Alex: [00:00:00] if I can inspire at least one person to do something for their community or to gather or to introduce themselves to the mom that they always see at music class who they think is really cool go for it. Just do it.
Nina: Yes. Just do it. Welcome to Dear Nina. Conversations about friendship Today is a topic that is actually surprising I have not done before. How is it possible? I have not done the topic of making mom friends. The challenges, the opportunities, both are a part of the picture. And I wanna acknowledge that not all of my listeners are moms. I hear from people who chose not to have kids or didn’t choose not to have kids but don’t have kids, and this comes up as part of the friendships.
We do address that a little bit at the end of the episode, but it is not what this episode is about. I have an episode about that coming up, about that specific topic of when you don’t have kids, and a lot of the people around you do. This is different than [00:01:00] having a partner in life or not a spouse or a partner of some kind.
Having kids and not having kids, I think can be a bigger divide than being in a romantic partnership or not. Again that is going to be an entirely separate episode. This episode is about mom friends, the opportunities, the challenges.
And I’m really glad to have a guest who is new on that journey. Newer, she has a 2-year-old. My kids are so much older. That early time of making mom friends was so long ago for me. My oldest is 21 as I am recording this. I have three more kids. I have an 18-year-old and a 16-year-old and a 13-year-old. So I am thrilled to have a guest on who’s much younger. She is in her early thirties and she has a 2-year-old.
Her name is Alex Reed. She has a full-time job in the tech industry, but the part of her work that she does on the side that I think listeners will be really interested and can relate to is an Instagram and a substack that goes along with it. that is a lifestyle account focused on [00:02:00] food, flowers, friendship, and entertaining. It’s called Roses and Radicchio. I will have it linked in the show notes.
Alex focuses a lot of her content on gatherings with friends, big and small, where to meet new friends, to bring into your circle. Alex and I met several months ago through Instagram, through the friendship work that we both a lot about. There was a lot to say, and I know that there’s a lot more to say on this topic, and I would love to hear from you after the episode if you were able to connect to it, if there’s more you wanna hear about on this topic.
Find in my show notes how to reach me anonymously, how to reach me, not anonymously. You don’t have to keep it anonymous. It’s a lot of people like to, that’s up to you. without further ado, we are going to bring on the fabulous Alex Reed. hi Alex. Welcome to Dear Nina.
Alex: . Hi, Nina. How are you?
Nina: I am really excited to do this topic because you would think it would be one I’ve done before in a podcast that is over four years old. I think I am sometimes reluctant to talk too much about mom friend topics because I have four kids, which [00:03:00] anyone who’s heard this podcast knows I do mention often ’cause it is part of my life.
Then I have the voices of worry in my mind like, oh, it’s not gonna apply to everybody if we talk about mom friends. But then I think about all my episodes and I’ve done single friends and all kinds of things, work friends, and this is a really big topic to have ignored. I’m so glad you reached out and that we are doing this important one.
Alex: honestly, that was what I thought about in my pitch was I had read your pitching guidelines and had done just a lot of research and was taking what was essentially an iPhone note of a brain dump of my thoughts on this topic and I also talked with a lot of girlfriends and you know, people who follow me on Instagram and it was a resounding, Yes. but it’s one of those things that it could be 15 conversations altogether, you know? But I’m really excited to dive in and chat more about it
Nina: Let’s just start broad. Why did you feel, and you’re someone who’s listened to a lot of my episodes, I know that, and you’re someone who also thinks about friendship a lot. Why did you feel that this topic is so important to cover? Why can be tough to navigate mom friendships, make mom friends, keep mom [00:04:00] friends, all of that.
Alex: I was very lucky I had a, a really long maternity leave because I work in the tech industry. When I was on maternity leave, my strategy was I went really external, for different types of community support. I joined a mom group. I signed up for baby and me music. I did, you know, the stroller meetups. I did all of those different things. What I kept finding was people were craving community. It was making me feel great, but I was also seeing everybody else really needed it. So I started to look into the research and, kind of dive in a little bit deeper. And what I found was moms are really lonely in that first year postpartum, uh, like in the perinatal period of being pregnant in the year postpartum. and motherhood is such a Transformative time in general. And then you add in the hormones, the isolation, potentially of maternity leave, all the changes you’re suddenly navigating.
You need a village, but sometimes you don’t have one. You might not have, your mom living nearby or your sister next door to you or something like that. making friends takes time. A lot of episodes have covered this, but in motherhood we’re also so [00:05:00] often strapped for time and the primary focus is often our child and their needs, especially in the early days.
