Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back, friends. You are listening to episode 112 of Outnumbered the Podcast. And today we are talking about how to make and keep friends as a mom. It is a tricky job, but one that we desperately need, especially when we're stuck at home with kids most days.
Speaker: We need friends to listen to us, to talk to us, to take us out for ice cream and to generally boost up our morale. So today we're going to be giving you all our best tips. But before we get into it, we wanted to let you know about an awesome giveaway we have running in the month of March. If you log on to iTunes and leave us a review, you will be entered to win one of two 25 minute coaching sessions with me, Bonnie. I am so excited to give away these coaching sessions because I love, love, love talking to moms about any struggles they might be having.
Speaker: and I'm gonna get to talk to two of you who we choose from our reviews left in the month of March. So if you haven't left us a review, hop on over to iTunes and do that, and we wish you the best of luck. Now let's talk about friends.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Outnumber the Podcast. I'm Bonnie. And I'm Audrey. We're experienced moms to a combined total of 18 children. Our mission is to help overwhelmed parents find peace in parenting and humor in the chaos. Come join us as we attempt uninterrupted conversation about parenting with joy and intention.
Speaker: Welcome back everyone. Today we have got a super fun topic on the docket and that is making friends as a mom. And sometimes it's really hard, but when you can make it happen, it's so fun. So yeah, we, we worry a lot about our kids' friends very often, especially as they get older, but what about us?
Speaker: Yes, so this can be a tricky topic. And so that's why we're covering it today because there's so many benefits of friendship. So we want to go over this so that it's not something that you shy away from. I have a joke for you to start with. Okay. Knock, knock. Who's there? Voodoo. Voodoo who? Voodoo, you think you are asking me all these questions? What the heck?
Speaker: Excellent. See, friends make you laugh. That's really important. One of the many benefits of friendship, and there are so many really obvious ones, right? We actually are linking an article in the show notes about the benefits of friendship in case you needed any reminding, but just off the top of our heads, they're just fun, right? They're good for us.
Speaker: emotionally, mentally, they're good. They're actually good for our physical health, if you think about it. If you have good friends, they often encourage healthy behaviors. They can boost your confidence, make you feel better about yourself, right? They help beat stress, they push you to improve. So many wonderful things that come from having friends. Yeah, we can probably all agree on the benefits. And maybe we don't want to talk as much about the obstacles to
Speaker: making and keeping friends as an adult, as a mom. We have busy lives. Stay -at -home moms can have like fewer opportunities to meet people. And we can feel rightly so committed to family time instead of friend time. And then there's all the dynamics of two people with different personalities being friends. So we're gonna take on a lot of these topics today.
Speaker: Yeah. And on top of that, I mean, I think it's fairly easy to find a friend when you're 20 years old, single, in college, whatever. Your roommates and all of a sudden you got a ton of stuff in common, right? But it's a lot harder to find someone who's compatible with you with different parenting styles. And maybe you want your husbands to get along and maybe you want your kids to be similar ages and you want your schedules to be similar. There's a lot more involved in finding someone who fits your lifestyle.
Speaker: Yeah, so we're going to talk both about making and keeping friends today because they both require efforts and we're excited to dive into this topic because it's, yeah, it's really important.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. So making friends, I think might be the biggest obstacle or at least the first hurdle, obviously. Um, so let's talk about that. Uh, first of all, I think we need to realize that this is a self care issue, just like getting dressed. We talked about a little while ago. Um, this is not a selfish thing. This is not like, well, I just don't have anything to do with my time. So I'm going to go find some friends. No, this is something that each of us needs. Friendship is totally required for emotional stability.
Speaker: feeling understood, coping with stress, feeling loved. If you don't have friends, there's gonna be some things that you're not getting in your life that you need.
Speaker: Yes, let's first address husbands. They are amazing. Like, my husband is my best friend, but he's not my girlfriend. And it's not fair to ask him to function like a female friend. That's just not fair to him. It's not fair to me too, like to rely on him for that kind of thing. It's kind of funny to say it like that.
