If Having A Baby Improves Your Social Life, I’m Definitely Doing Something Wrong
A new poll conducted by a company that makes natural cotton products for kids says that women make more friends after the birth of a child. If this is true, I am definitely doing something wrong.
Nature’s Purest, a UK-based company, polled 2,000 new moms to see how their social behaviors changed after the birth of a child. Surprisingly (to me, anyway), most new moms admitted to increasing their social circles after the birth of a child. More than half of the 2,000 mothers polled admitted it was easier to bond with other women once they became a mother. The Daily Mail reports:
53 per cent of new mothers felt it was surprisingly easy to make friends after having a baby, and 70 per cent of those said it was because they had so much ”˜in common’.
The study also found 16 per cent of those who took part in the poll said they had a better social life after having children as they had so much more free time to meet up with people.
I get the “having more in common” part – but having “so much more free time to meet up with people?” Seriously? Yeah – I’m doing something wrong.
Most of these women are meeting other mothers in playgroups and childcare classes. Admittedly, I didn’t participate in a lot of those. I will say that the few times I did meet a mother I liked, we sort of desperately clung to each other like some sort of buoy in a flood. I seemed to strike fast friendships with the few new moms I did make. I think you are definitely more inclined to quickly swap phone numbers in that scenario.
I think my biggest problem was living out of my social circle. The neighborhood where we lived for the first few years of my child’s life was filled with affluent city-couples I didn’t have much in common with and single professionals that I always seemed to click with more. I worked at night, and during the day it was usually me and a bunch of nannies at the park.
Now that I have moved to a more suburban existence, I am already looking into some playgroups and such. Frankly, I have no friends here yet, so I don’t really care if the ones I make are moms or not. I just want to meet some women to hang out with on occasion. Maybe that’s my problem – I’ve never really prioritized making “mom friends,” I’ve always just tried to connect with people I like.
A spokeswoman for Natures Purest, the company that commissioned the study, said: ‘There is a misconception in society that starting a family will mean you are stuck indoors but it’s simply not true.
Our research shows the opposite becoming a mum can do wonders for your social life as there are so many groups and activities to become involved with.’
Okay. I’ll take your word for it.