So how do you then turn around and make friends? So I felt like there was this weird problem to solve, of, okay, you have all these moms who are really lonely, but they’re craving connection. But everybody might have a different approach and strategy. you also don’t really have a lot of time and you have this tiny baby who needs you and that’s who your primary need is going to.
So how do we solve this and talk about it more and come up with different strategies to meet that need for people who wanna drive forward and do the work and you know, make new mom friends and kind of go into this new chapter, setting themselves up for success.
Nina: I’m glad you brought up maternity leave ’cause there’s that piece too where a lot of people have to go right back to work. What do you see out there as like the average amount of time people are given?
Alex: I definitely think I will caveat everything I’m about to say in this episode with, it is a huge privilege to have a long maternity leave, and there are a lot of services and programs that disproportionately benefit people who have longer maternity leaves that are associated with jobs like in the [00:06:00] tech industry, for instance, versus if you’re a government employee or you work for a small company, or you work for yourself and you’re looking at either
No maternity leave outside of short term disability, or you are looking at a really, really small window of six or eight weeks versus there’s people who are dealing with months on end. what I’ve seen on average is a lot of folks who are in the private sector like me, who have those longer about at least a quarter of maternity leave, about 12 weeks.
But I’ve also seen people have as little as six or eight. that is really tough. obviously there’s a whole other episode and topic to talk about, like the need for paid family leave. but that’s a big caveat and an important disclaimer to put on all of this is many suggestions and things I’m gonna talk about are geared towards people who have that time off and whenever
Nina: home. I mean, there’s plenty of people who also stay home. I stayed
Alex: exactly. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Even. You know, I’m helping my church set up a mom group that they’re revitalizing that they used to do a while ago when we were designing a survey to go to people. We had to stop because [00:07:00] I said, okay, well none of these questions are geared towards people who are working full-time, who might not be able to meet up at 10:00 AM on a Tuesday for a play date.
So why don’t we design a subset of questions for moms who are working out side the home. I also firmly believe if you’re staying home with your kids, that is work still. that is a tough, job.
Nina: And I wanna clarify ’cause I said just now that, I stayed home the first few years just so that everything’s on the table for this episode. What I mean by that is I wasn’t doing any writing. I had been a teacher my first son was born in July, so I was very, very pregnant through the end of the school year.
And then I had him and then I stayed home and I was still, home full time with my second child. as the kids got older, I still was home, but I then had started working on writing and freelance writing and teaching writing and all these other things, but it was not a full-time job, so I was very much in a privileged position.
What I would get sometimes that I really didn’t like, and I’m sure we will continue to address this issue is I had a part-time babysitter so that I could work on the writing Go to the dentist. I don’t know. [00:08:00] I would use that time in a variety of ways.
I remember somebody saying to me, well, she didn’t say it to me, she said it to a friend of mine who said it to me. And that’s a whole other episode topic. she was like, so curious, why you would have a babysitter.
What are you so busy doing? This judgment just felt like what I was doing couldn’t have been an important enough to leave my kid. unless it was, you know, a big, high paying job, which it was not. you know, if I were to do a whole nother episode on that, what I would really be focusing in on and is why did my friend feel the need to repeat that to me. ’cause in fairness to the other person, the third person, that third person was not even someone I was friends with.
Sure. That was not nice that she made that comment, she didn’t say it to me. why did someone feel the need to say it? Well, maybe my friend had the same question. Why are you taking the time for yourself when you have this, little baby who needs you? And what I’m getting at is all of that plays into women being hard on each other.
Alex: yeah, and I think that that ties into when you’re making new mom friends is it’s so important to make sure that you’re aligned with people. if you are someone [00:09:00] who firmly believes that a stay at home mom, who is working in the home, essentially raising her children, not doing, you know, traditional work in an office, should never have a babysitter to go to the dentist or go to the grocery on her own, or take a nap. If you don’t believe that she should ever have that, and you’re friends with someone who that’s their situation, okay, maybe we need to pause. Maybe that’s not someone who you should become super close friends with because you have a bias or like a judgment towards them, kind of right out of the gate.
I also think it’s really tough too, because in motherhood what I’ve seen is if you have a lot of perfectionistic tendencies that you are applying to yourself when you’re in that first, especially year postpartum you might use your outdoor voice, and say something that you’ve been saying to yourself that maybe isn’t correct or true or kind, and you don’t even realize it, but you might be saying it to someone who that is their lived experience and it’s actually really hurtful to them.