Speaker: Yeah, I want to talk about there's different kinds of friends. So as an adult, I remember feeling as a kid, I remember feeling that like I couldn't be friends with somebody if they weren't my same age. But as an adult, I've come to have a lot of different kinds of friends. And like as a kid, there was kind of this idea that there was one best friend and it was to the exclusion of all other friends.
Speaker: and you had everything in common with them and you basically joined at the hip or whatever. But now I realize I have different kinds of friends for different parts of my life. I don't know how to say it any different than that. Just that friendships as an adult, they're different from when we're an immature kid and they should be.
Speaker: As adults, we're so much more multifaceted, right? There's so much more to us than when we were eight years old. All you had to have is like somebody who was a neighbor in your same age and your friends, like you said. But for us, like I have a friend that I reach out to when I have business questions or complaints or advice.
Speaker: I have someone I reach out to when I want to talk about big family stuff. Oh, who's that? I have all these different people in my life who relate to different facets of my life. And I connect best with them when talking about specific things. And some are just closer than others. And so we talk about a lot more things. But that's totally OK. Your friendships should look different than when you were young.
Speaker: I think as adults we have a lot more security. We have less insecurity that kept us from being able to have certain kinds of friends when we were kids. You kind of think of the school
Speaker: culture thing. Like in one way, kids make friends easier. I mean, my kids make friends easier than I did. Anybody who comes along, that's just like their friend. But then again, I remember as a kid, a lot of insecurity is like, I can't be their friend because then somebody else might not be my friend, you know, like all these complex things going on. So I think as an adult, there's a lot more security just in yourself. And so it enables better friendships.
Speaker: Right, and I think we should expect and give more flexibility in our friendships, right? We all understand that our lives are busy and we have a lot more moving parts in them as 40 -year -old moms than we did as 20 -year -old college girls. And so it's important that we allow our friendships to have that flexibility so that we can stay friends for longer. And we'll talk about that more in a little bit.
Speaker: But first, let's talk about where to make friends. So let's say you've moved to a new area or you're just really feeling like you need someone to rely on. You need that friendship is missing. Where do you go? So I think most of us have probably our tried and true favorite places of finding friends. For me, it's usually my church congregation. Our congregations are organized by geographical locations. So if you make a friend at church,
Speaker: they're gonna be just down the street from you which is awesome or like maybe you have a favorite play group or something that you always go to and that's kind of where you hang out with people. Meeting people through mutual friends is usually a pretty common way, right? You get invited to a park or out to lunch with someone and you happen to meet somebody else they brought along etc.
Speaker: But sometimes we need to think outside the box, right? What if you've exhausted all your usual places or you're just looking for somebody new to hang out with? A few ideas are your neighbors, right? Sometimes it's going to be a little hard if you don't see them very often, but you can go knock on the door. That's totally okay. Maybe a little bit scary, but you can totally do that. You have cookies in your hand. It might help.
Speaker: totally bring the cookies and then you'll make friends quickly. Especially if you've seen kids over there or you've noticed that that person maybe is your similar age, you know, yeah, go knock on the door and say, hey, just want to get to know you. The gym can be a fun place. So funny story about this. I've always been a little bit intimidated by gyms. I've gone to them because I enjoy group fitness classes and weight training. But as gosh, maybe 10 years ago, 11 years ago, I was going to a big fancy gym.
Speaker: And this random woman just started talking to me, came over and just started talking to me. And I was a little freaked out. I was like, okay, what's going on? I've never met this woman, but she was super friendly. And we became friends and have been in our friends to this day. So 11 years of friendship because she had the courage to just come over and start talking to me. So that was really, really fun. And I would have never done that because I'm too wimpy.
Speaker: Another thought is local hobby groups. So is there a sport that you love, a craft that you love, a love? Um, are you looking for a book club or a Bible study? Anything that drives your interest, go find a group that meets about that and see if you can make a friend there. Uh, other local events like, is there a pop -up shop at your favorite boutique? Is there a food festival happening downtown or a sporting event? Could you go and mingle and meet some people there?
Speaker: And then lastly, volunteering. Volunteering at any sort of charity or church or community event can be a great place to find someone who has similar interests as you.
