Christina Simon's Open Salon Blog

My Elusive Quest For Mom Friends

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 20:03:49 -0400

Lately, I’ve read several good articles and blog pieces about the difficulty of making new mom friends. I can identify with these authors because last year seemed to be my year of constant angst about friendships. Do I have enough friends? How can I make new friends? Does it really matter? That was the broken record constantly re-playing itself in my mind.

I don’t think there were more than a few days that went by where one of those questions didn’t cross my mind. I’m open to new friendships, unlike a lot of moms. I don’t have a tight circle of friends who do everything together. But, I do have a small group of amazing girlfriends who are smart, funny, supportive and generous. They don’t all know each other and we don’t do “girls night out”, but I treasure their individual friendships. One of them isn't even a mom yet. So why do I constantly feel like I’m missing something? Like I don’t have enough friends in my life? Is it the fault of Facebook where everything looks so perfect.

At my kids’ school, making friends has been nearly impossible for me for reasons I’ll write about later. This may be something that is common at private schools in L.A. Or not. I have two personal friends at my kids’ school. After seven years there.

Looking back at 2012, despite my anxiety about making new friends, my efforts at getting together, inviting people to do things, I made one new friend. One. I really like her, we’re both moms and we have two other things in common that we are both serious about. Her sense of humor has me falling down laughing. We met through a blogger’s group. If you write a blog, there are friends IRL (in real life) and online friends. I’m talking about real-life friends. But, I think its wonderful when online friendships evolve into real life-ones, like the one I just described. After all, how much can you really say in 140 characters on Twitter before you decide you want to get together?

Another new-ish friend and I started walking together one morning a week. A hike, friendship and coffee. That’s all I need. We met about two years ago and our families get together, our kids are friends and we always have fun. These are friendships that moved easily from the acquaintance to friend category, not something that’s easy to do for me. That’s what I want—and need. Reading the pieces I mentioned above tells me some other moms want the same thing. Recently my closest friend from college came to visit and we had so much fun over dinner at my house with our families. She lives in D.C. but we’ve planned a visit to her house in June. I can’t wait!

Near the end of 2012, after being asked to get together by an acquaintance who I’ve known casually for a few years, only to be blown off, I gave up. My feelings were hurt and I was feeling dejected. I just couldn’t focus on the “mom friend” issue any more. I decided that if new friendships were to happen, that’d be nice, but I couldn’t put any more effort into it. At least not for a while.

Maybe I’m not as open to new friendships as I think I am. Perhaps I seem too busy, aloof, overly-sensitive, disinterested, distant, lack common interests or some other reason new friends aren’t asking me to get together. Could it be that I don’t understand the L.A. etiquette involved with making friends even though I grew up here and I’m in my 40s? Yes, that’s entirely possible. You see, during the time most teen girls figure out the friendship thing and how it all works (and doesn’t work), I was too busy to have friends. My teenage years were spent helping take care of my ailing mom, who eventually died when I was nineteen. I couldn’t have managed to make friends if my life depended on it because someone else’s life depended on me. I never regret those lost years. I’m only now able to accept that the unusual situation in which I found myself may be one of the reasons why I’m writing this piece.

In the meantime, I’m focused on being a really good friend to those mom friends I consider my closest friends. After all, they mean the world to me. And, if a new friend comes along, that’s all the better.

Still, if I want to be part of a book club, I can’t wait for an invitation. I’ll just have to start my own!

Sites To Publish Your Work (Other Than Fabulous OS)

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 12:11:47 -0500

Hi Everyone,

I haven't been on OS in a while becaue I've been working, working, working! But, I wanted to share a few sites I've discovered where you can publish your own pieces (of course, OS is our top choice, but writers can always use options!).

Yahoo Associated Content. Post your own work. They also have an assignment desk looking for writes to write pieces on specific topics like "Poetry- Write A Haiku For Winter" and "Write A Short Western Story" and "Write A Guide To Local Christmas Parades."

https://contributor.yahoo.com/queue.shtml

Technorati. They revamped their site. It's not very social, but sends blog traffic your way. People looking for content will share your work.

technorati.com/admin.

BlogHer. A site for women bloggers. If the editors like your piece, they will feature it and can get thousands of FB & Twitter shares. If the editors REALLY like it, they will syndicate it and pay a small fee. I've been lucky to have several Featured Posts and two syndicated pieces.

www.blogher.com

Divine Caroline. A very mainstream, friendly site for women bloggers. Owned by Real Girls Media Network. Categories include "beauty", "style" "parenting."

www.divinecaroline.com

I've had success with all these sites. If you have any to add, please comment!