Do you see what I’m saying? And so [00:10:00] that’s the part that it’s really tough, and that’s where it comes into gotta give people grace, but it’s also an examination of our relationships with ourselves and how we treat each other. I’ll be very honest. there were things that my son and I, you know, struggled with kind of early on.
And I had people who I knew who they were really gung-ho about that topic and their way or the highway, and they were putting pressure on themselves about that topic I was just kind of leaning into like, okay, I’m gonna be a free bird here and I’m gonna pivot and I’m gonna adjust and do this and do that.
It creates a, a tension with people I think when, somebody might not even realize it, that they’re being a perfectionist about X topic. The best analogy I can give is Imagine if you know your kids are older,
and you’ve got the mom who is completely obsessed with getting her kid on the travel soccer team, and you decide, Hey, you know what? My approach is gonna be if they don’t get on travel soccer, oh, well they’re gonna be fine and I’m gonna be okay with it. And you get really vocal about that approach . That mom could feel like you’re kind of inadvertently targeting them [00:11:00] or whatever.
And it leads to this friction and it becomes this thing that is the elephant in the room that no one’s talking about, but it’s really obvious what the conflict is. It’s basically being aware that you are aligned with someone from the start. Or pretty early on in the relationship.
So Anna Goldfarb talks a lot in her book, modern Friendship, which is fabulous, about how you need your values to be aligned in friendship in order for it to be successful. And I think when you’re meeting a new mom friend, that’s also something that you have to figure out pretty early and often.
And there’s ways to do that. You can listen to how they talk about certain topics, what they, say is important to them. And if that’s not something that is in alignment with what you are feeling or what is important to you as well, maybe that’s not someone who’s gonna be, the person who you take out of the playgroup and start hanging out with one-on-one in addition to this big thing or whatever it, or music class or whatever you guys meet in whatever capacity.
Nina: It actually is a perfect transition to how are people meeting these days. So, my youngest, like I [00:12:00] said, is 13, but I wasn’t really doing meet new mom people stuff when he was born. It was really more, I. 20 plus years ago when my first was born. So I’m curious ’cause now you know, we didn’t have smartphones then. Just to give everybody an idea. That was 2004. there was maybe I, oh, I don’t even think I had a blackberry yet. Or maybe did we have blackberries and
Alex: Oh man. Black Blackberry. What a throwback.
Nina: Oh, Alex, I had a Palm pilot before that, like Palm Pilot, then a Blackberry. Everything was much more in person show up. There wasn’t, you know, social media. There wasn’t apps to help you do stuff. So I’m curious, how are people meeting?
Alex: Lots of different ways to make mom friends. There are mom groups. There’s also nonprofits in the area that do them. Facebook groups. you really could just google kind of your area and new mom group or mom group and find one. I joined one that matched me with nine women whose children were within six weeks of mine. And we met for a total of, I wanna say, eight weeks with a facilitator. And we were in a WhatsApp chat [00:13:00] together. Joining a mom group is one way going to different baby and me classes, whether it’s music class, whether it’s baby and me yoga, story time at the library.
Those mostly don’t start until after six months old, which is kind of crummy. the peanut app, which is basically mommy Tinder, have you heard of
Nina: No. I’m so glad you brought this up. This is so helpful. This
Alex: Yes. So,
Nina: Peanut, like the, oh, that’s cute. Okay. Yeah.
Alex: It’s literally Mommy tinder. Um, I met one of my very dear friends on there. It’s hilarious. We both swiped on each other. She seemed super normal. there was some people on there, like, remember I talked about being aligned with moms early on? There was a profile and never forget coming across where this woman had details Pretty intensely in her bio. All of her birth, eating, sleeping habits, everything.
It said something to the effect of, if you are not doing this and do not have the same approach, do not swipe on me.
Nina: Wow. Okay. Well thank you. We
Alex: And I was
Nina: not swipe.
Alex: like. Good to [00:14:00] know because that would be really crummy if I made the time to get together with you and then learned that you think something I’m doing with my kid is so deplorable you would never do it.
You know what I mean? Like we are clearly not values aligned in that sake. it’s kind of a geofence, so it’s in your area and you can swipe on moms and there’s different prompts and things like that, and you can, meet up and arrange a play date.