Speaker: Yes, and then I'm thinking even more outside of the box of the traditional way of finding friends in person. 2020, I think, taught us the value and the possibility of online and virtual friendships. So everybody was still getting together with their friends, but like over a Marco Polo or a Zoom chat or something.
Speaker: There, so you have a hobby, an online sewing event, for example, if you, you know, or get together with other people, find, you know, explore hashtags, find other people.
Speaker: through online things. And then like I was talking about a little bit about the paradigm of friendship from childhood is that the person has to be our same age and our same sex and then we are friends and we have all things in common. But as adults, we can definitely examine that. We can be friends with people who aren't
Speaker: the same age as us people who are you know maybe we have like okay so like i was talking before um maybe you have an interest in say architecture and so you attend this or you become a subscriber to this online forum for i don't know good architecture or something
Speaker: And then you find somebody through that and you start having a friendship, building a friendship on this. And it's a virtual friendship. And I know there comes all sorts of, you have to be cautious and all that. Okay, but I think we're adults and we can figure out safe behavior and not safe behavior online when we're just looking for friendships. Bonnie and I, our relationship started, our friendship started with an online relationship, did it not?
Speaker: It did. I know. We basically dated online first and then we, and we actually only met in person one time, which was a total crazy fluke. But, um, yeah, yeah, it's, I'm so glad you added that. Um, because this is a crazy day and age and there are so many resources and tools we can use to create new friendships or maintain old friendships, even when we cannot see each other in person. And I am so grateful for my time.
Speaker: as a blogger on social media, et cetera, because I've made so many wonderful friendships. In fact, a couple people, I have a hard time remembering that they were just, they came about as online friends, right? For some reason, I think that that's like less valuable or something, but I'm like, no, we met on Instagram. Yeah, like that's how we're friends, you know? And then we've talked on the phone and Marco Polo and whatever else, but such a wonderful resource to be able to stay in touch.
Speaker: Okay. So now we have a couple of places we've talked about, but let's talk about the logistics of how exactly to make that leap into making a friend. We see somebody across the room and we're thinking, Oh, she looks so cute and friendly. I'd love to be her friend. What next? What next? So we are creatures of habit, right? It can be really scary if that's not our natural disposition to go talk to a stranger. Um, especially if we're feeling out of our comfort zone already, like we're at a, you know,
Speaker: gym class. We're already feeling a little like we don't belong in or whatever. But we can do so many things to just make that first move. We can ask for invites to groups we've never been to. So what if you know that one of your friends always goes to a play group on Friday mornings? You can say, hey, can I tag along? Or you know that a friend has a tennis group that she meets with and it sounds really fun and you've never played tennis in your life. You could
Speaker: Ask to be invited, right? Don't, do not be afraid to make the first move. Like I mentioned, my friend in the gym, um, because it's only scary for a minute and then you find out, Oh, they're looking for friends too. Perfect. Yeah. A good place is to look for friends with similar interests. So if you have something in common with somebody that's, it's going to be easier to maintain a friendship. So like if you're really into gardening, then join a gardening club.
Speaker: and just go to some meetings and maybe somebody else is really into vegetable gardening like you are or flower gardening or something and maybe you decide to visit each other's gardens. I've always found that in making friendships, it works best to
Speaker: to be a giving person. Like there's that very well -known verse in the Bible, to have friends, a man must show himself friendly. And there's a friend that sticks closer than a brother. I love that verse, but it's in Proverbs. But like to make friends, you have to be friendly. Like, so if you're, let's go back to my gardening club example. You're in this gardening club and you're kind of hit it off with this person at the first meeting or something. And you're like, hey, why don't you come over and
Speaker: visit my garden, or send this person some sort of bouquet of flowers because you knew it was their favorite color, or make the first move, but be a giving person. How would you want to be treated? That's something I always go back to. If I wanted somebody to be my friend, if I wanted somebody to befriend me, in what way would I like
Speaker: that becomes a non -issue if it's things you're already doing. So let's say you're already taking your kids to the library and you find you have an author you really like and you bump into somebody in that section who's also checking out books from that author and you're like, hey, okay, so you're already at the library, you already make a weekly library trip, maybe you could coordinate it or something. If it's something you're already doing, it's easy enough to do that thing with somebody else.
