This post is sponsored by Zondervan. Making friends with other moms is something I have found to be incredibly difficult. I really value friendships. But most of my friends are women who I have been in relationship with for over a decade, well before I had my own kids. And while I love my friends to death, most of us are in very different life stages. Mark and I had our children much later than our circle of friends. So when most of my friends were in the stage of doing playgroups and park dates, I was working full-time. Then I finally had kids, and most of my friends had sent their children off to school. Now, my kids are all in school and my friends’ kids are tweens and teens, interested in things very different from my own kids. And while we are all still friends, it just naturally happens that they tend to make plans with other people who have teens and tweens. Because their kids aren’t exactly excited what about hanging out with the second grade set. I love my friends dearly, but it has been painfully obvious to me that I also need to make some friends with moms who have children the same ages as mine. And this has been no easy task. Much of it is my own issue. I am extremely introverted. I am not shy, but I am really horrible at chit chat. I wrote more about this on Glennon’s blog last year:
As an introvert, I’m much more comfortable talking about deeper issues than about the weather or how the soccer team is doing this season. Small talk is exhausting and painfully awkward for me. As a result, I have an awkward tendency of going WAY too deep in conversations with strangers as an attempt to avoid the chit-chat conversation and get to something meaningful. For example, at school pickup: “Oh, hi. You must be Bella’s mom. (awkward pause) So what do you think happens when we die?” Yeah. I am the queen of going too deep, too soon. It’s like a compulsion.
Turns out, I am not alone in thinking that making friends with other moms is scary. Melanie Dale recently wrote a book about it. Women are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends and it is both hilarious and completely relatable. She talks about the intimidation factor, the awkwardness, and the vulnerability required. It is a really fun read that had me laughing at myself, but it also contains some very practical insights that I am hoping to apply.
You can check out Melanie’s book on Amazon. I definitely recommend it if any of this resonates with you. Have you found it difficult to make friends with other moms? Have you gone to any extreme measures to orchestrate your friendships, like starting a book club or dinner club? Any advice for me on pushing past the social awkwardness and making connections without feeling like I’m dating again? 
