I awkwardly smile at the table of women watching me as I ask my waiter for his best recommendation on a glass of full-bodied red wine. I’ve just sat down at a table at Eataly with my 20-month-old daughter in her stroller. I park it close enough to the curved booth so that I can put the brake on and scoop her out and into the corner beside me. She pops the pacifier out of her mouth as if to say Take this thing, woman, lift me, and let me see what’s going on.
When the hostess seated me, she placed two menus down, despite me telling her it would just be us. I guess, technically, she wasn’t wrong. The waiter returns with a 5oz glass of dark cherry-hued goodness and glances at the space to my left. “Are we expecting another?”
“Nope.”
He whisks the additional menu away and gives me a few minutes to take a look. I take Miss Tea Tea, out from the messy storage space under her stroller seat and place it down facing her. She smiles cheesily, and I sip on what is a delicious choice indeed. Just 30 minutes before arriving, she had a tantrum in the middle of a bookstore. It was a meltdown that included screaming, crying, avoidance of any touch and thrashing around on the ground. It took every ounce of patience I had not to have a breakdown myself, but my experience with my son’s several tantrums served me well in knowing that the best thing to do was just be present and wait for the eye of the storm to pass.
A few staff members passed by, some laughing amongst each other, whether at my expense or something completely unrelated, I have no way to know, but it drove me nuts. Others offered an awkward “aww poor thing”, as they took in her shrieks of displeasure at being offered a snack. Not acknowledging (or worrying about), the stares, unsolicited comments and general feeling of helplessness in these situations is the hardest obstacle to overcome. At least it was for me. A four-minute tantrum feels an hour long, but we all had these moments as children. We all had to learn how to regulate. (And re-learn by the way!) Being embarrassed about what’s happening will only prolong it. My kids having a rough time right now and they’re crying. Yeah, it’s loud, but who cares? No one. And if someone does, WGAF?
Once I managed to convince her back into her stroller, I chose peace and opted for comfort, gnocchi and wine over fast food and sticky food court seating.
In between sips, bites, and adjusting of my bangs - by the way, I have bangs now. Every few weeks, or months, I need to feel something new, and getting fringe scratched that itch last month.
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I looked around the restaurant at the various people sitting down with friends, in-laws, lovers, etc. There weren’t any other children that I could see, until eventually I spotted 3 women together, two of whom had bouncing babies on their laps, laughing, trading stories. For a nanosecond, this made me feel some sort of way but then it passed.
The truth is, I don’t have very many friends who are also parents. At least not in the way that I could reach out to one or several of them easily to find out if they’d be interested in coming to the mall with me for a walk and then a drink. The truth is, I may not even reach out if I did…Is that terrible?
The girlfriends I could hang out with every day that I love and who love my kids and that I trust are either, 1. Not yet mothers, or 2. live way out of the city because that’s where they can afford a more comfortable lifestyle. When I was a first-time mom with my son, Hudson, we had no car and he was born in January. The newborn phase, dark days, cold weather, eczema, allergies, and trouble breastfeeding rocked me like a hurricane. In hindsight, I really could have used more support. Corain worked a lot, I was on parental leave and most of my friends weren’t readily available. I turned to social media and forced myself out of the house for daily walks. Usually to the same coffee shop, some days to the mall, or to a large park where I could walk for a few hours and be with my thoughts (not always a good time during postpartum btw.) It was just us two. I went on apps for new moms and browsed through Facebook groups, (which is a risk in itself), I even met up with a few, but there was no….SPARK. It’s one thing to have agreements and/or disagreements in parenting styles, but another to feel like we just wouldn’t be friends if our children weren’t the common denominator.
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I like doing things by myself with my kids, and with my husband of course. It’s my safe place, I don’t feel the need to make sure the other party I’m with is feeling comfortable or entertained enough, or I don’t even know. Babies, and kids, add a whole other level of stress, planning and worry to the everyday. Now make it social?? With new women who don’t know anything about who I was before?, which I KNOWWW is the whole point, to be vulnerable and have people who can relate to what I’m going through in this new chapter of life and yadda yadda yadda.
SIGH. I feel pressure to deliver and I hate that. I can’t quite tell you what it is I think I need to deliver on but it’s there. I’m mentally exhausted a lot of the time and often need the other person to be the initiator, the planner, the joker. I can’t be that social butterfly I partially identify as because I have a hundred other things on my brain so I may or may not be a good listener or I’ll talk too much about myself or internally freak out when my kid starts acting up. It all feels like too much, so how about we just don’t do it at all?
5 years later, I still find myself being more of a friendly acquaintance with the moms at my son’s school, than friends. I can talk up a storm with another mom at the drop-in play centre but rarely make the move to exchange numbers and meet up again. The potential is there but..I don’t know what it is that holds me back sometimes. The last time I did agree to a play date after a random meet, it didn’t end well. We met up for a park date and I knew pretty quickly that it wasn’t a match. Sweet baby, nice enough mom, and I know how judgy this comes off, but we just didn’t have the same interests, ideals, style or sense of humour. The conversation was surface-level at best and well, I ended up ghosting. It was pretty obvious to both of us, I think. No use in beating a dead horse. (Is that phrase applicable here?) IDK, but you know what I mean.
If you’re a parent who struggles with finding her people, how do you deal with this? Maybe this is/was a non-issue?
If you’re not a parent and struggle to make adult friends, how do you deal with that?
If you made it down here, I thank you. I appreciate you taking the time and hope you have an amazing rest of your weekend.
Catch you on the next one
kisses.
I only recently found your Substack! Yeah, outside of my son’s class, it’s hard to connect with other moms. I don’t really see people much, with work and my recent health issues. Even then, I’m really only talking to moms of the kids my son plays with.
It wasn't till my kids could walk and talk that I was ready to have new friends. I think it's hard to get over the emotional burden of an infant and also be open to new people. For me, the library led to connections and also being desperate enough to make it happen