Nina: More like one-on-one? Like is, does the peanut app encourage one-on-one or is there things in there where you can join up with a group?
Alex: I think they have a feature where you can join with a group, but it is primarily one-on-one. and then fellow daycare parents, of course. My daycare sends around a, a family roster, to kind of get everybody to know each other. I hosted at my home a, uh, donuts with daycare friends, kind of like little play date get together for my son’s class to get to know the parents. There’s also local mom Facebook groups, we have a few in the DC area that are paid for like 40 bucks a year, and you, have to provide proof of address that you live in certain zip codes because it’s for the town.
[00:15:00] and they do playgroups and events and things like that. So there’s lots of options and I challenge people if you don’t have any of those near you start, because all it takes is one person to raise their hand and say, hi, I, I’d like to meet someone new, and have that vulnerability to share, Hey, I wanna put myself out there.
And you would be shocked at the number of people who follow. and that’s a segue a little bit into challenges in this season, I was really nervous to raise my hand and to say to people I am feeling lonely, and like I am having a hard time postpartum.
But the moment I got over that fear and I started getting really loud about that I was shocked at how many other people were saying Me too. Me too. Me too. and I am so happy that I took the leap of faith with being honest and being vulnerable about like what was working for me and what wasn’t.
Because it strengthened my connections other people.
Nina: It takes courage. I what you’re talking about, it’s so important in all stages for all kinds of friends, not just making friends with other moms, but all friendship takes an act of [00:16:00] bravery. You can have all the Facebook groups in the world, all the apps, all the ways that you can meet people through a faith community or all the kinds of community things out there.
But you have to show up. You have to be willing to come to something and not know anybody. It’s hard. I’m not saying it’s easy, but you’re not gonna meet anybody sitting in your house swiping.
Alex: You are not, and, and also I think it’s really, really important to caveat this part with some people, they don’t wanna meet new people. And that can either be because they legitimately don’t want to, and I’ll get into that in a second. Or they’re afraid, Because it takes a lot of vulnerability to put yourself out there and to meet new people, especially when you’re navigating this new thing in your life and you’re about to go.
It’s like being a freshman in college kind of all over again, except you’re with like a little living human breathing thing. But when I say that people might not want to meet new people, it might be because they feel like they don’t need to.
It’s not necessarily a malicious thing. And it might be because they have a level of support that they’re comfortable with already in my situation. You know, my mom is [00:17:00] deceased, so I didn’t have her flying in to spend three weeks with me When I had my son. I didn’t have my sister living super close to me, or, my cousin living across the street,
I didn’t really feel like I had that village ready to go from the drop with family. so I had to make it myself. And so the metaphor that I came up with and I finally had like an aha moment and I wrote it down is. Imagine, you know, new motherhood in those first three months is you’re deep in the forest. My approach was to go external. It was to light a big bonfire, send a flare into the air, and try to find fellow travelers to get through the night. Other people’s approach might be to build a tent, go inside, cozy up with their family, make a small fire, and turn inward and be more private.
That is totally okay, but they’re two very different approaches and it’s so important to know or at least ask yourself, what is my approach versus what is someone else’s approach? And not try to force people [00:18:00] to have the same approach as you because it’s just gonna be ripe for misunderstanding and hurt. If, you see a friend who wants to go super external and put themselves out there, and you want to be more private or more inward facing, maybe put yourself in her shoes for a minute. Okay, well why is she doing that? Is it because of her family situation? It requires us to perspective take. And I think that that’s really, really hard when we’re in this new phase of life and we’re so focused on triaging and supporting this little tiny baby.
Thinking about perspective taking with another person or like doing introspection is like, wait, what you want me to do? What? But it is really helpful to look at it that way and know your fellow traveler.
Nina: That really speaks to me and it comes into play actually more so when we’re talking about if you had a friend from before you had kids. You maybe had kids around the same time, or even if it’s a year apart, a couple years apart, your needs and their needs might be completely different
Alex: motherhood changes you. It really does, and it’s one of the most transformational things. There [00:19:00] is very few heartbreaks, like a friend heartbreak and like a friendship breakup, you might have. a kid at the same time as your best friend in the world, you guys might take a totally different approach. It might break you. And maybe you connect five, 10 years down the road. Or maybe you had kids around the same time as someone you went to college with and really close, and then you moved to their town and your kids are in kindergarten together and you realize ooh, yikes. You know what, maybe we’re not aligned here.