The Term BFF Is Harmful To Girls’ Friendships

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:10:21 -0400

The Trendy BFF Necklace For Girls (image: Bing Images)

Up until recently, I didn’t pay much attention to the term “BFF” or Best Friend Forever. I’ve seen the term used on mom blogs and elsewhere, but the few times I’ve paid attention to it, I assumed it was a harmless, trendy term for friendship. That was until my 11 year-old daughter started coming home from school mocking the term and saying other girls use it to exclude classmates and form cliques.

A great piece recently called, “The Myth of ‘Real” Female Friendships” in “Motherlode” the mom blog of the New York Times resonated deeply with me. Judith Warner, the writer, is troubled by the term BFF. As the mom of two girls (ages 11 and 14), Ms. Warner says she has long been concerned about the new BFF culture for girls. She thinks it’s “not just cheaply commercial (those necklaces!) but also kind of oppressive.” She goes on to write that the BFF culture seems “compulsory” and somehow feels like a woman can only realize her full human potential if she’s “plugged in” constantly to her girlfriends.

Reading this excellent piece confirmed what I had begun to suspect, namely that some young girls use the BFF term to control friendships and contribute to the mean girl culture that our daughters must contend with. That’s not to say it’s wrong or mean to have a best friend and be to proud of that friendship. But, when BFFs change weekly and feelings are hurt because a BFF has just dumped her supposed BFF, is that really a positive, self-esteem boosting idea for a young girl to embrace?

BFF, it appears, is making it easy for girls to latch onto the concept to further create insecurities, rather than embrace the idea of a true best friend. A true best friend, if you’re lucky enough to have one, is wonderful. Of course, best friends have ups and downs, but no 11 year-old girl should feel forced to have a BFF, due to peer pressure. This is especially true when the BFF trend is complete with a heart-shaped necklace, which splits into two pieces, ostensibly symbolizing two best friends.

Many of us don’t have one best friend. Some of are friends with a few (or a lot) of women whose friendship we treasure. I’m always taken aback when I hear a grown woman refer to her “best friend” because it seems like such a juvenile concept that she should have outgrown many years ago.

I’m elated that my daughter mocks the BFF culture, rather than becoming obsessed with it. She has a great group of friends, but doesn’t refer to any of them as BFFs, nor does she have one of those necklaces. Now that she’s talking about BFF and mean girl in the same sentence, I’m glad to know there’s at least one other mom who feels the same way I do.

Don’t Hit The Ball Back

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:09:38 -0400

Not long ago, I had an interesting conversation with a friend I hadn’t seen in awhile. We’re not close, but we like each other a lot and every time we run into each other, we can’t stop talking. She recently went through a very contentious divorce. She has children and the divorce raged on and on. When I asked her how she held up during the proceedings that resulted in her getting full custody and the house, she said it wasn’t easy. But, she told me followed the adage, don't hit the ball back. I was intrigued. I asked her more about this deceptively simple phrase.

“You have no idea how many times my ex-husband threw a fastball straight at my face,” she confided. I wondered if my friend wanted to impersonate steroid-king Barry Bonds when her ex hurled one of those fastballs towards her face. Surely she must have been tempted to whack the ball back. “I didn’t hit the ball back,” she said, proudly. She lowered her voice so her ex-husband standing nearby couldn’t hear us talking. “He’s the worst,” she said. I nodded supportively, but I didn’t say anything.

Reflecting on the phrase that helped her keep her cool and ultimately prevail in her nasty divorce, I wondered if I hit the ball back too often. I’m sure I do. I really want to embody this newly acquired self-help phrase and recast my urge to react when people say or do something that’s rude or outright mean. I’m perpetually in search of those things that bring me peace of mind. Could this phrase be it?

If I’m honest with myself, I know I don’t need to respond to catty comments from people I barely know. I should just nod and smile, then walk away without missing a beat. That’s unfeasible, to be sure. The impulse to respond is almost universal. I’m the queen of the “you’re not going to talk to me like that!” My shifting inner voice vacillates between respond and ignore. What I really need to become is the woman who is known for taking the high road, soothing my own frayed nerves in the process.

