3 Reasons Mothers Need Other Mother Friends
A girlfriend and her sweet little 7 month old came over the other day for a dip in the baby pool and to share lunch, time, and thoughts. It is so refreshing to connect with like-minded parents. We mothers, especially ones who are the primary caregivers for their children, need other mothers for support, inspiration, and shared laughter over the foibles of parenthood.
1) Support.
Mother who stay home have unique challenges: being alone with an infant, baby, or toddler for extended periods of time punctuated by diapers and naps is simultaneously wonderful and difficult. Mother who work have unique challenges: the stresses of work expectations balanced with the stresses of feeding, cleaning, shopping, loving, and caring for family. We need other moms in our lives who have parallel journeys.
Reach out to those high school girlfriends who’ve fallen by the wayside over the years. See if they have children too! What about your work girlfriends? Church/volunteer activity friends? Motherhood is too good to keep to oneself.
2) Inspiration.
Since starting this blog project, I’ve found so many amazing mothers online who are also bloggers. They are a constant inspiration to me! Frugal Granola, Small Town Simplicity, Conversion Diary, Kitchen Stewardship, to name a few. I continue to be inspired by people I knew pre-blogging. Diapeepees, Keeping Up With the Joneses, All Things to Please, Kid Play Times, Farm Girl Fare, Meghan Orud Photography & Design, and JosefBig.
Being a mother is simultaneously exhilarating and exhausting. It is both inspiring and comforting to know that other moms are going through similar situations, be it teething, baby food making, fighting the system that wants your child to watch TV and buy more, more, more plastic, or trying to be more eco-conscious.
3) Laughter.
Check out these two munchkins, J and his lady friend V:
My girlfriend and I just laughed and laughed at our two little ones in the pool, mine being 5 months older and quite territorial about his little ducky and pouring cups, and hers being such a lady and so polite as he tried to rip off her hat!
Other moms get that when you’re changing a diaper, and then get peed, pooped, and spit up on, the only thing you can do is laugh! Other moms get that when you have to say “no” and set boundaries sometimes all you want to do is laugh! Other moms get that babies seem to always awaken and cry just when you and your partner were thinking about . . . . 🙂
I hope Whole Parenting provides a spot for you to connect with other parents!
YAY!! What a wonderful picture! ha ha they are life long friends for sure!
She is such a sweetie! And if you can share a pool that size, you can be friends for life 🙂
I am so thankful I have my sisters to share with and take tips from. We each parent differently but we do what is best for our kids and there is always communion found in that. Mother friends are so important!
But what do dad’s do? My sister and brother-in-law just made the bread winner switch and I SO want for him to have a network of sahd’s to hang with. Just wondering how likely that is or if dads even feel the same need like we moms do.
You are so blessed to have sisters with kids! One of my sisters is 35 weeks and I can’t wait until I meet her baby girl.
SAHD’s have a tougher time, I think. There are still so many old fashioned societal taboos about staying at home (and erroneous judgments about it) for women, and then double again that for men. I would imagine that they would have a better time connecting with single-income-outside-of-the-home-working dads simply by merit of those men understanding and appreciating what their stay-at-home wife does. How is your brother-in-law doing?
I’m interviewing couples with kids of all ages for a Parenting Series and I’ll try to get some of my SAHD friends in there so we can all learn about a different perspective.
This is their first and she just turned a year. I think he’s better off than my sister is. She is so torn up- it was not an easy decision at all. I really think he should start a blog bc there are not alot of that kind of thing out there- plus he’s big into triathlons and marathons- so there’s an added interest.
Lucky for me:) they just recently moved nearer and so I can help as much as I can until November when we have a new little baby of our own.
They are very natural parents. Cloth diapering, elimination communication, breastfeeding, cosleeping, babywearing, etc.
[…] play” than engaging with other little ones with actual games. (Unless you consider J trying to steal his friend V’s hat a game.) J is at the age where he is demonstrating an interest in turning things that are not toys […]
[…] play” than engaging with other little ones with actual games. (Unless you consider J trying to steal his friend V’s hat a game.) J is at the age where he is demonstrating an interest in turning things that are not toys […]