Or maybe had you guys been close to each other when your kids were infants, you would’ve maybe not been close and it could have blown everything up. But now that the kids are five and they’re, you know, doing their own thing, it’s fine. And so it’s being open to this idea that things are gonna change and ebb and flow, and recognizing that that is hard and not everybody wants to be your best friend. Not everybody’s gonna take the same approach as you, you have to just keep doing you.
A friend of mine I love, I love when she says this ’cause it kind of gets into mommy competition. I steal this from her, she says, you are doing what works best for your model of [00:20:00] baby. My model of baby could have been born the same day, same hour as your model, but it’s a different model. Same way you’re doing what is working for your model of motherhood right now, which could be different with your second kid or your fourth kid. Or if you had a kid, six years ago, Or when your mom had you.
Nina: And there’s so many factors. There’s health of the mom, health of the kid. we already talked about, in terms of work and financial and different. issues people have that may factor into how much time they have for friendship or not. And then there’s also, by the way, community versus friendship.
I wanna urge people, it’s worth joining things when you can, even if you’re not gonna make a close friend out of it, because it’s nice to have community around the stage of life you’re in. showing up to a baby and me is a worthwhile thing even if you make zero close friends out of it. You know, people in town. there’s just value to knowing people in your community, even if it doesn’t mean that you now have a close, girls night out of it.
Alex: You could grow closer with that person later on. You might even know someone who they would get along [00:21:00] really well with. You might be able to introduce them to their potential best friend. You could be the intermediary that that person needs.
it’s very much requires keeping an open mind. We also talk about okay, there’s a lot of change in this season with your body and with hormones and with, you know, friendships, and you’re learning to manage this new little baby who like, is like a tamagotchi that’s changing every day and you have no idea if you’re doing it right.
They can’t talk, they can’t give you any feedback. You’re also navigating like a change with your spouse, of they’re a parent, and if they’re on leave, you know, how much do they help out or whatever. And like, that can be a big one their spouse might not help out as much or they might help out a ton or, that’s another factor to, take into play as well. Or maybe, you know, their spouse only gets two weeks of leave, it goes back to that perspective taking of like, where is someone coming from?
Alex: When we talk about like challenges in the season, I think the hard part is when you’re pregnant, you go to the ob every couple of weeks, every week, depending on your situation, how far along you are, and it feels like every time you go to the doctor, you get a gold star, Oh, heartbeat’s good. Oh, we’re checking your levels. This, that, the other, like, there’s some [00:22:00] type of test. You’re getting a little check mark. You’re the princess on the lily pad the whole time you’re pregnant. Everybody cares about you. It’s true. Think about it when you’re pregnant. People hold the door for you. The doctor immediately answers your call.
And then you have the baby and no one cares it’s all about the baby. You all of a sudden went from getting basically a report card and like a little gold star every week that you’re at the doctor to, okay, good luck.
Bye. See you later. Couple pediatrician appointments, first couple weeks and then see ya. for people, especially if you’re like type A you will then freak out and kind of latch on to every milestone, every should that the internet tells you you should be doing.
Because you’re like, I need to know that what I’m doing is right. And then that I think can devolve into mom shaming a bit, because you’re like, I need to know that what I’m doing is correct and so at least I’m not doing this thing or that thing or whatever.
Nina: I’m smiling and nodding because I was such a nervous mom when I had my oldest. I was so clueless. I was scared to change his diaper. Scared to give him a bath.
I was a very nervous mom and anxious. [00:23:00] What you’re saying, I’ve never really thought about that the milestones and how important they were and not getting the gold stars anymore. I was so scared to get things wrong, like I was scared to hurt him.
Alex: and also you can have these either loud or silent not only societal pressures, but also family pressures potentially. If you have a sister who has, three kids and every single time, pregnancy and birth and postpartum was textbook for her and all of the kids were, you know, breastfed and slept through the night and everything, you might be feeling this silent pressure of like, well, well, she can do it.
Why can’t I do it? your situation is completely different from other people, but we are so inundated with all of these shoulds. And that’s a big part of why I started Roses and Radicchio.
