pilot before that.
12:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, palm pilot, then a black fairy.
12:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything was much more in-person show up.
12:29
[SPEAKER_01]: There wasn't social media.
12:30
[SPEAKER_01]: There wasn't apps to help you do stuff.
12:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm curious, how are people meeting?
12:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Lots of different ways to make mom friends.
12:37
[SPEAKER_00]: There are mom groups.
12:38
[SPEAKER_00]: There's also non-profits in the area that do them.
12:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Facebook groups.
12:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You really could just Google, kind of, your area and new mom group or mom group and find one.
12:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I joined one that matched me with nine women whose children were within six weeks of mine.
12:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And we met for a total of I want to say eight weeks with a facilitator and we were in a WhatsApp chat together.
13:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Joining a mom group is one way going to different baby and me.
13:03
[SPEAKER_00]: classes, whether it's music class, whether it's baby me yoga, story time at the library.
13:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Those loosely don't start until after six months old, which is kind of crummy.
13:13
[SPEAKER_00]: The peanut app, which is basically mommy tinder, have you heard of peanut?
13:17
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm so glad you brought this up.
13:18
[SPEAKER_00]: This is so helpful.
13:19
[SPEAKER_00]: This is great.
13:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so peanut.
13:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the food, it's literally mommy tinder.
13:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I met one of my very dear friends on there.
13:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hilarious.
13:29
[SPEAKER_00]: We both swiped on each other.
13:30
[SPEAKER_00]: She seemed super normal.
13:32
[SPEAKER_00]: There was some people on there.
13:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, remember, I talked about being aligned with moms early on.
13:37
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a profile never forget coming across where this woman had details pretty intensely in her bio.
13:45
[SPEAKER_00]: All of her birth eating, sleeping, habits, everything.
13:49
[SPEAKER_00]: It said something to the effect of if you are not doing this and do not have the same approach, do not swipe on me.
13:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
13:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
13:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you.
13:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was found out that I was like, good to know because that would be really crummy if I made the time to get together with you and then learned that you think something I'm doing with my kid is so deplorable.
14:09
[SPEAKER_00]: You would never do it.
14:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what?
14:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're like, we are clearly not values aligned in that sake.
14:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of a geo fence so it's in your area and you can swipe on moms and there's different prompts and things like that and you can meet up in a range of play day.
14:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Or like one-on-one, like it does the peanut app encourage one-on-one, or there are things in there where you can join up at the group.
14:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they have a feature where you can join with a group, but it is primarily one-on-one, and then fellow daycare parents, of course, from my daycare sons around a family roster to kind of get everybody to know each other.
14:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I hosted at my home a doughnuts with daycare friends, kind of like little playday, get together for my son's class to get to know the parents.
14:50
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a few in the DC area that are paid for like 40 bucks a year and you have to provide proof of address that you live in certain zip codes because it's for the town and they do play groups and events and things like that so there's lots of options and I challenge people if you don't have any of those near you start because all it takes is one person to raise their hand and say hi I'd like to meet someone new and have that vulnerability to share hey I want to put myself out there and you would be shocked at the number of people.
15:19
[SPEAKER_00]: who follow.
15:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the segue a little bit until challenges in the season.
15:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I was really nervous to raise my hand and to say to people, I am feeling lonely and like, I am having a hard time post-partum.
15:31
[SPEAKER_00]: But the moment I got over that fear, and I started getting really loud about that, I was shocked at how many other people were saying me to me to me too.
15:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And I am so happy that I took the leap of faith with being honest and being vulnerable about like what was working for me and what wasn't.
15:47
[SPEAKER_00]: because it strengthened my connections with other people.
15:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes courage at what you're talking about, it's so important in all stages for all kinds of friends, not just making friends with other moms, but all friendship takes an act of bravery.
16:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You can have all the Facebook groups in the world, all the apps, all the ways that you can meet people through a faith community or all the kinds of community things out there, but you have to show up.
16:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to be willing to come to something and not know anybody is hard.
16:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying it's easy, but you're not coming
16:17
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not, and also, I think it's really, really important to caveat this part with some people they don't want to meet new people.
16:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And that can either be because they legitimately don't want to, and I'll get into that in a second, or they're afraid.
16:32
[SPEAKER_00]: because it takes a lot of vulnerability to put yourself out there and to meet new people, especially when you're navigating this new thing in your life and you're about to go, it's like being a freshman in college kind of all over again, except you're with like a little living human breathing thing.