Speaker: them to do it.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that you mentioned that. That's a good segue into this next section of how to go from there, right? You've met the person, then what? Well, you might not want to meet somebody at a library and immediately invite their entire family over for Sunday dinner. That might be a little awkward, right? But you can say, oh my gosh, it was so nice chatting with you. You are seriously so sweet. When are you guys going to be at the library next?
Speaker: And it seems a little bit less creepy, right? Than like immediately sending this other invite. You could say, we'd love to run into you guys again. Do you always come on Fridays? We'll try to show up next Friday. Maybe we'll see you then, right? Or if the person seems a little bit more interested, you can exchange phone numbers and try to coordinate a trip again together, doing something that you both enjoy, right? A few other ideas for quote unquote, dating a new friend or like going from that first meetup to, you know, actual friendship.
Speaker: are going out for coffee or a lunch date. Like we said, meeting at a library is very non -confrontational, not scary. Lots of people there. Or a park, especially if you're bringing kids along. You can just mention a phone call or texting. Hey, I'm always looking for somebody who wants to chat about, like you said, gardening or sewing or whatever, to un -exchange numbers.
Speaker: a double date, especially if you run into somebody with your husband along or it happens to be somebody who knows him, et cetera. Double date's really fun. You can suggest some sort of physical activity together. Let's go for a run this week together or a walk or a gym class, et cetera. And then there's also the wonderful and amazing girls night, right? Like, especially if you're meeting someone through a mutual friend, oh my gosh, let's all get together and go out to dinner this weekend. Wouldn't that be so fun? And then that's a wonderful way to get to know people.
Speaker: Those ideas sound so nice. I know. I want to do them all right now. Yeah. OK, so let's move on and talk a little bit about keeping friends. So first of all, here's your permission. It's OK if you make a new friend and you hang out a few times and you realize that this friendship isn't exactly going to work out like they aren't going to be the kind of friend that you were you were looking for. It's OK. They can be your.
Speaker: library friend or they can be your um coffee date friends or they can be your I think as an adult I have I mentioned earlier that I have different kinds of friends for different parts of my life like I definitely have friends that have kids and then I definitely there's some people that I know that
Speaker: they have kids, but our parenting styles are so different that that's not something that we base our friendship on. Like when we get together with those people, we get together without our kids. And that's okay. It's okay to be friends like that. In fact, that's probably what's keeping that friendship alive is that we don't get together with our kids, right? And it's okay. Like I'm just saying, it's okay to have
Speaker: Like it doesn't have to be a friendship. Like throw away those old paradigms of, you know, this is my new best friend and we have to do everything together and we have to like the same things. And if I like peanut butter in my chocolate chip cookies and she doesn't, then we can't be friends anymore. Like that, we don't have to be friends like that anymore. We're not kids anymore. We, we can be adults and we can like, I think that's one of the things I've really enjoyed as an adult is becoming friends with people who
Speaker: are a lot different than me in some ways. And they have things that are not common with me. And that kind of enriches our friendship. Yes. I'm so glad you said that. It's funny. I actually have an in -law who I love to death, but we have almost nothing in common. We both like clothes. That's about it.
Speaker: So she's your shopping friend. Yes. So we go shopping together and we go out to lunch. We have wonderful conversations, but if we had met on the street guaranteed, we probably would have never hung out because on the surface, there's so little that we have in common as far as interests go.
Speaker: weird foods, she likes very simple food, silly stuff like that. But apparently on some deeper topics, we really get along because we have been friends, really close friends, not just family for a long, long time. And I'm so grateful for that, that we were kind of forced into a friendship and then we were able to find that common ground. So let's say you do get into a relationship like this and things aren't working out or not working out quite exactly how you would have liked them.
Speaker: expressing your boundaries is really important, right? So let's say that you were really looking for a friend who could hang out twice a week with your kids because you can't leave them and, um, you just need to vent to that person, but this person can only hang out once a month or vice versa. You are really busy and you can only commit to a girl's night every three months. And this person is calling you every single week. Just communicate that that is totally okay. You can just say, Oh my gosh, I love our conversations.
