Mother's cliques... or is it me?

[MsF1t]

Hello all

Please excuse me if this is in the wrong place, or if I don't express myself terribly well (sleep deprivation and a shouty 6 month old playing in the room!), but I have been mulling over a few things recently and would really like to canvass some opinions on them. Thanks in advance. :)

I live in Edinburgh. I haven't always lived here- I moved here a couple of years ago as my father was ill, and so I needed to return to Scotland. Edinburgh seemed the best place, career and life-wise: my parents lived in a fairly remote area.

Initially, I was able to meet some people through biking: as those of you who ride may know, it's a great social scene and bikers tend to be very friendly to one another and to newcomers. However, my bike riding came to a fairly abrupt end when we discovered that I was pregnant..!

My partner is not from here either: we met through biking, and he moved up to be with me a year and a half ago. Between us, we have about three friends in the area who are not bikers, and none of them have small children. So.. when we joined our local NCT group, we thought it would be a good way of getting to know other people who would be in a similar situation (new parents). I did initiate get-togethers for the new mums (babies were a few months old by this point) but some people never replied, and after the first one, no-one did.

I had a similar experience with people I met through a baby massage group. We did meet a further three or four times, but when I've emailed to see if people want to do it again, there's just been silence.

(I know I probably sound as though I'm coming across as a wild-eyed desperate type, but I promise I don't actually rugby tackle passing mothers at random, begging them to be my friends. Much.)

It isn't universal, I suppose- I have found a friendly group of people at a playgroup recently (thank God!), very few of whom are from Edinburgh originally.

So.. I guess I am wondering whether there are other people who experience this feeling of not quite fitting in, somehow? I don't know whether I do come across as a big fat freak, or if I am not 'Edinburgh' or middle class enough, or... what.
shrug I would just ignore it, and probably should, but I do want my daughter to have friends her own age, and I do feel quite isolated and low at times, with no-one to really talk honestly to, apart from my partner.

Apologies for babbling incoherently or unintentionally causing any offence to Edinburghians... :)

I found first-time motherhood a bit like starting a new school- you still have your old friends but you may not have so much in common with them any more or they may not understand what you are going through.

If you go to as many groups as you can then I'm sure you will find some people that you have something in common with. It took me a few months of going to different groups to make one friend that I felt I would have been friends with even if we didn't both have children the same age, and it wasn't until DD1 was about 18 months that I found a group of friends that I felt really comfortable with but then I'm a massive lentil weaver.

Hang in there, and just keep trying in as many places as you can. There will be other mums looking too.

I am sorry you have been feeling low or lonely, that is no fun at all.

I think it can take time to find people you want to spend time with (and not just people who happen to have children of the same age so you spend time with by default) and it is always worth trying as many toddler groups, cafes, courses and other venues as you can to meet people and see who clicks with you.

Maybe you could use some bike contacts to set up a "cycling mothers" group, and make friends with other people who have little ones and enjoy your hobby?

I have only found one toddler group I really like (after trying quite a few!) the others all seem to be closed somehow - mothers are already in quite tight friendships and maybe don't feel the need to have new friends, or maybe I also just look like a freak! Who knows.

It is good you have friends who are not mums though as eventually your little one will make their own friends (at school and pre-school) and you wont need to feel you have to make friends with mums just so your little one will have friends their own age.

I know just how you feel, I also never seem to fit in. I have some friends I see regularly as part of a group, but never manage to progress to close friendship. Like you, I wonder if I`m coming across as desperate (although I try not to) or even too self-sufficient (due to being an expert at hiding the neediness!).

Ive found it easier to fit in with foreign friends rather than fellow ex-pats, I dont quite know why.

Sorry I cant offer anything constructive, but I just wanted you to know that youre not alone... :)

Keep sticking with the ones who are friendly and eventually you will be "in" the clique almost without realising - it's a weird thing. I think it's just because unlike something like biking, parenting isn't really a shared interest. You might have similar experiences, but everyone has such different approaches, it's harder to find people you have things in common with.

Whereas with biking you might be into it because you like the outdoors, or the adrenaline rush, or the look of wearing leathers etc, or rock music, or travelling, or the engineering of the bikes themselves, or the festivals, or the feeling of "belonging" or a myriad of other reasons, it's likely that others have got into it for one or more of the same reasons, so you already have both biking, and, e.g. loving the outdoors, in common. Whereas with parenting, all you have in common is having similarly aged children. Which is so common that it's a bit like having been to school - not really enough of a shared experience to form a real friendship base.

The best friends I've made since having children have come from an attachment parenting type group, again, because we have similar shared values which have brought us to this way of doing things. So my advice is to try and find a group which appeals somehow to part of your nature, whether that's a buggy keep-fit group, hippy-type sling or breastfeeding or home ed group, church group, collective walking in the woods, music/dance group for babies/toddlers, toddler art group, football/rugby tots, storytime at the library, whatever you can find which isn't a generic "baby group", but has some connection to children. Hopefully, being close to a city there will be more things to access.

Thanks so much to everyone: have been out today and then working until late, so it was lovely to see your replies. You all make a lot of sense: I shall persevere, but possibly stop the maniacal lunging at other people with buggies. ;)

I shall look out for potential interest groups, and maybe I should see whether there are other biker-mums-on-a-break out there. (I have found that most folk I know who ride have had their kids much younger or don't plan to have any at all. Most of my biker mates were really shocked that we had spawned.. but maybe there are others like us out there!)

It probably doesn't help that I've always been a bit rubbish at being a 'proper girl': never been very 'girlie' and always liked stuff like bikes and martial arts: this tends to mean having more male friends than female, too, so that may add slightly to the awkwardness with more conventional types of women. As you say, though, there should be plenty groups out there that might intersect with my interests and where I can meet up with other oddballs. :D

Thanks again. I really do appreciate you all taking the time to respond, even if it was just to let me know I'm not the only one. I feel heaps better. Off to bed: fingers crossed. Have a good night, folks!