All that’s easier said then done when you’ve acquired a habit—or maybe have a personality trait-- that’s hard to break. Of course, there will always be people, whose motives vary, whose efforts to try to get everyone around them to react to their jabs are transparent. I refuse to sleepwalk through life like a doormat. Wait a minute. Meekness has never been my problem. What am I thinking? I want to lessen my willingness to engage in toxic, verbal combat with people, no matter how much they deserve it. The mostly petty types of things that cause me to react aren’t worth it.

A few months ago, my friends had to talk me out of hitting the ball back to another blogger. This vlogger, who, as my friend pointed out, videos herself since she can’t write, created an entire video skit mocking my private schools blog, calling it “tiny” and referring to me and my colleagues as “private school snobs.” In her video, she dressed up in a stuffy socialite outfit, wearing pearls and sipping tea. “Dahling,” she cooed, “Isn’t it fabulous our kids are privileged to attend the best private schools?’ Those poor, sad public school kids and their incompetent teachers, blah blah blah. (For the record, I’ve never worn pearls and I’ve never attended a private school myself, including college and graduate school…yes, I’m slightly defensive). In the spoof, she refused to name my blog. My first instinct was to post a hard-hitting response on my blog. After all, I’ve co-written a book and worked hard to build a loyal blog following. Even more importantly, I don’t criticize public schools. Then, friends suggested I let the incident go. I happen to know, through a mutual friend, that this mom had to move her kids from private school to public school because Bernie Madoff stole $5 million of her new husband’s money—that’s right, $5 million via a feeder fund he apparently had no idea had invested in Madoff’s scheme. Pregnant at the time of this terrible news, her family sold their $3 million house abruptly and began renting a much smaller home. She never mentioned any of this in her snarky skit about my blog.

Well, I didn’t swing for a home run. I guess you could say I bunted. Taking my friends’ advice and, in the interest of civility, I sent the vlogger an email letting her know I had seen the skit, telling her that a local niche blog that’s less than 2 years old with more than 132,000 page views isn’t “tiny” and saying she was welcome to post my reply. She didn’t. That was a much milder version of an earlier email I’d drafted. I cringe when I think about the first email I drafted. This stuff is harder than I thought but hitting “click” on the mouse felt pretty good, I’ll admit.

There are a lot of confrontations I’d revisit if given the chance. I’d handle them with patience and humor, rather than hurt feelings or anger. Obviously, that won’t happen, so I’ll look forward to future opportunities to let things go. The bloggers who leave nasty anonymous comments on my blog? They will no longer get a response. That other mom who raises a perfectly arched eyebrow accusingly when she’s disapproving of a parenting decision I’ve made? My response will be just as disingenuous, but in a way that doesn’t allow the conversation continue. I’ll nod in agreement, assuming nobody will even notice my fakeness. These types of people rarely do, they’re too narcissistic. Authenticity, in situations like these isn’t necessary. What’s needed is a relentless commitment not to engage when someone pushes my buttons. If I really don’t want to talk to anyone, I’ll feign a sense of urgency and pick up the pace toward my destination. Of course, I don’t want to seem unfriendly, but if avoidance is my best option, it’s preferable to trivial unpleasantness.

Every year, there are a few potentially contentious matters I usually deal with on behalf of our family. This year, I’ve asked my husband to handle them because I don’t want to create any drama. I found myself planning and plotting a response involving one of these issues. It promised to be an opening for me to hit the ball over the fence, leaving hard feelings and tension in the aftermath. When the 80 MPH pitch came at me, I’d be ready. I’d swing hard, imagining I’d show the “adversaries” how I really feel. Upon further reflection, I see how silly it all is. Let it go. Pick your battles. Take the high road. These are all phrases I’ve heard a million times. They don’t resonate with me. For some unknown reason, this simple phrase, don’t hit the ball back hits home with me. And the irony is, I don’t even like sports.

Being A Motherless Mother

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:08:48 -0400

My baby son and me, 2003

My mother was a complicated person in life and in death. She died when I was nineteen, after a long battle with breast cancer. Actually, calling her struggle a “battle” isn’t entirely accurate because she never once saw a doctor. A Southern-raised African American who became a hippie in the 1960s and 70s, she didn’t believe in Western medicine. So, when breast cancer ravaged her body, over the span of a decade, she relied on ineffective herbs and natural healing practices to fight the metastatic cancer.