16:46
[SPEAKER_00]: But when I say that people might not want to meet new people, it might be because they feel like they don't need to.
16:50
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not necessarily a malicious thing and it might be because they have a level of support that they're comfortable with already.
16:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And my situation, you know, my mom is deceased,
17:01
[SPEAKER_00]: flying in to spend three weeks with me when I had my son.
17:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have my sister living super close to me or my cousin living across the street.
17:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't really feel like I had that village ready to go from the drop with family.
17:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I had to make it myself and so the metaphor that I came up with and I finally had like an aha moment and I wrote it down is imagine, you know, new motherhood in those first three months is your deep in the forest.
17:26
[SPEAKER_00]: My approach was to go external.
17:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It was to light a big bonfire, send a flare into the air, and try to find fellow travelers to get through the night.
17:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Other people's approach might be to build a tent, go inside, cozy up with their family, make a small fire, and turn inward and be more private.
17:46
[SPEAKER_00]: That is totally okay, but they're two very different approaches and it's so important to know or at least ask yourself what is my approach versus what is someone else's approach and not try to force people to have the same approach as you because it's just going to be right for misunderstanding in her if you see a friend who wants to go super external and put themselves out there.
18:11
[SPEAKER_00]: and you want to be more private or more inward facing.
18:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe put yourself in her shoes for a minute.
18:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well, why is she doing that?
18:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it because of her family situation?
18:19
[SPEAKER_00]: It requires us to perspective taken.
18:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that that's really, really hard when we're in this new phase of life.
18:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're so focused on triaging and supporting this little tiny baby thinking about perspective taking with another person or doing introspection is like, wait, why you want me to do why?
18:35
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is really helpful to look at it that way and know your fellow traveler.
18:39
[SPEAKER_01]: that really speaks to me and it comes into play actually more so when we're talking about if you had a friend from before you had kids you maybe had kids around the same time or even if it's a year apart a couple years apart the journeys and their needs might be completely different.
18:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Motherhood changes you.
18:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It really does and it's one of the most transformational things.
18:59
[SPEAKER_00]: There is very few heartbreaks like a friend heartbreak and a friendship break up.
19:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You might have a kid at the same time as your best friend in the world.
19:07
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys might take a totally different approach.
19:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It might break you.
19:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe you connect 5-10 years down the road.
19:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe you had kids around the same time as someone you went to college with really close and then you moved to their town and your kids are in kindergarten together and you realize, ooh yikes, you know what?
19:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we're not aligned here.
19:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe had you guys been close to each other when your kids were infants?
19:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You would have maybe not been close and it could have blown everything up.
19:32
[SPEAKER_00]: But now that the kids are five and they're doing their own thing, it's fine.
19:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's being open to this idea that things are going to change in Evan's flow and recognizing that that is hard and not everybody wants to be your best friend, not everybody's going to take the same approach as you.
19:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to just keep
19:49
[SPEAKER_00]: doing you.
19:49
[SPEAKER_00]: A friend of mine, I love, I love when she says this is kind of gets into the mommy's competition.
19:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I steal this from her.
19:55
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, you are doing what works best for your model of baby.
20:00
[SPEAKER_00]: My model of baby could have been born the same day, same hour as your model, but it's a different model.
20:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Same way you're doing what is working for your model of motherhood right now, which could be different with your second kid or your fourth kid, or if you had a kid
20:16
[SPEAKER_01]: There's so many factors.
20:17
[SPEAKER_01]: There's health, love the mom, health of the kid.
20:20
[SPEAKER_01]: We already talked about in terms of work and financial and different issues people have that may factor into how much time they have for friendship or not.
20:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's also, by the way, community versus friendship, I want to urge people, it's worth joining things when you can, even if you're not going to make a close friend out of it because it's nice to have community around the stage of life you're in.
20:41
[SPEAKER_01]: showing up to baby and me is a worthwhile thing even if you make zero close friends out of it.
20:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You know people in town there's just value to knowing people in your community.
20:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if it doesn't mean that you now have a close girl's night out of it.
20:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You could go closer with that person later on.
20:57
[SPEAKER_00]: You might even know someone who they would get along really well with.
21:00
[SPEAKER_00]: and you might be able to introduce them to their potential best friend.
21:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You could be the intermediary that that person need.
21:07
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very much requires keeping an open mind.
