Friendship and Motherhood

I have started and deleted this blog more times than I can count. Stolen in moments between naps, clients, conversations with friends or my husband. I have written notes on this topic in the margins of paper when other mothers tell me privately how isolated that they feel.

Still I get a gut punch when I sit to write on finding friends in motherhood. It feels like yet another way we tell moms they are failing. It feels like what people want from me, as a therapist, is to give them a 3-5 step plan on HOW to make friends as a mother.

I COULD do that for you. I won't do that for you.

Friendship in motherhood is way more complicated than any of us, myself included here, are willing to admit.

There are societal expectations that keep us trapped in our isolation. There is actual mental load that keeps us at the bottom of the to do list pile. Then there is often a need for dual incomes, guilt associated with being away from your baby.

All this adds up. It adds up and equals increased isolation.

Sometimes I think “you don’t need therapy- you need a play date”. The problem lies in allowing ourselves to have the play date. It’s the work around self worth and self determination. It’s the greater work of self trust.

The work of self trust is where I can help you move the needle. I can’t change society but I can support you in doing the work to change your mind set. I can support you in doing the work to come back home to yourself. In that work- in you feeling whole again- we do change society one mother at a time.

From a certainty in knowing your wholeness making friends as a mother no longer feels as complicated. You begin from here to separate the social expectation to standing in what’s true for you. You love yourself and others a little deeper allowing for friendships to arise and honestly fall away as they need too.

So I won’t give you a 3 to 5 step plan to make mom friends. Though I will walk next to you on the journey back to self trust.