Single/working moms - how/when do you have friendships?!

[klg47]

If you're a single and working mom, how and when do you have time for real life friends?

I am a single working mom, well, soon-to-be-single. My husband moved 1500 miles away 5 months ago. Since he lives so far away, I get no evenings/weekends off. My parents do take the kids occasionally, but so far I've used that time to sleep or catch up at work.

People at work are nice, and I do talk to the receptionist as a real friend, but that's somewhat minimal. The rest of the time I am like a hermit at my desk, rarely interacting with anyone else. Weekends are catch up time for major chores, etc. It seems like the perfect time for friends would be after the kids are in bed, but the married moms are with their own families, and I would think single friends wouldn't want to do something so boring as come sit at my house. It just occurred to me that I could get a babysitter and go out, but there's little (or zero) money for that and my youngest is only 2 and would probably not take it well if he woke up to find me gone.

Am I just talking myself out of having friends? I've made every excuse there is. I have lots of online friends, but it's just not the same.

[moonlover2017]

I wish I knew. I'm pretty lonely some days.

[Rosehip]

Simplify your life as much as possible in terms of chores - if you haven't, or if you think there's room to do so, consider paring down your possessions, downsizing your home, simplifying gardening, etc. This may free up some valuable weekend time.

I would ask people to come over after the kids are in bed! Start small - ask a girlfriend if she'd like to come over to watch a movie or have a drink. I bet some people would love to!

Do activities with kids. Plan a park outing Sat morning with other kids/moms. You can also do zoo, library, etc.

I think the bottom line is you have to make socializing a priority. It can be tough - I know - but it's so worth it!

[One_Girl]

I invite my friends with children over for lunch or dinner and a playdate and they do the same. Usually the person who comes over brings something to contribute to the meal and the kids speard out in the house to play while my friend and I talk. We sometimes also meet at McDonald's so the kids can play in the toy area and we don't have to make dinner or clean up.

[Momily]

A lot of my social life revolves around my child. We have get togethers at friends houses or at the playground while the kids play, or sometimes he'll go play at a friend's house while the dad watches all the kids and my mom friend and I will go out. Or we do a group outing -- another dad and I have been taking a bunch of kids skiing on the weekends and we get to chat and ride the lifts together because the kids are old enough to be somewhat on their own.

[josybear]

i try to participate in my community. for example, i'm part of a community supported agriculture program that has monthly community dinners. there are always tons of kids running around having fun and i've met some really great people, often other single mums. i also do similar stuff with my political party and my community association.

[lilyka]

my friend came over sunday. parked in my chair and did not move until she absolutely had to go home and fix supper. praise God for friends like that. we used to talk daily and now, it had been about nine months since I had hung out with her.

I also try to make sure I do something social when xh has the kids. even if I don't feel like I have time for it.

[provocativa]

I am still married (don't know for how long) but I have always loved to have other parents over, single or no. I've also always enjoyed working get togethers- chat and make dinner together, etc. It always seems to me that many parents, married or singel, are lonely for other adult interaction, but fear asking because the house is too covered in toys, or it's not the sort of dinner party Martha Stewart would have, or it's unseemly to want to stay and let their kids fall asleep and lug them home when they are asleep, also here we're not 'allowed' to have more than one glass of wine if kiddos are around, which is just our post-Puritan USA bs if you ask me.

[meemee]

there are two kinds of friendships.

one that involves your kids.

one that doesnt.

the doesnt part takes me a lot to organise since even though we coparent on the nights i dont have dd i have school.

otherwise most everywhere else my dd is involved.

i mean i would go stark raving crazy if i didnt. and you know what it really meets my needs for connection and conversation. since i have been doing it since dd was a baby (having an only certainly makes this easier) she kinda is used to having adults around. when she went thru the - your friends are my friends and i want to hang out with them too - i lost some friends. but otherwise now at 7 its easy. dd has many more playdates so she is not soo needy for company herself.

however she is part of our group - our life. compared to other two parent family, mostof my friends know that i am a two person family too. so whenever we go anywhere dd goes with me most of the time. when she was a year old we would go listen to music in cafes or places that were nonalchoholic. a couple of weeks ago i went ballroom dancing and dd came with our group. and danced better than i could

btw i would LOVE to come over to your house and hang out adn watch a movie or something. one thing we do v. often is cook together. i really love that. to have our dinner table surrounded by people.

in fact when i first became a single parent we somehow found some single parents in our area and we would have these clean up socials and take turns and go to each others houses and clean together.

today that i am back in school i have found many mor esingle parents. and even more babysitter help than i need at present.

[SweetPea&Me]

OMG it's soooo hard. DD's dad is a chef who works every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night in the winter. Then from April to Oct he works a lot of 6 day weeks. I work M-F as do all my friends. It's very hard and I often get very lonely. I was very lonely in that relationship too as most of my friends would be going out those nights with their SOs or DHs so even before I had DD it was really hard. Now, she just comes with me or I am forced to hire a babysitter to get out. It doesn't happen often but I have to get out or I start going to the dark side I also try to have people over after she's in bed. But I don't have a ton of time to get out to do things I am interested in or would like to explore. I just keep the faith that it won't be like this forever. Anyway, I hear ya and feel ya! Hang in there!!!