I absolutely swear I used to be fun to hang out with.
I used to look into new restaurants. I used to suggest we meet up at the cool coffee shop. I used to request spontaneous road trips, even if it was just across town. I used to be fun, and I used to have fun.
Then I had kids.
Restaurants are out because I would spend more time keeping my kid from eating food off the floor than talking to you. Coffee shops are out because my kid will consume her cookie too fast and then rip apart the shop in a fit of sugar-fueled fury. Spontaneous road trips are out because, honestly, I lost the luxury of spontaneous anything when I let a baby’s nap schedule determine my plans. I cannot meet friends for fun gatherings because I can’t do anything fun anymore.
If you can’t have fun, how can you be a friend?
For a long time, I answered the question definitively: you can’t. If there’s no going out and having fun, there are no friends. I managed to sandwich in a few friends on kid-friendly outings like walking laps at the mall. But for a few years, having friends who I actually saw in person was not a thing in my life. Basically, I resigned myself to not having friends. Probably ever. At least not friends that weren’t my own kids, and frankly, a pre-verbal toddler doesn’t quite meet my companionship needs.
That’s when I had to start re-thinking the question. You don’t need to have fun to be a friend. You need to be a friend to be a friend. Friends don’t require entertainment. Friends are the entertainment. What if I trusted my friends to just be friends? What if I let them do the same for me? What if I gave up on friends as I once envisioned them, as those who joined me on fun adventures, and now realized that friends were along for the ride even when it wasn’t fun? (Or, as is often the case in motherhood, especially when it wasn’t fun.)
I have entered the season of mom friends. I will no longer apologize for being unfun. I will just be a friend because that’s the best part anyway.
This weekend, I went over to a friend’s house while her kiddo was out. I brought her a cup of her favorite chai tea latte. I sat at her kitchen table while she scrubbed her countertops. We talked about work and kids and life and file organization and other decidedly pedestrian things while the snow melted outside her window. She swept under the table and I threw some hand towels into what I hope was the right laundry hamper.
I stayed for two hours because I had so much fun.
I want to be clear: we didn’t go anywhere fun or do anything fun. I perched on a stool and she did a deep dive on her sink and we talked about mortgages. If you would have told me five years ago that something like that could be fun, I would have told you in a not-so-subtle way how not-so-fun you are. But at that moment, on a Saturday afternoon, while my kids napped back at home under my husband’s watchful gaze, with no pressure to have my hair styled or matching clothes on or fun plans made, it was a real friendship. We didn’t have to do something. We just had to be together.
So let me make you some rules on how to be my mom friend. First, drop your expectations. Low. Lower than that. Actually, just don’t have any expectations beyond basking in each others’ presence. Basically, go one step up from your usual state of barely dressed in recognizable adult clothing, and that’s only because I know how much you’ll like to feel like you accomplished something today. Let’s recognize how amazing it is that you put on clothes and not try much harder than that. All we’re gonna do is be together.
Secondly, either I’m coming to your house or you’re coming to mine. Let’s trade off. I don’t care what happens in your house while you’re there. Do me the same honor. If you even try to clean before I get there, you have to bring donuts with the coffee next time. We’re not here to impress each other. We’re friends.
And thirdly, since I mentioned it, bring coffee.
And basically, that’s it. Let’s be together for a while without any pressure to have anything be ideal or presentable or fun. Fun is just an excuse anyway. We never needed the fun. We just needed each other.
And that’s the real truth of it, my mom friend. I need you. I need you to remind me that I can actually speak in full sentences. I need you to help me have a conversation about something other than why we use our gentle hands or how important it is to take your shoes off at the door after you’ve been jumping in puddles or why you can’t just put your socks everywhere all over the house always. I need you to laugh at my jokes because I’m actually funny for the right reasons sometimes. (So are you.) I need you to be one small taste of that big world out there that might be on hold for a bit but will be ready when nap schedules are less pressing. I need you to love me and support me not because I was fun, but just because I was me. I need to be the same for you.
I need you to remind me that I actually do love my kids, because my goodness, even just a couple of hours away from them starts to feel like too much. Plus, hearing you talk about your kids and seeing the light in your eyes reminds me that kids actually are sort of delightful sometimes. Okay, a lot of times. They might even actually be kinda fun.
So what do you say, mom friend? When I can I drop over? I’ll bring the coffee. Don’t worry about the rest.
