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Hyland's Newsletters |
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Friendships for New Moms
New babies can fill our lives with wonder, love – and exhaustion. But once we’ve
caught up on our sleep enough to realize we’re actually meeting their needs,
it’s time to care |
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for a few of our own. And one of our first needs as sociable women
is for adult friends: people to chat with in multi-syllabic words
about the things that matter most to us. |
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Do our friendships change
when we become moms?
Some of our friendships may grow
right along with us when we became moms. Often, these are with women
who are moms too or who naturally feel a kinship with our kids, or
with people who simply want to be part of what we’re experiencing
today. |
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Then there are friendships with people who now seem like they’re
from another planet: People who act like babies are just tiny people
who cry to interrupt conversations. People who really want to
understand our interest in healthy-looking poop but just can’t get
there. Or people we’d like to keep in touch with for work, but who
have little interest in our children. No matter what the state
of our current friendships, being a mom can make it challenging to
find enough time to give them. It can also make it difficult to
reach out to find new friends. |
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The Internet helps moms have time for friends.
The Internet is one of our busy world’s great gifts for connecting with or
finding friends, without interrupting our time with our children. The Net is
ready and waiting when your baby finally takes a nap, when you can’t sleep after
a 4 a.m. feeding – as well as at more sane times of the day and night.
Email is perfect for sending a quick hello to a work colleague or snapshots of
the baby to old friends and family. And the Internet is packed with discussion
groups full of people seeking new friends to share similar experiences– from
shopping for nursing bras to baking cookies. Just do a
Google search to find
these groups.
A special place for moms to connect with both new and old friends is in on
Hyland’s Rx: Chat.
Discussion topics include daycare, breastfeeding, and caring for special needs
children. But moms can also come to Rx: Chat to get quick advice from other moms
or to share favorite photos or stories.
Blogs are another way to connect with friends that adapt to your schedule. Blogs
are like online journals for sharing personal stories, as well as photos and
art. On Rx: Chat
you can find a daily blog written by Miriam Peskowitz, a mother of one and soon
to be two. Miriam writes about many issues pertinent to mothers such as
education, breastfeeding, and finding time to take care of moms when life with
children gets hectic. Miriam is the author of The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars:
Who Decides What Makes a Good Mother, published in Spring 2005, in which she
argues that moms don’t want to fight each other -they want more real support for
leading saner, happier, and well-balanced lives. Miriam also writes another blog,
Playground
Revolution, that follows the media and politics of motherhood.
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