It was a legacy account that was kind of dead from having a flower business years ago. But my personal Instagram became to be very blunt, a hellscape of reels that were just constantly telling me what I was doing wrong, scaring me. I would make the mistake [00:24:00] of reading the comments and I would see the worst things I was saying to myself being validated by like some random person selling essential oils outta the backseat of their car
Nina: You are so funny,
Alex: awful thing I was saying to myself Literally in the comments being like, yeah, and if you do this, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or, or I would see a reel where a mom was like, Hey mom, if you’re doing insert X thing that I was doing with my kid, you’re doing great. Go mom. And then you’d click on the comments and there’d be people being like, actually, and citing some random study that’s been debunked. And it was just like, ah,
Nina: is a reminder everyone that social media algorithms show you such individual things. all I see, and I’m sure you do not, is perimenopause stuff. It’s women my age wearing a weighted vest and working on our bone density
Alex: but that’s why I leaned into Roses and Ruo because I was like, I don’t wanna see a single child on here. I want to trick the algorithm into thinking I don’t have a kid because this is so toxic.
Nina: I once wrote a piece that people really liked. I loved it. It was one [00:25:00] of my favorite essays when I was writing essays for Brainchild Magazine. It was a long time ago, and it was about my obsession with which double stroller to buy. And it reminds me of this topic, not about the competition piece of it at all, but more just like the things we get obsessed about when we’re young moms, and I think it’s because it’s a false sense of control. And you could just go nuts with deciding what to buy for any product. I think when we get obsessed over a topic, this idea that we have all this control and if we just do this one thing or buy this one product or then all the things will fall into place.
Alex: Totally, and I think again, it goes back to Everyone is insane that first year and you really have to give people the benefit of the doubt. But I also think it’s really important to have people in your life who can keep you honest and say, Hey, you’re being a perfectionist about X, Y, Z thing, it is letting your bad qualities outweigh your good qualities.
This has to stop. And that was for me, my husband with like the baby led weaning thing.
Nina: I don’t know who, but a partner could tell you that.
Alex: Yeah, right. [00:26:00] a best friend, a partner, whatever. Right. A, you know, a sister or a cousin, whoever is in your village. you need to have people who can keep you honest. But it’s also really hard to receive Feedback. And when you’re in this really sensitive time, especially with hormone changes and drops and everything like that, it can feel like you are being criticized and it’s no, I just see you struggling and I can feel it coming off of you and I want you to be okay.
And I think that When we talk about postpartum depression and anxiety, that is also one of the toughest things is, when you have people who are in these mom groups with you, potentially a benefit is you’re also getting a bit of an unbiased third party look at yourself,
because someone who’s around you all the time might miss certain signs of postpartum depression or anxiety. But someone who doesn’t know you at all and hears you say I don’t really wanna hold the baby and like, I just wanna sleep all day or whatever.
Like, be able to potentially keep you honest. And I think that that is another really valuable piece of it. Obviously that’s a tough conversation to have [00:27:00] with someone. But I think that we think in our minds that postpartum depression is this really specific kind of end of the spectrum of oh, I want nothing to do with the baby.
And it can actually manifest in tons of, I’m not a medical professional, but it can manifest in tons of different ways. And it’s really important to be aware of that. One of the number one things to help combat perinatal depression and anxiety is community support.
Nina: And I think it in the same way, same reason. If there’s an issue going on with the kid, it’s good to have other third party. This is why milestones, like you don’t wanna get too attached to them, but it’s nice to be around other people with kids the same age. And as the kids get a little older and somebody might say, you know what, they should be making eye contact at this point.
They might be able to see something that if you’re just isolated at home all the time with your kid, you can’t see.
Alex: absolutely. It’s this delicate balance of comparison is the thief of joy. But I think that that’s the part where again, having supportive friends comes into play. One of my very dear friends who I met on Peanut, her daughter is a day apart from my [00:28:00] son. And there are things developmentally that her daughter did way before my son and vice versa, and so it was always very interesting to compare notes because there were things I would get a little worried about and then he would hit whatever the milestone was or whatever and be completely fine. it’s making sure that you have a relationship where it’s not, judging or shaming or toxic comparison and more of Hey, I’m supporting you in this.
If you start from the get go of, I’m not gonna have a competition philosophy here, I’m not doing it, it’s gonna set you up for success long term. And I’m so curious from your angle, because your kids are older, I’m sure the competition you see is colleges and extracurriculars and where is Johnny interning this summer?
And those kinds of things. Well, if you’ve never had that from day one, you can almost insulate yourself from it when it comes along later.
Nina: I think the biggest thing to do before even thinking about friends with this is to learn to see your kid as a separate being from yourself. And I got better at it as I got older, but we are not our kids. our kids are not [00:29:00] us.
