When I became a mom, some friendships got lost along the way, but my new-to-me mom village gathered round. My new group wasn’t filled with the women I expected it to be. My other friends had mostly come from school or work. These new friends were people I’d never crossed paths with before, thrown together by circumstance. It was wonderful to be amongst so many different women who shared a common bond.
This Mother’s Day, I’m taking time to reflect on these women who have helped me morph into the person I am now, and how they’ve helped bring out the best in me.
They understand the struggle
Scrolling through social media one morning in mid-2021, I came across a photo of three of my friends and their partners all on vacation together. I was freshly postpartum, with a month-old newborn attached to me at all times. I was the first of my group to have a baby, and I felt so stung by the news that my friends were on vacation without me, that it brought me to tears. I’d been left behind.
As I sobbed to my husband he could only reassure me that they didn’t mean to make me feel so left out. ‘They probably knew you wouldn’t be able to come, so they didn’t want to make you feel bad by inviting you,’ he said. He thought they were being clumsily protective, but I couldn’t get past what I saw as a betrayal.
It wasn’t until I spoke to my mom friends that I found others had experienced similar things. “People don’t understand,” one mom texted me in reply to my anguished messages.”The only thing you can do is try not to make anyone else ever feel this way.”
And she was right. While I felt lost among the friends who couldn’t understand how extraordinarily life-changing parenthood is, those who had trodden the path before me were right there to help. They showed me the struggle between being a parent and trying to regain some of my old self is very real, but something I needed to make peace with.
They understand that life isn’t a competition
I was at my friend’s house one day when my nearly one-year-old son stood up. I waited with baited breath, holding out my arms encouragingly towards him, but that was it. After standing absolutely still, he plonked back down on his bottom, and refused to get up again. Meanwhile, my friend’s son, just a few days older, was walking across the room. I despaired. I was worried he would never do it. He simply refused to take even one tottering step. My friend watched as I got more and more worked up about it.
“Don’t compare them,” she told me. Then she began to point out things which my son could do, which her baby couldn’t yet.
As she listed his focus and his skills at pointing, I realized how silly I had been to fixate on just one achievement. While I felt ashamed that it had taken someone who wasn’t his mother to show me that he was advancing in his own way, in his own time, but extremely grateful that she’d seen what I, as an anxious mom, couldn’t see in that moment.
They treat my children as their own
One day, as my doorbell rang, my daughter screeched with excitement and ran to answer it. On the doorstep stood one of my closest mom friends. With two children the same age as mine, we loved spending time together. And no one loved it more than my daughter. She threw herself into my friend’s arms, hugging her tightly and begging her to come and see her new toys. And when we loaded up the strollers and went outside for a walk, it was my friend’s hand she reached for as she crossed the road. It was my friend who said “You need to walk on the pavement, not run,” and my daughter actually listened.
It made my heart fill with happiness that my friend wasn’t simply being friendly towards my daughter, she actually cared enough about her to try and keep her safe in the same way she would her own children. It helped me realize that as moms, we’re all in this together.
They help make me the mom I am
Those little moments — and so many more — stay in my heart. Without the love and support of my mom friends I’d be a very different person, a much less confident mom, and my children would have fewer people who loved them. Without them, I wouldn’t be me, and I’m so grateful to them all.
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