Wanted: Mom Friend (Debbie Downers Need Not Apply)

Since I’ve had kids, I’ve created a whole new network of friends who have kept me on course throughout this wild journey. What I never expected about parenthood, was how hard it would be to create and maintain new friendships with people. Things like naps, parenting techniques, and exhaustion end up making or breaking potential mom-friendships.

I thought making a list of deal-breakers would be a thing of the past once I met my husband, but since I entered the mom-friend market, I’ve had no choice but to come up with a fresh list of no-nos:

Your kid is a bully.

You seem really cool. I love our conversations, and it seems like we have a lot in common, but your kid is treating this park like it’s an MMA arena. I am very impressed with your son’s physical strength. Your son is a bully, and you don’t seem to care. You even made a joke about entering him into a Strongman competition because he just picked up my son and threw him across the playground. I do believe that kids need to work things out on their own but your child does not play well with others.

The naptime dilemma.

It’s taken a lot of time and hard work to get both my kids to nap from 1:15 pm to 1: 35 pm maximum three times a week. If my they don’t want to nap, the kids have quiet time in their room, which usually involves a lot of doors slamming and a game of pull-all-the-books-off-the-shelf-and-throw-them-around-the-room. Did you say your kid is still doing two long naps a day? Don’t mind me as I take a moment to cry in the corner. I’m just jealous that you have that much time to yourself in the middle of the day. Anyway, I usually go to the park, after quiet time, so if your kid cuts down to one nap a day, let me know and we can meet up.

Too tired for happy hour.

Do you love happy hour? Me too! Well, before kids I used to go to happy hour all the time. I was the queen of Happy Hour! These days, I pour myself a glass of wine in my kitchen and white-knuckle it until my husband gets home at 6 pm. I like to think of this as my personal happy hour. Then, my family eats dinner together. The kids will usually complain about the food the whole time, so I pour myself another glass of wine. Then I do a fun little dance called the bedtime hustle, which involves wrestling the kids into their pajamas while I clench my jaw out of frustration. When I finally wrangle them into their beds, I have a moment of peace. At the very end the day, I have a standing date with a cup of chamomile tea, Netflix, and my heating pad.

You’re super rad but your partner sucks.

This isn’t a deal breaker. Your relationship is none of my business, but you have a lot of negative things to say about your partner so I’m just trying to figure out how to address them in a kind caring way. What I really want to do is yell, “Your partner sucks! You could do better!” I’m also curious how you ended up with such a dud. Again, not a deal breaker, but you talk about the problems in your relationship all the time. Also, when we went out the other night, your partner was really rude to me and my husband.

You seemed cool when we first hung out, but now you’re super negative and judgmental.

We had such a blast the first two times we hung out at the library. Our kids got along splendidly. You were so upbeat and funny. We bonded over our love of David Bowie and the 90s cult classic Reality Bites. I was so ready to go to Claire’s and get us Best Friends necklaces. However, the last couple of times we hung out, you’ve been really negative and judgmental. Is the honeymoon phase of our friendship over? Also, you won’t stop complaining about your “friends.” Are you going to start complaining about me when I’m not around? Oprah once said, “Only surround yourself with people who take you higher.” Frankly, your sour attitude is bringing me down.

In conclusion, the mom-friend market is tough, but you and I might be a perfect fit. Show me your friendship checklist and I’ll show you mine. Hopefully, we can make this a relationship stand the test of time and together, we can be there for each other through this crazy journey called parenthood.