I checked my phone for the 23rd time in that hour. Still no message. Hmm. Would the screen come on to confirm that he liked me back? I checked my phone again: no. It was wrecked.
This sad scene was not of a teenager texting a potential boyfriend, but of a mother of two in her 30s texting a potential new partner. A “mom friend,” to be precise.
I met this woman at a baby music group with my seven-month-old son. Between bursts of Old MacDonald and Peter Rabbit Had A Fly Upon His Nose, we struck up a conversation. We were both struggling with the incessant urge to wean, and when she rolled her eyes as they sang the songbook, I caught a whiff of kindred spirit.
At the time, I had been living in a new city, Bristol, for less than a year. With two children under two and my husband working around the clock, the days were long, especially since all my good friends lived “back home” in London.
In short, I was looking for company. So, at the end of baby music group, I asked for her number. “Oh, sure,” she replied with a smile. But when I texted her suggesting we grab coffee and “play” later that day, there was no reply. Hours passed, days passed, no reply. I texted her again: “Hi! I was wondering if you got my message.” The dead silence continued.
“But I thought he liked it!” I shouted to my husband.
His response: “Maybe she thinks you’re creepy. Who asks someone for their phone number half an hour after meeting them?”
Part of idealized modern motherhood is having a group of new friends in the same boat to hang out with.
With horror I realized that she might be right. I had often asked other mothers for their phone numbers at playgrounds and playgroups, taking the slightest pleasantry as a green light to make friends.
I was the platonic equivalent of the office libertine or the strange guy on the bus who invites you to dinner after a two-minute conversation. I had come across as the most repulsive person: desperate.
So, after years of unworthy and often fruitless attempts like these, I’ve given up completely. Having a group of “mom friends” just isn’t for me.
Why was I so excited in the first place? Because part of idealized modern motherhood (aside from getting back into jeans three days after giving birth and baking sugar-free muffins for your brood) involves having a group of new, like-minded friends to hang out with.
I had absorbed the idea that with motherhood automatically comes a maternal tribe: a Sex and the City-style clique fueled not by late-night Manhattans but by midweek lattes.
Well, I’ve had four babies now and it hasn’t happened, although God knows I tried. My first initiative was to join a group run by the NCT (National Childbirth Trust), which brings together couples in the final months of pregnancy to learn about childbirth and newborns.
I know several people who have made lifelong friends in their own NCT: one of them still goes on ski holidays with her group a decade later; another is the godmother of a friend’s child from NCT. In our case, the group never got together again and the whole thing fell through.
“I tried to project a bit of Mary Poppins-esque positivity, a spoonful of sugar facade as authentic as Dick Van Dyke’s Cockney accent in the film,” says Clare Foges.
Then, when my first baby was six months old, we moved to Bristol and I realised that Operation Mum Mates would have to take things a step further. Soon pregnant with my second child, I vowed to work on the baby group circuit.
I did everything: coffee groups in drafty church halls, singing in libraries, baby-training classes, something horrible called “dirty play,” where your babies sit in blue mush and get dirty. While my babies were having fun, I was striking up conversations with other mothers.
Maybe, in retrospect, I wasn’t quite myself. Aware that many of these women seemed to be going through early motherhood without a hitch, I tried to project a bit of Mary Poppins-style positivity, a sugary façade as authentic as Dick Van Dyke’s cockney accent in the film.
Although my mother character would sometimes take me to a coffee shop or a play date in the park, these budding friendships fizzled out after just a few encounters.
Sometimes that was because working moms were returning to the office, leaving stay-at-home moms like me to find new friends.
Sometimes things never get past a simple baby talk. How’s your baby’s feeding, sleeping, weaning, and turning going? How are the terrible twos going? How’s the transition to a nap going?
Although these are all fascinating topics at this stage of life, the conversation soon runs out. Sometimes I felt the lack of mom friends very intensely.
One day, when I was pregnant with my third child, I took my two older children to a small park. The only people there were about ten mothers with their children, celebrating their third birthdays.
There were bunting hanging from the trees, blankets on the ground, sparkling wine uncorked and homemade cupcakes spilling out of a Tupperware. In the setting sun, it looked perfect for Instagram.
Then I recognised a face… and another… and another… all these women had attended a baby gymnastics class that I had attended in the early days. We had gone for coffee, we had a WhatsApp group.
Over the next few years, as I went to parks and playgrounds alone, they all became great friends. When one of them waved at me, I felt embarrassed: a lone ranger in contrast to this golden circle of friends. I waved back and turned quickly, aware that my eyes were stinging.
I wondered why I was the friendless mum. The most obvious explanation was that I’m an unfriendly idiot (which is perfectly possible), but I also found it easy to make friends at school, university and work. So maybe the problem was more fundamental.
She hadn’t really clicked with anyone on the baby group circuit. Before, female friendships had begun with the intensity of love at first sight: with cocktail-fueled nights out, scandalous confessions and almost immediate intimacy.
And in the world of CBeebies banter, it’s hard to find such women. I’m sure they must be out there; it’s just that, like me, many women put on a cloak of integrity when they become mothers. Technicolour personalities become muted, maternal, acceptable.
On the rare occasions I tried to break the surface of mom talk with a confession or complaint about how bored I was of raising children, I was looked at curiously, as if I had removed my Poppins mask to reveal Cruella de Vil.
Still, when baby number three came along, I vowed to make one last effort and downloaded an app called Peanut, which is basically like Tinder for mothers. Like the dating app, you scroll through profiles. “Katy, 33, hobbyist in crafts and gardening, looking to meet people for coffee and a walk in the park…” Swipe right!
At first I felt a kind of Tinder-like chill. We exchanged messages, set up dates. And then something funny happened. I realized I was also doing what’s called “ghosting” — canceling meetings or not bothering to respond. After years of wanting friends who were mothers, when push came to shove, I didn’t really bother.
Like me, many women put on a blanket of health when they become mothers, writes Clare
I realized that for all these years I had been looking for friends who were mothers because I thought I had to have them. Suddenly, the idea of befriending someone just because they had a uterus and were at the same stage of life as me seemed a little weird and almost sexist.
Eight months ago I had my fourth baby. This time around I haven’t been going to baby groups or giving my number to random women.
Even though I feel lonely sometimes, my current friends are always on the other end of the phone.
This shift gives us a sense of liberation. As in so many areas of life, thinking too much about what we should be doing can make us lose sight of the beauty of what is happening in the moment.
These days, the company of my drooling eight-month-old baby is enough for me.