This sounds impossible. Because we raise these kids, and of course we are very attached, but if we could be less attached to what their outcome of quote unquote success says about who we are as people, like they’re their own people on their own journey. So that I think is really number one, As they get older, really, really, really important in terms of college. Like you’re saying, internships So true as like, that’s not even something I would’ve thought at your age to even think about, but. Yeah, I have a 21-year-old, that’s a thing. , Where are the kids interning next summer? Alex, they already know, a lot of ’em where they’re interning next summer. And
Alex: And I think another thing like in motherhood and when we talk about competition and being mindful and like like I started the episode talking a little bit about being aware of the language you use. You need to give people grace and we don’t wanna walk on eggshells when we’re already in this really fragile time in our life.
But I also think it’s so important to be mindful of our words and the impact they have on others. And I say this as someone who has absolutely put my foot in my mouth [00:30:00] more times than I care to admit and has definitely said things before that I deeply regret and haunt me.
Nina: to a hundred percent.
Alex: Like I, I will immediately throw that out there of guilty as charged. But chatting with friends about how we talk about things like, for instance, infertility or family planning or being in the NICU or something with birth or labor. Dr. Brene Brown talks a lot about empathy misses, we. Where we’re trying really, really hard to throw the empathy ball to someone and we actually end up missing it and it almost turns into a dodge ball instead of a game of catch. We’re trying to play a conversational game of catch and we end up playing a game of conversational dodge ball.
And it’s not fun for anyone involved, but, being mindful of, if you say to someone oh yeah, well, you know, and then like later this year, like, I’m gonna get pregnant. ’cause we’re gonna have two under two, that’s a lot of assumptions. Maybe don’t say that to someone who has navigated loss or is going through, IIVF.
Or if someone has one child and they’re, potentially [00:31:00] going through a, a fertility journey for their second, you know, maybe don’t say to them, well, at least you already have one.
Nina: You know, one thing I’m, I’m always nervous about in an episode like this, and it comes up sometimes when we are talking about grief and people trying to help each other. I always hesitate to make people nervous to talk. To talk to their friends and be honest. ’cause a lot of what we’re talking about and, and it is all for, it’s all real stuff. A lot of what we’re talking about is how the things we say can be perceived. Even the positive things. And it’s like, yes, we have to be aware of how it makes other people feel, and at the same time, we’re just trying to get along in our lives. And it’s hard, isn’t it? You want people to just assume the best
Alex: yeah, it goes back to assuming noble intent and assuming that most people are not out to get you and, and say something , to needle at you like most people, just to be honest, I had put a question in my Instagram box a couple of weeks ago of what’s the hardest part about making new mom friends? And I was floored at the number of responses I got from people [00:32:00] saying, I am so lonely, or I just feel like. I’m gonna step in it and say the wrong thing, or they’re not gonna think I’m cool or I don’t have time.
That’s the other big one. Right. Especially when your kids get to school age, or you don’t have family support or a spouse helping out.
Asking someone to join a mom group or to, get together for a mom’s dinner or whatever, can feel like a burden. If you’re telling me I have to do one more thing that’s the tough part. I talked about this a lot with hobbies, when you do hobbies, you get this overall release, which is better for your stress and your overall health long-term. But convincing someone to take the time to do that so they can get the long-term benefits is really, tough. Like a chicken or egg type thing. Leaning into community if you make the time, even if it is a stroller walk, even if it is, I’m already taking my kid to music class or to the park or whatever. Do you wanna meet up and chat? I’ll grab the coffee. That kind of thing. it’s those little things oftentimes, which are free, that can actually be so impactful for you.
Nina: I wanna end on one [00:33:00] other conundrum that comes up. There is this divide between people who have kids and people who don’t.
And I would say more so than being married and not, there’s plenty of single parents out there, but they are still able to bond with other parents on the parenting part. We’re signing our kids up for camp together. We’re signing our kids up for sports. It doesn’t really matter if they have a partner or not, actually. It’s like we’re still bonding on the parent
Alex: you have the about, as Anna Goldfarb says
Nina: Yes, I love and yes, I love and Anna says that. I wanna assure people that people with kids and people without kids can be friends, but it’s not just like a magical thing. I mean, it takes some thoughtfulness on each side of what the other people are going through. And not everybody wants to talk about their kids all the time. One thing, a piece of advice I could give out there is. Yeah, I have four kids, but I don’t wanna, you’ve heard me say this on episodes, Alex, I’m sure. I don’t wanna talk about college admissions all the time. don’t.
