Willow and I have gone to two different parent-and-baby activities now, one in Hoboken and one in Brooklyn. And while I may not be the most sociable person, I do like to have some friends, and the idea of having friends with babies is appealing*--people who understand why you can't manage to eat neatly with a baby on your lap, nor can you really pay your friend much attention when they're talking, nor can you get your stroller into most restaurants, etc. And etc.
But friends I have not found. Most of this is due, I'm sure, to my own wallflowerish tendencies, but I have sensed a very definite vibe from certain of the mothers. Not only do they not want to be friends with me, but I think they actually hate me.
I'm not kidding. I'm getting the hate vibe, and I don't know what I've done, except be younger than all of them.
I think the problem is geographical. Women in the New York area tend to wait until they are older to have kids; many of the women in these classes clearly waited until they needed fertility treatments, which puts some of them fifteen to twenty years older than me (which, by the way, is how much older than me my husband is, so I don't care, but the hate vibe tells me they do). The funny thing is that by Hawaii standards, I'm old. I graduated high school before having a kid! In fact, I waited ten whole years after that! Old As Dirt Mom, am I.
Clearly I am stereotyping, on both sides of the Pacific, but there is a grain of truth here. And I'm sure I don't help matters by showing up to Baby Swim Class in a bikini, but a) it makes breastfeeding possible, which a one-piece wouldn't, and b) they're all I own, and I'm not going to plunk down $50 I don't have to fit in with the mom crowd.
So. Not going to be making any friends, it seems.
*So welcome to the world, Emily Isabelle, and boy am I glad you're here!
7 comments:
That's such a shame! Well, you have a mummy friend in me. I guess I'm not more than about 5 years older than you. While my tummy definitely isn't back to bikini proportions, I doubt if we'll be standing next to each other in the near future, so I won't hold that against you ;)!
Hey, the women out here hate me and I AM their age.
I'd be your friend. And I promise I'd never let on that I hate you a little bit for wearing a bikini. It's not your fault your beautiful.
Oh, I'll add this. On the playground in Colorado there were two ages of women. 16 year old mommies and 36 year old grandmas. And neither group spoke English. I was pretty lonely.
Ha! That sucks! Although, it pretty precisely describes my neighborhood. I have to travel to find the hate, here there is just incomprehension.
I love my internet friends.
Hi! Just leaving a comment to let you know you've got a reader in Norway (or who knows, maybe you've got more than one). :) I stumbeled upon your blog while searching the internet for, well, things to knit while expecting. And then I just kept on reading. My little man is 4 months old, so you guys are a bit ahead of us, but I love to read your stories about the things we are going through here as well. Especially, I like the honesty in your writing and how you tell about the things that are difficult and not just the things that are funny, like some (most?) people do. I wish you and your family a happy summer! :) (Oh, and by the way, I'm 29, and old.)
Old as a geographical construction. I sense a thesis if I ever, you know, went back to school as a sociologist. Which will never happen.
i am about to have my first child (i live in Bk) and am also much younger than the crowd of people that have kids in my neighborhood. not that i ever see the parents, as the kids are always with the nanny!
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