Speaker: but my life is really crazy. Can I call you on the last Friday of every month? Let's have our conversation then or let's get away once a month and you schedule that so that there's clear expectations and boundaries of what works for each of you. And again, like I just said, it's totally okay if that friendship is not the right time. You can still love each other and just not hang out as much as you thought you would. Yes, sometimes friendships get into
Speaker: uncomfortable areas. And it's okay to reassess and decide how important this friendship is to you. And if it's not working out, if it's not adding value to your life or theirs, then it's okay to let that go. So some things that you might run into and have to work through with a friend, a friendship that you want to keep, want to hang on to is miscommunication. Like you were talking about, just to have, you know, clear boundaries, clear
Speaker: make it clear what your ability is in the friendship or what you can offer to the friendship and what you can't and then there will be less miscommunication that way. I want to offer this that if you're having difficulty with someone and it's a friendship you want to keep, look at yourself and maybe Bonnie and I talk a lot about thought work
Speaker: working on ourselves and like Bonnie and I kind of really get into this and really It's really valuable for us to work on ourselves and improve ourselves as people and I found that the more I work on myself The better my other relationships become so if you're having trouble with somebody Don't be afraid to work on yourself first. I'm just gonna say that right out and Boundaries boundaries are awesome. Yes, definitely
Speaker: realize what kind of boundaries you need and what kind of boundaries the other person needs in your friendship and respect those. Crossing over the line then into watch for unhealthy relationships and for when friendship becomes a one -way street. You're doing all the giving and there's nothing coming back. Someone's the giver and someone's the taker.
Speaker: you know, I have backed out of friendships in my life or just kind of let them die if I'm the 100 % giver and nothing's come back the other way. And I can think of at least one friendship that I've probably caused to die, but I was the one who was taking more from the friendship that I was giving. And it just kind of, like the other person just kind of got tired of that, tired of me, as they should have. And so those are all things that, like challenges that you have to work through.
Speaker: when two people with different personalities and different lives and all that come together and just, um, you know, there's, there's certain relationships and friendships that are super important that you have to work on. Like we have a whole series on marriage and that friendship is super important and we offer tons of advice for keeping that friendship alive. And then like maybe a friendship with a neighbor, like your next door neighbor, that is somebody you kind of need to have a friendship with. If your enemies with your next door neighbor,
Speaker: like your home starts to feel like an unsafe place, right? And so there's some relationships that are kind of more important, like you mentioned in -laws or family, that those relationships are like they take more effort and they are required to take more effort because of other constraints that are put on them. So all these things are just thoughts about keeping friends and evaluating which friendships are important to need more work than others.
Speaker: Oh, so much good stuff. Yes, totally. I want to share just a quick little story about a sticky friend situation that I've thought a lot about in the years since it happened. I had a friend that I really loved. We got together a lot. We were both really young moms, just a couple little kids. And one time we had this little play date and our kids really got into it over something. It was something so stupid and silly and now I probably wouldn't have thought too
Speaker: two thoughts about it. But at the time, um, she stood up for her kid and I felt like it was my kid that got wronged. And so anyway, I just, I let myself get my feelings hurt and I let myself stew about it. And I am not a confrontational person. Like I like to just let things roll over and move on. Right.
Speaker: but I really felt like there was a miscommunication and that it was going to hurt the relationship if I didn't bring it up. So I, I mustered up all my courage and I called her and I said, Hey, I felt like things didn't go well today. And this, this is where I'm coming from. And I think this is where you were coming from. Am I right? Am I wrong? What do you think? And we had this great conversation about it. And I, to this day, I think, what if I had just,
Speaker: walked away. What if I had just thought, well, this relationship isn't going to work because she's not willing to listen to my side, you know, and just been catty about it. But I knew that it was me that needed to, uh, you know, be the first one to say, Hey, this is how I saw things go down and I don't want it to put a rift in our relationship anyway. So, um, I have since really recommitted to being a person that fixes problems instead of just ignoring them because it has made our relationship so much healthier. Okay.
