Mothers groups tend to get a pretty bad wrap. I knew all about this reputation before I started going to mine and I have to admit I was extremely nervous before I went to my first "meeting". My child health nurse at the time had been suggesting I join a mothers group and I'd quite successfully dodged that conversation for weeks. The thought of leaving my safe little house and venturing out to an unknown location to meet a group of strangers, who I actually had to talk to, quite frankly scared the crap out of me. I'm normally quite introverted to start with and back then my anxiety was on hyper-drive as I was smack bang in the middle of postnatal depression so the idea of deliberately challenging that anxiety made me physically ill.
But after a few weeks of gentle encouragement from both the child health nurse and my psychologist I decided I had to challenge my anxiety if I ever wanted to overcome it. I was still completely terrified, but I was determined I wasn't going to sit at home and be scared of the world forever.
Driving to my first meeting I'm pretty sure I was sweating bullets. I'd checked the route about 4000 times the night before but I somehow still convinced myself I didn't know where I was going. The one thing that calmed my nerves a little was that I knew someone in the group I was meeting. One of my friends {who happened to have a baby 6 weeks before me and happens to live not far away} had invited me to join her mothers group so I wasn't going cold turkey to a government run group {although that's where they'd all met about 3 weeks prior}. I'm pretty sure that was the only thing that convinced me to get dressed and spark up the courage to actually leave the house that day. But I'm glad I did because that scary group of strangers are now a bunch of really close friends and I can't imagine what I'd do each Thursday without them.
Why I love my mothers group:
We support each other and treat each other as equals. Even though we're all different ages and have come from various backgrounds with different life experiences we were all new first time mums when we met, so as far as parenting is concerned we're all equals. We've all had similar concerns and questions along our mothering journey and we've all been there to support one another through sleep deprivation, teething, tantrums etc etc. Its nice to have a group of women to turn to for support when you have no idea what you're doing.
There's no judging. Not all of us do everything the same and that's ok. We all have different views on things at times but we don't ever judge each other. The way I see it whatever works, works, and that's all that matters.
It gets me out of the house and in those first few months that was absolutely necessary to overcome my anxiety and help with my depression. Although I was petrified of driving to new places each week, each time I did it I grew more and more confident and my anxiety became less and less. Of course nowadays I spend more time out of the house than at home, but I still look forward to our catch ups every Thursday.
I made new friends. I'm lucky that I had a lot of friends before, but anyone who's had kids will know that at least half of those friends magically fall off the face of the earth and disown you once you have a screaming mini me. Its always nice to make new friends who also have kids and don't mind spending time with you and the mini me together.
Ours kids are all growing up together. Bub now has six cool little dudes who are all within six weeks of her age to grow up with {although I'm sure daddy would like there to be a bit more of a balanced boy/girl ratio}. There are two more new babies to be added to the group this year as well :)
We eat cake. I hear you all thinking wtf, but bear with me. Firstly never underestimate the fabulousness of eating cake. Secondly, in the beginning the fact that we used to meet up for lunch was amazing. I got to eat out every week which not only ensured I ate lunch, but I ate awesome lunch. We still eat lunch when we meet up but its morphed into the bring a plate version as the little people require containment a restaurant can no longer provide {so sometimes I'm forced to eat yucky stuff like tuna or coconut, but its still worth it}.
I wouldn't change my Mothers group at all {except maybe banning tuna from the menu}.
Are/were you part of a great mother's group too?
Toni x
We eat cake. I hear you all thinking wtf, but bear with me. Firstly never underestimate the fabulousness of eating cake. Secondly, in the beginning the fact that we used to meet up for lunch was amazing. I got to eat out every week which not only ensured I ate lunch, but I ate awesome lunch. We still eat lunch when we meet up but its morphed into the bring a plate version as the little people require containment a restaurant can no longer provide {so sometimes I'm forced to eat yucky stuff like tuna or coconut, but its still worth it}.
I wouldn't change my Mothers group at all {except maybe banning tuna from the menu}.
Are/were you part of a great mother's group too?
Toni x