Can Single Moms Be Friends With Married Moms?

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June 28, 2009

We all know that moms have the hardest job in the world. But it can also be argued that the job of the single mom might even be harder. There are millions of single moms who are doing incredible jobs of not only raising their children but also working to support their home. Society sometimes judges how they got to be single moms and that can make an already tough situation even tougher.

We're delighted to be joined by single mom and blogger Alaina Sheer who wants to know, Can single moms be friends with married moms? Also weighing in is guest contributor Sarah Burns. Join the momversation by commenting in text or video.

Panelists

Giyen Kim - Bacon Is My Enemy Mindy Roberts - The Mommy Blog

Keywords

Friends and Relationships Parenting

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4 Comments

acm

funny -- when I saw this, I thought it was about whether you could be friends with your single (non-mother) friends! I barely know which of my fellow moms are single or married, as long as they're free some portion of the day so that I see them at the playground or bump into them on the local (once breastfeeding support, now motherhood support) discussion list. but the lifestyle gap between parents and their child-free former pals sometimes feels gigantic...

on the other hand, I can see that once my kid is older and I'm back at work, there might feel like more differences among the moms that I know through school -- i.e., those who have teams inherently have a different life than those who are flying solo. will be interesting to see whether that gap feels prohibitory then -- there's such a culture of adult "dating" among couples (who otherwise know each other only via the kids) that odd numbers could be a problem outside of big parties...

now you've made me curious! :)

Tue, 2009-06-30 13:39

Claire_in_Germany

My best friend from high school and are still good friends, and she was even a part of my wedding. We became moms around the same time last year; I am married, she is not. Sadly, we seem to have drifted further apart instead of bonding over our little ones. I do not think it is because of personal conflict. We live so far apart and both caught up with other things. All friendships take a certain amount of work. As moms we sometimes let our friendships slack a bit.

Tue, 2009-06-30 03:25

kristanhoffman

I agree with the women who said that it's less a question of single or married and more a question of connection. You know, can someone who grew up in Ethiopia be friends with someone who grew up in Orange County? Sure. But is it harder? Probably, because they have less commonalities that would help them understand one another. That's an extreme version of this issue, but my point is that single moms and married moms have at least one less thing in common with one another, even if everything else is the same (and what are the odds of that?).

That said, I'm firmly of the belief that only being friends with people just like you is really static. I think you need a variety of friends and relationships of different degrees to be healthy and grow as a person.

And in this specifically, who knows, one day the roles might be reversed (the single mom married, the married mom divorced) so it's good to learn from one another.

(Unrelated to this specific video, I'd really like to thank the Momversation people for listening to our comments and disabling the auto-play feature. Such a small thing, and already the Momversation site experience is much more enjoyable!)

Mon, 2009-06-29 05:44