My teenage years were spent caring for my mom at home, at the same time I tried to live a “normal” teenage life. I’d leave the house after helping to feed my bedridden mom or change her bedclothes. Then, I’d get dressed and try to live a regular teenage life. I hung out at the beach with friends, I went to high school. As you can imagine, my mind was a million miles away.

I waited until my mid-thirties to have my first child, in part because I was terrified of having a baby only to leave it motherless. It’s not that I think my mom intended to die; she wanted to live, but on her own terms. I knew I’d never want to put my own kids through the trauma of losing their mom. The only way to prevent that was not to have kids. Even more complicated was the realization, in my adulthood, of the fear and sadness my mom must have felt as she lay dying, leaving a husband and two teenage daughters behind. For a long time, I assumed I was so damaged that I probably wasn’t meant to be a mom. How could I be a motherless mother?

After years of extreme self-sufficiency: college, work, graduate school, I proved I could take care of myself and convinced myself that was all that really mattered. Then, I met my husband, and for the first time, I began to have fleeting thoughts about being a mom. I’d see images of us as a family with kids. But, those images would exit my mind just as quickly as they entered. I never told him about my fears. I was too afraid to share such dark, painful thoughts with anyone. So, I kept everything to myself. I think we may have talked vaguely about having kids before we got married, but I can’t be sure. I think he assumed I’d want kids like he did.

Becoming a motherless mother at a young age is a fairly unusual circumstance. In her authoratative book on the subject, Motherless Mothers, How Mother Loss Shapes The Parents We Become, Hope Edelman writes about how motherless mothers experience unique anxieties. Like me, Edelman says that the immense responsibility of parenthood unnerved her. She writes that if her first child hadn’t arrived as a surprise, she might never have had a child at all. “It takes a lot of courage for motherless daughters to have kids,” Irene Rubaum-Keller, MFT, says in the book. She lost her own other at age seven and now has a young son. “Because it is a means of saying,‘We’re going to live.’

If I hadn’t gotten pregnant immediately, I might have changed my mind. When I realized the pregnancy test was positive, I sobbed uncontrollably. My husband was both thrilled and worried. What could possibly be wrong with me? “Don’t you want a baby,? He asked. Though my tears, sitting on the bathroom floor, I looked at him and said “yes, but I’m so scared.”

Becoming a mom was frightening not only because I was a new mom, but also because I didn’t have my own mom there to guide me. I wondered if I could trust my instincts, if I had any at all. And, of course, I worried constantly about dying and leaving my two kids motherless. What does a motherless mother do to overcome the staggering loss, the longing for her mother than never diminishes? How do I explain my mother’s death to my kids, now 8 and 11? How do I parent my kids without the help and advice from my own mother?

Slowly, tentatively, I’ve built a life centered on stability and optimism. The stability part comes naturally to me. The optimism piece is more difficult and sometimes forced, particularly when I’m plagued with anxiety. My husband is the opposite of me. He’s self-assured, confident and unafraid, all traits I admire deeply. I look to him when I’m feeling unsure about a parenting dilemma. I ask my friends what they would do in when it feels like everything is falling apart. I tend to overreact, probably because the worst has happened once, so in my mind, it could happen again.

I was able to find the inner strength to have kids, to mother them, to love them immensely, for two reasons: the memories of my mom and the realization that she would have wanted me to live a full life, complete with a family and all the happiness having children brings. I'm not saying having kids is for everyone. It's not. For a motherless mother, the thought of leaving them motherless is another consideration in the many factors that go into the decision to have children.

My mom taught me how to be a unique, mixed-race girl in a mostly black and white world. She taught me about healthy organic food and the meaning of giving back to my community. She introduced me to classic literature and the value of a top quality education. She comforted me when mean girls bullied me in middle school. She pushed me to be more independent, probably because she knew she didn’t have much longer to live. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was helping me to get ready to survive without her. I cannot imagine her sadness, her grief, at knowing she’d leave two daughters without a mom. I cry when I think about her sense of loss. How do you plan to leave your teenage daughters in this world without you? With grace and dignity in the face of the most undignified circumstances one can image (paralysis, blindness, a cancer ravaged body). You leave them each a sum of money for college. All these tokens of my mom’s love have helped me keep going when it didn’t seem possible.

Like author Hope Edelman, I will always be a motherless mother. I will always do everything I can to prepare my kids for the possibility that I might die young. It’s the one thing I instinctively know how to do.