21:09
[SPEAKER_00]: We also talk about, okay, there's a lot of change in this season with your body, and with hormones, and with friendships, and you're learning to manage this new little baby who is like a tomagachi that's changing every day, and you have no idea if you're doing it right.
21:21
[SPEAKER_00]: They can't talk, they can't give you any feedback.
21:24
[SPEAKER_00]: You're also now getting a change with your spouse of their apparent.
21:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And if they're on leave, you know how much do they help out or whatever.
21:30
[SPEAKER_00]: That can be a big one, their spouse might not help out as much, or they might help out a ton, or that's another factor to take into play as well.
21:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe, you know, their spouse only gets two weeks of leave.
21:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Goes back to that perspective, taking of like, where is someone coming from?
21:43
[SPEAKER_00]: When we talk about like challenges in the season, I think the hard part is, when you're pregnant, you go to the OB every couple of weeks, every week, depending on your situation, how far along you are, and it feels like every time you go to the doctor, you get a gold star.
21:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, heartbeat's good.
21:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, we're checking your levels this that the other like there's some type of test you're getting a little check mark.
22:02
[SPEAKER_00]: You're the princess on the lily pad.
22:03
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole time you're pregnant.
22:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Every day cares about you.
22:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It's true.
22:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about it when you're pregnant.
22:08
[SPEAKER_00]: People hold the door for you.
22:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Doctor immediately answers your call and then you have the baby and no one cares.
22:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all about the baby.
22:15
[SPEAKER_00]: You all of a sudden went from getting basically a report card in like a little gold star every week that you're at the doctor to
22:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, good luck, bye, see you later, a couple pediatrician appointments, first couple weeks, and then see you for people, especially if you're like type A, you will then freak out and kind of latch on to every milestone.
22:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Every should that the internet tells you you should be doing, because you're like, I need to know that what I'm doing is right, and then that I think can devolve into mom shaming a bit, because you're like, I need to know that what I'm doing is correct.
22:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And so at least I'm not doing this thing or that thing or whatever,
22:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm smiling and nodding because I was such a nervous mom when I had my oldest.
22:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I was so clueless.
22:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I was scared to change his diaper.
22:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I scared to give him the bath.
22:57
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a very nervous mom and anxious.
22:59
[SPEAKER_01]: What you're saying?
23:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I never really thought about that.
23:02
[SPEAKER_01]: The milestones and how important they were and not getting the gold stars anymore.
23:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so scared to get things wrong.
23:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I was scared to hurt him.
23:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, you can have these either loud or silent, not only societal pressures, but also family pressures potentially.
23:15
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a sister who has three kids and every single time, pregnancy and birth and postpartum was textbook for her and all of the kids were, you know, breastfed and slept through the night and everything, you might be feeling the silent pressure of like, well, well, she can do it.
23:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Why can't I do it?
23:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Your situation is completely different from
23:37
[SPEAKER_00]: inundated with all of these shudds.
23:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a big part of why I started brosism radikyo.
23:44
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a legacy account that was kind of dead from having a flower business years ago, but my personal Instagram became to be very blunt, a health state.
23:52
[SPEAKER_00]: of reals that were just constantly telling me what I was doing wrong, scaring me, I would make the mistake of reading the comments and I would see the worst things I was saying to myself being validated by like some random person selling central oils out of the back seat of their car.
24:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, somebody.
24:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
24:11
[SPEAKER_00]: awful thing.
24:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I was saying to myself, literally in the comments being like, yeah, and if you do this, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, or or I would see a real where a mom was like, hey, mom, if you're doing insert X thing that I was doing with my kid, you're doing great, go mom, and then you'd click on the comments and there'll be people being like, actually, I'm citing some random study that's been deep on, and it was just like,
24:32
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a reminder, everyone, the social media algorithms show you such individual things.
24:38
[SPEAKER_01]: All I see, and I'm sure you do not, is Perry Menopausop.
24:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's women, I hate wearing a weighted vest, and working on our bone density.
24:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's why I mean Dinten to Roses and Reggie, because I was like, I don't want to see a single child on here.
24:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to trick the algorithm into thinking I don't have a kid because this is so toxic.
24:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I once wrote a piece that people really liked.
24:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I loved it.
24:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It was one of my favorite essays when I was writing essays for Brainchild magazine a long time ago and it was about my obsession with what double-stroller to buy.
25:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And it reminds me of this topic.