Alex: recently in the last couple months, instead of just saying, how are you? Because everyone’s gonna be like, good, great.
Alex: I’ve been asking people, what are you loving right now?
Nina: That’s a great question.
Alex: What are you loving right now? Or [00:34:00] what are you reading right now? Or what are you streaming? What are you listening to? you’ll learn something about what’s making someone tick. My husband thinks it’s a really weird way to start a conversation with someone, but whatever.
Nina: I like that. I like that a lot.
Alex: different ways to do that. And I think with friends who don’t have kids, the biggest thing is understanding someone’s emotional, bandwidth if you will. You know of hey, I might have an evening free with childcare or a day free with childcare, I might not want to be social.
I’ve become more introverted, in the second year of motherhood than I was in the first year of motherhood. And so understanding it’s not personal if someone’s like, I just kind of wanna meet for coffee so that there’s like a definitive start and end or meet for launch versus doing this open-ended thing.
Nina: there’s no one answer to this. I just wanted to bring it up as an issue that I know is out there and that will continue to address on this show. So
Alex: Yeah, no, it’s certainly tough, but I think, the big main thesis points, , are know what your values are and what is [00:35:00] important to you, being able to sniff those out early when you’re meeting a new mom and be okay with you don’t have to ghost someone if they’re not entirely your vibe, but like maybe you guys just aren’t really good friends, and that’s okay
Nina: You’re still part of the wider community
Alex: Yeah, you’re still part of the wider community and you never wanna burn a bridge or someone, ’cause like your kids can end up in soccer jamboree together three years from now.
Right. Or art camp, or the same school . So knowing what your values are, knowing how to sniff those out and not burning a bridge if someone doesn’t share those same values. Being open to meet new people and be vulnerable and put yourself out there. But also knowing your fellow traveler and not taking it personal and being aware that there are people who, don’t wanna send the flare gun into the air. They don’t wanna light the bonfire, they wanna stay in their tent. And I think also. not shaming and being open to understanding that shoulds or coulds with shame and wanting to not have comparison be the thief of joy. And then the last part is, being open to the idea that relationships can change.
You might drift apart with someone when your kids are infants [00:36:00] and five years later, maybe the time when you guys really shine is when your kids are both, 10 years old and they wanna play together. Or they’re in high school and they’re on the same soccer team or band camp . Be open to this idea that people can grow and change. I just wrote a substack on this for 33 lessons for me, turning 33, and that was a really, really big one, is we are not defined by a season where we might not be at our finest, which sometimes early motherhood. That is when we’re not at our finest, we are in the woods. That doesn’t define you and that’s okay.
Nina: Oh, so beautifully said, Alex. I’m going to add to remind people to show up to things where you don’t know anybody and you’re just gonna have to keep trying. And if the first one didn’t work, you try again and you keep going and you can’t just hope for new friends and hope for mom friends, you have to show up to things and try.
And finally, we are not even gonna go into this topic. I just wanna let people know that I will link other episodes on this topic ’cause I’ve addressed it a thousand times. And that is you should not force your kids to be friends. And they may start out friends, they might be friends when they’re two or three or four [00:37:00] and not really be into each other later.
And the only way to get through that is to have a conversation with your mom friend and say, Hey, looks like those two aren’t gonna make it in middle school. We’re still gonna be friends. I mean, you have to have an actual conversation that’s way down the line. But that’s a reminder to you, Alex, to know that for later.
Alex: no. Totally. It’s very, very good to hear. And you and I have talked about this before, but your people are out there and you haven’t, I love this quote where they say like, you haven’t even met all the people who are gonna love you yet. If you’re feeling lonely, guess what? Everyone’s feeling lonely too. The difference is most people are just lying everybody is also feeling a little lonely about motherhood. Most people are just lying about it.
But I appreciate this podcast and I appreciate meeting people on the internet and being able to have these conversations with people, it’s opened up my world so much. I’m so happy that I put myself out there and embraced the vulnerability of creating and making art. I’ve just met some really cool people because of it like you, and been able to have the opportunity to have really amazing conversations. And if I can inspire at least one [00:38:00] person to do something for their community or to gather or to introduce themselves to the mom that they always see at music class who they think is really cool go for it. Just do it.
Nina: Yes. Just do it. Alex, thank you so much. I already said in the intro where everyone can find you. It’ll be in the show notes. And everyone come back next week when our friendships are going well, we are happier all around.
