"The aftermath of social distancing for a year" - A working mom's perspective

Posted by Overthinking Aquarian on November 09, 2021 in hardtruthofparenting, momblog, momblogger, momlife, whatsocialdistancingdoestoyou, workingmom, workingmomlife,

I am ever so grateful that the pandemic was a mere inconvenience in my life , albeit for an extended period, but still something that did not cause me any personal loss or grief.  As we are slowly moving into some better times after the unprecedented times during the pandemic, there has been this one thing lingering in my mind for quite a few months. - How the pandemic emotionally and mentally affected mothers, more so, working mothers. 

In the peak of the pandemic, worried parents everywhere were trying to find groups to form a social bubble. Well, since both my kids were going to daycare, we weren't really part of any neighborhood social bubbles. As a result, we hardly got to socialize with any neighbors. We even could not meet our own friends who were also social distancing themselves owing to young kids and older grandparents at home. 

Undoubtedly, after a few weeks it got overwhelming for us parents and also my then 4-year-old son who was pretty much bored of seeing our faces day in and day out. Even as a kid going to daycare, my poor little son had very minimal interaction with his peers because kids were asked to wear masks and be 3 feet apart at all times. So imagine my heart break when he used to come home, still with abundant energy, sulking that he has no one to play with - while I was also taking care of an infant. 

It felt like an extremely long period of time where I was struggling as a mother unable to provide the social interactions my child needs, and at the same time, I was myself struggling to find a social circle of my own in my immediate neighborhood. 

Not to forget, I was both physically and emotionally overwhelmed constantly with my kids and the never-ending house chores. After a long day of work, I also genuinely did not have the time/nor any energy left in me, to go out during the evenings to hang out with other moms who came out to the local park with their kids. While I was stuck on zoom meetings, I envied the stay-at-home moms who came out to the local parks in the late afternoon and at least got to interact with other moms while their kids ran around the playground. 

Finally, a year later, the bubble broke and people went back to socializing normally again. But my apprehensions came true - I realized that I missed a lot of interactions in the past one year. Families who were part of these intimate social bubbles for the past year really got to bond over and become friends. And I, on the other hand had to begin from scratch, approach people, get to know them and if possible befriend a mom or two. 

If you are a mom to young kids, you may know how hard it is to make new mom friends. 

Imagine a kid who had good friends in school and a neighborhood and the parents suddenly had to move and the kids now had to leave behind their old school and friends and enter a totally new place and start from scratch - making friends and that too with others who are already a group of friends. 

I felt exactly like that young school kid who despite having friends of her own, had to start from scratch again to make "mom" friends - a.k.a other mom's who had kids of similar age group and somewhat of a compatible mindset.

A year later, I am not exaggerating when I say I am still struggling to find and a compatible group of mom friends.

I really wish it was not this hard to make new mom friends, because at the end of the day we are all moms, with a goal to enrich our kids with good social interactions and win-win if we can genuinely bond and ourselves become friends.