Happy Purim! Enjoy our special holiday-themed content, and scroll down to the end of this post for even more.
Ever find yourself alone at the playground, looking hungrily at those moms on the bench sharing lattes and passing out Puffs and Yums to their intermingling broods with abandon, like the cool girls in the cafeteria but with even deader eyes? Wish you had a mom posse of your own to while away the blissful afternoon with? Not sure how to make it happen?
Well, we’re here to tell you that making mommy friends is easier than it looks, with our simple, two-step, can’t-be-beaten formula.
Are you ready? Take out a notepad.
Step one: Take a good, long look at your hard-won individuality, the thing you used to call your “personality” before your body was occupied by a small creature.
Step two: Throw that personality in the garbage. You’re a mom now, honey!
We guarantee this will work and you will soon be chilling with the queen bee moms, not the wannabees (ew, losers).
Still confused? What follows are some examples of how that might look in real life.
Remember how your boyfriend (or girlfriend) was in a band? They played guitar while you sang Lou Reed? Well, now’s the time to forget all that. For instance, at the playground, your husband “works in finance” and your favorite music is the sound of your baby’s laughter, of course, (and/or “The Wheels on the Bus” if you’re feeling frisky)! Why would you want to listen to anything else, for crying out loud?
Once you assure your playground compatriots of these kinds of facts, they’ll be sidling up to you in no time, ready to share stories with you about the one time that other mom totally failed to contain her kid’s tantrum, and it was so embarrassing, oh my god.
Here’s another example: You used to drink craft beer, spirits, cider and wine—but now you must replace your intake with wine, and only wine. You can’t be choosy about the label, vintage, or year, either, because to you all wine only has one name: “Mommy juice.” And every day at 5 p.m., you have to turn to your new mom friends and say: “Is it me, or is it wine o’clock?” Try this one, and you’ll have a crew of BFFs in no time.
Take television consumption, too: You once had a list of TV shows that were crucial to watch and talk about, and read recaps of the next day, but now you fall asleep every night, while drooling, to “Chopped” reruns. And that’s a-OK! Turn to your fellow moms and say: “Who got chopped in the dessert round last night? I totally passed out during the third commercial” and you’ll have lots of answers, and lots of new buddies.
Along the same lines, stop reading books. Instead, you need to just memorize the most recent article you read about how some child-rearing method you eschew is guaranteed to do lifelong damage, and be ready to whip it out whenever a little bit of mommy war chit-chat enters the convo: “Actually, I read a Wall Street Journal article that says that doing that has a 50% correlation with teen behavior problems. It’s just a fact, I’m just quoting it. Anyone want a latte?”
As for fashion, who has time for that? Put on the black yoga pants with spit-up stains on them and complain about your stomach (but you must call it a “pooch,” and nothing else.) “You hate your pooch? I hate my pooch even more!” you’ll say, and while some might say this is the sound of a deep and irrational self-loathing created by a patriarchal social structure, to you it sounds a lot like the sweet pearls of friendship, the kind of friendship guaranteed to last exactly the length of time it takes for one of you to move to the suburbs.
Congratulations, you’re the most popular mommy in the playgroup.
Today at Kveller we’re celebrating Purim, a holiday with “the characteristics of a spring masquerade,” “a festival of merriment, play, and [ahem] pranks.”
Check out our other celebratory articles here:
How to Get Back to Your Pre-Pregnancy Fear of Dying Alone
One Easy Way to Make Mom Friends: Ditch Your Personality!
Slideshow: The Hottest Dogs of J-Swipe
And Coming Soon…
Brave! This Mom Went to Costco With Her Toddler— and Without Xanax
Why I Always Make Sure My Kid Says Please When Asking for Another F*@$ing Poptart
Don’t Know How to Talk To Your Kid About God? Well, Uh, Geez, Neither Do We
Five Undereye Concealers That Will Give You the Fleeting Illusion of Control Over Time
This “Hot MILF” T-Shirt is Actually a Feminist Statement: Here’s Why.
You Will Not Believe This Badass Jewish Heroine Who Married a King and Saved Her People from Genocide
Study: Mom Is Tired
QUIZ. Who Said It: New Mom or Teenaged Stoner?