25:10
[SPEAKER_01]: not about the competition piece of it at all but more just like the things we get obsessed about when we're young moms and I think it's because it's a false sense of control and you could just go nuts with deciding what to buy for any product and then when we get obsessed over on topic this idea that we have all this control and if we just do this one thing or buy this one product then all the things will fall into place totally and I think again it goes back to
25:33
[SPEAKER_00]: everyone is in same at first year and you really have to give people the benefit of the doubt.
25:39
[SPEAKER_00]: But I also think it's really important to have people in your life who can keep you honest and say, hey, you're being a perfectionist about XYZ thing.
25:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It is letting your bad qualities outweigh your good qualities.
25:52
[SPEAKER_00]: This has to stop.
25:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was for me, my husband, like the baby like we need things.
25:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know who but a partner could tell you that.
25:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, right, a best friend, a partner, whatever, right, a, you know, a sister, cousin, whatever is in your village.
26:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to have people who can keep you honest.
26:06
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's also really hard to receive the back.
26:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you're in this really sensitive time, especially with hormone changes and drops and everything like that, it can feel like you're being criticized.
26:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's no, I just see you struggling.
26:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can feel it coming off of you and I want you to be okay.
26:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that when we talk about postpartum depression and anxiety,
26:29
[SPEAKER_00]: when you have people who are in these mom groups with you potentially a benefit is you're also getting a bit of an unbiased third party look at yourself because someone who's around you all the time might miss certain signs of postpartum depression or anxiety but someone who doesn't know you at all and here's you say I don't really want to hold a baby and like I just want to sleep all day or whatever like be able to potentially keep you honest and I think that that is another really
26:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, that's a top conversation to have with someone, but I think that we think in our minds that postpartum depression is this really specific kind of end of the spectrum of, oh, I want nothing to do with the baby and it can actually manifest in times that I'm not a medical professional, but it can manifest in times of different ways and it's really important to be aware of that.
27:16
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the number one things to help come back, Perry Natele, depression and anxiety, is community support.
27:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it in the same way, same reason.
27:27
[SPEAKER_01]: If there's an issue going on with the kid, it's good to have other third party.
27:30
[SPEAKER_01]: This is why milestones like you don't want to get to a catch to them, but it's nice to be around other people with kids the same age and as the kids get a little older and somebody might say, you know what?
27:39
[SPEAKER_01]: They should be making eye contact at this point.
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: They might be able to see something that if you're just isolated at home all the time with your kid,
27:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, it's the delicate balance of can there a sense that the thief of joy, but I think that that's the part where, again, having supportive friends comes into play.
27:54
[SPEAKER_00]: One of my very dear friends, who I'm at on peanut, her daughter is a day apart from my son.
28:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are things developmentally that her daughter did way before.
28:04
[SPEAKER_00]: my fun, vice versa.
28:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it was always very interesting to compare notes because there were things I would get a little worried about and then you would hit whatever the milestone was or whatever and be completely fine.
28:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's making sure that you have a relationship or it's not judging or shaming or toxic comparison and more of, hey, I'm supporting you in this.
28:23
[SPEAKER_00]: If you start from the get-go of I'm not going to have a competition philosophy here, I'm not doing it.
28:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to set you up for success long term and I'm so curious from your angle because your kids are older.
28:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure the competition you see is colleges and extracurriculars and where is Johnny in turning the summer and those kinds of things?
28:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if you've never had that from day one, you can almost insulate yourself from it when it comes long later.
28:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the biggest thing to do before I've been thinking about friends with this is to learn to see your kid as a separate being from yourself.
28:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got better at it as I got older, but we are not our kids, their kids are not us.
29:00
[SPEAKER_01]: This sounds impossible because we raise these kids and of course we are very attached, but if we could be less attached to what their outcome of quote-unquote success says about who we are as people, if they're their own people on their own journey.
29:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So that I think is really number one.
29:16
[SPEAKER_01]: as they get older really, really, really important in terms of college, like you're saying, internships so true, as like, that's not even something I would have thought at your age to even think about, but yeah, I have a 21 year old, that's a thing.
29:30
[SPEAKER_01]: We're the kids entering next summer.
29:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Alex, they already know a lot of them wear their entering next summer and I think another thing like in motherhood and when we talk about competition and being mindful and like I started the episode talking a little bit about
29:41
[SPEAKER_00]: being aware of the language you use.
29:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to get people grace and we don't want to walk on eggshells when we're already in this really fragile time in our life, but I also think it's so important to be mindful of our words and the impact they have on others and I say this as someone who has absolutely put my foot in my mouth more times than I care to admit and has definitely said things before that I deeply regret.
30:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, say, right.
30:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm going to say it in my eyes.
30:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I will immediately throw that out there of guilty as charged.
30:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But chatting with friends about how we talk about things like, for instance, infertility or family planning or being in the NICU or something with birth or labor.
30:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Brenne Brown talks a lot about empathy misses.
30:28
[SPEAKER_00]: We're trying really, really hard to throw the empathy ball to someone and we actually end up missing it and it almost turns into a dodge ball instead of a game of catch.
30:36
[SPEAKER_00]: We're trying to play a conversational game of catch and we end up playing a game of conversational dodgeball And it's not fun for anyone involved, but being mindful of if you say to someone, oh, yeah Well, you know, and then like later this year like I'm gonna get pregnant because we're gonna have two under two That's a lot of assumptions Maybe you don't say that to someone who has navigated loss or is going through IDF or if someone has one child and they're potentially going through a fertility journey for their second You know, maybe you don't say to them well, at least you already have one
31:04
[SPEAKER_01]: One thing I'm always nervous about in an episode like this and it comes up sometimes when we are talking about grief and people trying to help each other, I always hesitate to make people nervous to talk, to talk to their friends and be honest because a lot of what we're talking about and it's all real stuff.
31:21
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of what we're talking about is how the things we say can be perceived, even the positive things.
31:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, yes, we have to be aware of how it makes other people feel and at the same
31:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard, isn't it?
31:35
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want people to just assume the best.
31:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it goes back to assuming noble intent and assuming that most people are not out to get you and say something to needle at you like most people just to be honest, I put a question in my Instagram box a couple of weeks ago of what's the hardest part about making new mom friends?
31:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was floored at the number of responses I got from people saying, I am so lonely.
32:02
[SPEAKER_00]: or I just feel like I'm going to step in it and say the wrong thing or they're not going to think I'm cool or I don't have time.
32:10
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the other big one, right?
32:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially when your kids get to school age or you don't have family support or a spouse helping out and asking someone to join a mom group or to
32:19
[SPEAKER_00]: get together for a mom's dinner or whatever can feel like a burden.
32:23
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're telling me I have to do one more thing.
32:25
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the tough part.
32:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I talked about this a lot with hobbies.
32:28
[SPEAKER_00]: When you do hobbies, you get this overall release, which is better for your stress and your overall health long-term, but can dancing someone to take the time to do that so they can get the long-term benefits is really tough.
32:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Like a chicken or egg type thing.
32:40
[SPEAKER_00]: leaning into community if you make the time, even if it is a stroller walk.
32:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if it is, I'm already taking my kid to music class or to the park or whatever, do you want to meet up in chat, all grab the coffee, that kind of thing.
32:51
[SPEAKER_00]: It's those little things often time which are free that can actually be so impactful for you.
32:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to end on one other conundrum that comes up.
33:01
[SPEAKER_01]: There is this divide between people of kids and people who don't.
33:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say more so than being married and not, there's plenty of single parents out there, but they are still able to bond with other parents on the parenting part.
33:15
[SPEAKER_01]: We're sending our kids up for camp together.
33:17
[SPEAKER_01]: We're sending our kids up for sports.
33:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't really matter if they have a partner or not.
33:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, it's like we're still finding on the parent part.
33:22
[SPEAKER_00]: You have the about a Sanical part.
33:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I love him.
33:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I love an Anna says that I want to assure people that people with kids and people with outkids can be friends, but it's not just like a magical thing.
33:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it takes some thoughtfulness on each side of what the other
33:37
[SPEAKER_01]: people are going through and not everybody wants to talk about their kids all the time one thing of piece of advice I could give out there is yeah I have four kids but I don't want to you've heard me say those on episodes Alex I'm sure I don't want to talk about college admissions all about time.
33:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I've started recently in the last couple of months instead of just saying how are you because everyone's gonna look good and great I've been asking people what are you loving right now.
33:57
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a great question.
33:58
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you loving right now?
33:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Or what are you reading right now?
34:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Or what are you streaming?
34:01
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you listening to?
34:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll learn something about what's making someone tick.
34:06
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband thinks it's a really weird way to start a conversation with someone, but whatever.
34:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that.
34:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that a lot.
34:11
[SPEAKER_00]: My different ways to do that.
34:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I think with friends who don't have kids, the biggest thing is understanding someone's emotional bandwidth.
34:20
[SPEAKER_00]: If you will, you know, of hey, I might have an evening free with childcare or a day free with childcare.
34:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I might not want to be social.
34:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I've become more introverted in the second year of motherhood than I was in the first year of motherhood.
34:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And so understanding, it's not personal, if someone's like, I just kind of want to meet for coffee so that there's like a definitive start and end or meet for a launch versus doing this open ended then.
34:45
[SPEAKER_01]: there's no one answer to this.
34:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I just wanted to bring it up as an issue that I know is out there and that will continue to address on this show.
34:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, no, it's certainly tough, but I think a big main thesis points are know what your values are and what is important.
35:00
[SPEAKER_00]: to you being able to sniff those out early when you're meeting a new mom and be okay with you don't have to go someone if they're not entirely your vibe like maybe you guys just aren't really good friends and that's okay.
35:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You're still part of the wider community together.
35:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you're still part of the wider community and you never want to burn a bridge or someone because your kids can end up in soccer jambory together three years from now, right?
35:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Or art camp or the same school.
35:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So knowing what your values are, knowing how to sniff those out and not burning a bridge if someone doesn't share those same values
35:28
[SPEAKER_00]: being open to meet new people and be vulnerable and put yourself out there, but also knowing your fellow traveler and not taking it personal and being aware that there are people who don't want to send the flare gun into the air.
35:40
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't want to like the bonfire.
35:41
[SPEAKER_00]: They want to stay in their tent.
35:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think also not shaming and being open to understanding that shudds are goods with shame and wanting to not have comparison with the thief of joy.
35:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the last part is being open to the idea that relationships can change.
35:56
[SPEAKER_00]: You might drift apart with someone when your kids are infants, and five years later, maybe the time when you guys really shine is when your kids are both 10 years old, and they want to play together.
36:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Or they're in high school, and they're on the same soccer team, or band camp, or beat open to this idea that people can grow and change.
36:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wrote a sub-stack on this for 35 lessons for me, turning 33, and that was a really, really big one, is we are not defined by a season where
36:24
[SPEAKER_00]: that is when we're not at our finest.
36:26
[SPEAKER_00]: We are in the woods that doesn't define you and that's okay.
36:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's so beautifully said, Alex, I'm going to add to remind people to show up to things where you don't know anybody and you're just going to have to keep trying.
36:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And if the first one doesn't work, you try again and you keep going and you can't just hope for new friends and hope for
36:47
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not even going into this topic.
36:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to let people know that I will link to other episodes on this topic because I've addressed it a thousand times And that is you should not pour sure kids to be friends and they may start out friends made might be friends on their two or three or four and not really be into each other later And the only way to get through that is to have a conversation with your mom friend and say hey looks like those two aren't
37:09
[SPEAKER_01]: gonna make it in middle school.
37:10
[SPEAKER_01]: We're still gonna be friends.
37:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you have to have an actual conversation.
37:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That's for a way down the line, but that's a reminder to you, Alex, to know that for later.
37:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh no, totally.
37:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very, very good to hear.
37:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And you and I had talked about this before, but your people are out there, and you haven't, I love this quote where they say, like, you haven't even met all the people who aren't gonna love you yet.
37:27
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're feeling lonely, guess what?
37:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone's feeling lonely too.
37:30
[SPEAKER_00]: The difference is, most people are just lying.
37:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody is also feeling a little lonely about motherhood.
37:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people are just lying about it.
37:37
[SPEAKER_00]: But I appreciate this podcast and I appreciate meeting people on the internet and being able to have these conversations with people.
37:42
[SPEAKER_00]: It's opened up my world so much.
37:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so happy that I put myself out there and embrace the vulnerability of creating and making art.
37:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I've just met some really cool people because of it like you and been able to have the opportunity to have really amazing conversations.
37:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I can inspire at least one person to
38:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Do something for their community or to gather or to introduce themselves to the mom that they always see a music class if they think it's really cool.
38:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Go for it.
38:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Just do it.
38:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
38:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Just do it.
38:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you so much.
38:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I already said in the intro where everyone can find you will be in the show notes and everyone will come back next week when our friendships are going well, we are happy or all are happy.