Speaker: we realize that life changes really rapidly as a mom, right? Like you think one day, one day you're thinking, I will never stop changing diapers. And you're at play groups all the time, the library all the time, the next thing, you know, maybe your kids are in school and you have all these hours to yourself or you've got a kid leaving for college, you know, it's just, everything is constantly changing. And so I really feel like true friends will understand that. They will understand that everybody's situation changes, your needs change, and you can still,
Speaker: be committed to finding a way to be there for each other, even if your lives start to look really, really different. Yeah, I agree. I'm that like I have friends who also have babies and then I have friends who also have kids in college and just a very few friends with kids in both places like, like me. And I, you know, I have different kinds of friendships with those kinds of people because
Speaker: You can relate to the same things or different things. But I think that friendships are worth it, especially for us as women. Even if you're an introvert, there is something about a woman that needs other women to talk to and to relate to each other. And there's just something special about having friends as an adult and as a woman. And it's something that I really encourage. I know we talk about some stuff that
Speaker: Sometimes we feel like our young, overwhelmed mom is going to be like, oh, just another thing to add to my plate. But this one is for you. It's really for your, for your own self care. And I wanted to mention too, um, a couple of podcasts, episodes that are also about having friends as an adult. Um, the live free creative podcast, her episode number three was about making friends as an adult. And she had some really, really nice ideas in that.
Speaker: And then episode 80 was cultivating friendship and that one was really, really good at episode two. So, um, definitely recommend listening to those two episodes as well as this one. Oh yes. Thanks so much for sharing those. Um, one final thought that I wanted to share is, um, I just want to date.
Speaker: tell you guys about a group of friends of mine that I've had for many, many years and have been able to cultivate because I think it's really fun to hear other people's experiences for keeping friendships alive. So this is a group of friends of mine that I had in college. Most of these girls I was on the same floor with in our dorms in 1998. So it's been a hot second since we first met. And like I said, back then you're 18 years old, really easy to become friends.
Speaker: and you know have things in common but over the years we actually room together later on as well and then all of a sudden we get married or leave college and we're all across the country and we would email every now and again and really wish that we could see each other more often and then one year a friend got an idea that we should do these girls weekends together and it took some finagling I mean this was when some of us were
Speaker: having infant twins, and some of us had husbands in medical school, and some of us lived way far away from other ones, but we made it work. And for the last, let's see, 11 years, we have been meeting up on these little girls trips, usually about once every 18 months, because that's about as much as we can swing with little kids. And it has been the most wonderful
Speaker: friendship dynamic in my life because they know me from every season of my life since I became a brand new adult. It's been work. It's cost money. It's taken time. It's required sacrifices, but there's six of us, and every time we get together or talk in Marco Polo or email or whatever, I just feel
Speaker: this wonderful sense of being loved and understood. And they gave me all those benefits we talked about earlier on. So I just had to share that because I think that if there's a will, there's a way, if you want to create and maintain and cultivate a beautiful friendship, you can, you just have to get a little creative. Yeah, I have a little similar group. Um, it was kinda, it's kind of a group of us families that got together and we all homeschooled and most of us had more than four or kids.
Speaker: And we would get together once a year and kind of have a gap, have a little gathering. Actually, it was a big gathering cause all of us had a lot of kids, but all of our families get together. And, um, once a year and we just talk about homeschooling and talk about big families. And, um, it was kind of family friendship thing going on. And that, that also was very treasured and very valued. We did that for about eight years and then, you know, COVID hit and stuff. So maybe someday again, but that was a very, very neat.
Speaker: um, family friendship, like our whole families were friends. And that was added an extra element of specialness to the, to the friendship. Oh, that's so beautiful. Thanks for sharing that. So we hope some of these tips help you guys out, go out, make some friends, keep them, get all those benefits that you know, you need all that emotional support. And, uh, we'll talk to you guys next week. Thanks so much for tuning in. Did you know you can help the podcast in several ways? First step we're on Patreon and there are three different levels to support us there.
Speaker: Just head to patreon .com slash outnumbered. Next step, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a written review on iTunes. It helps other parents find the podcast and receive the help you're enjoying. And finally, you can follow us on Instagram at outnumbered the podcast. We're always having fun over there too. As usual, if you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, you can reach us at outnumbered the podcast at gmail .com. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week.
