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Motherhood

Having trouble scheduling time with your mom friends? This solution might actually work.

Scheduling time with mom friends can be like trying to assemble the Avengers.

Photos by StockSnap via Canva

Finally, there just might be an easier way to schedule with mom friends

If you're a mom, you know how difficult it is to plan a time to get together with another mom friend, especially if your kids are in different stages of life. It's a common theme amongst moms that spills into mom groups where we joke about having to plan time to hang out months in advance, complete with fancy RSVPs. You wind up being consumed with your responsibilities of work, kids activities, appointments and overall managing a household.

By the time you finally find time to yourself, you wind up falling asleep on the couch with your streaming platform asking if you're still watching. It certainly doesn't take long to feel like you've lost yourself to motherhood, which can feel extremely isolating. So you really focus on making the effort to spend some kid-free time with a mom friend, only for someone's kid to fall ill or a spouse to work late.

Recently, a good friend and I found ourselves in this endless loop after having coordinated one glorious child-free evening together eating pizza and watching television. Weeks after getting to experience our "moms night in," we simply could not find time to hang out again but we also realized how beneficial the time was to our mental health. We were both stuck in the "busy working mom" hamster wheel desperately wanting to rest our feet.

During one of our back and forth scheduling marathons, I had an epiphany. Gen Z share their locations with their friends and don't think twice about it. Sharing location lets them know when one of the friends they want to hang out with is working, at practice or hanging out with other people so they can move along to texting someone who is free.

The thought of teens sharing locations made me question why there wasn't an app that could sync up mom friends' calendars. It would allow you to see where the holes are in the calendar so you can more easily schedule times to hang out. As far as we knew, there was no app that did that but most calendars have features where you can share it with other people.

woman carrying baby with two ladies beside her smilingPhoto by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

It took about five seconds to link our Skylight calendars. While you may not be interested in sharing your calendar with every friend you have, it can certainly help with closer friendships, and you don't have to have a fancy calendar to do it. You can add anyone to your Google calendar and limit it to where they can only see times blocked off but not what you've got going on. Google calendar actually has a handy feature that does allow you to click a button that will scan the schedule of the people trying to schedule time to meet then propose times that work best for everyone's schedules.

If you have an iPhone, you can share you iCalendar with other people that also have iPhones or other Apple products. Granted, this solution may not be for everyone but trying to meet up with mom friends is like trying to assemble the Avengers. It shouldn't take this much effort to meet a friend for lunch but it can and let's be honest, moms have enough pressure on them without having to worry about RSVPing three months in advance to have an 80s movie marathon with their bestie.

In today's age of the overbooked, there's not a lot of wiggle room for spontaneous pop ups. Calendar sharing seems to be the next best option for busy moms to find time for kid-free playdates.

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scheduling mom meetups

Pop Culture

Woman perfectly breaks down how adult life is full of 'catch-up friendships'

It’s a loop so many of us are stuck in. But there are ways out.

Representative Image From Canva

How many friendships in your life are just catch-up friendships?

It’s an all-too-common scenario: after months of being MIA in each other’s lives, you and a friend have finally been able to procure a night free of any work obligations or family commitments or any other non-negotiable responsibilities to actually see each other. Huzzah, May the joyful merriment commence!

…But, when the meetup that you both moved heaven and earth for finally does happen, all you do is regurgitate recent events. Making things feel unsatisfying and anticlimactic.

At the end of the night, you’re left feeling no closer to the person than before. And still you say:

“Let’s catch-up again soon!”

If this never ending cycle sounds familiar, you’re not alone. It’s a loop so many of us are stuck in.

Back in January, a woman named Bianca Stelian even went viral on TikTok for seemingly coining the term “catch-up friendships,” and perfectly summing up how this phenomenon pops up in our adult lives.

In the clip, Stelian recalled how spending tons of time with friends was the most natural thing in the world in college, saying, “everyone you love is in one convenient five block radius.” Because of this, you already kind of know what’s going on in each other’s lives, so instead of catching up, you could connect by watching a movie, hanging in silence, or simply coexisting.

Then cut to post-grad life, and life becomes too demanding to maintain friendships as you once did. Enter the “catch-up friendship.”

“Everytime you talk, you have to start the conversation with a big load of life updates. You have to hit every category: family, work, dating, social life, health, you get it. And before you know it you’ve essentially spent 45 minutes interviewing each other like you’re on a reality show without really breaking past the surface,” Stelian explains.

And once you’ve done this even a couple of times, it becomes a habit. And soon friendships are “a lot less about coexisting and more about organizing discreet dinner or drinks or FaceTimes or phone calls to catch-up,” she laments.

Stelian adds that while there is nothing “inherently horrible” about this type of relationship, “it takes away a lot of the joy of what made your friendship special in the first place.” In essence, you lose the trees for the forest—all of the small joys that came from sharing a life together get overshadowed by all the “big picture stuff.”

@infinitebs I am guilty of this as well but there is hope i promise #postgrad #friends #friendships #sociallife #socialanxiety #college ♬ original sound - bianca

It might be common for our friendships to fall lower on our priorities the older we get, but study after study shows us how detrimental the lack of that particular connection can be in our lives.

Luckily, there are other ways to spend time with friends that don't require going over everything you did the past few months, like running errands together, or revolving the meet-up around a recreational activity.

Stelian also had a few suggestions for breaking the rut, like posting your little life updates to your Instagram stories, so that less catching up would be required (we’re all on social media anyway), sending voice notes (long rambles welcome), creating a public journal or email newsletter and sending vlogs (like voice memos, but “elevated”).

Bottom line: we know friendships are important. We also know that life doesn’t alway make maintaining friendships easy. But a little creativity goes a long way, and the benefits are well worth the effort. Hopefully these tips can help add a little spice to your catch-ups.

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relationships

Health

What do women do when no one is watching? These images sum it up nicely.

Realness is key in Sally Nixon's work.

What are women up to when no one is watching?

Artwork courtesy of Sally Nixon, used with permission.

Well, take a look at Sally Nixon's illustrations and you'll see.

The subjects in her artwork aren't aware we're looking at them.

And that's the point. They're living in a world free from the pressures that exist in the real one.

"I like drawing girls doing their everyday routine — just hanging out, not worried about what others are thinking," Nixon told Upworthy. "They're usually alone or with other girls. Their guard is down."

Editor's note: An image below contains partial nudity.

Capturing her subjects in this liberated light wasn't intentional at first, she explained.

But when she started a 365-day challenge last April to create one art piece a day, the work started reflecting the nuances of her own life away from prying eyes — "I was kind of like, 'Oh, I'm brushing my teeth, so I'll draw that.'" — and a theme began to form.Her illustrations show how women look, away from the exhausting world where they're often judged more harshly than men.

You also might notice none of the girls in her illustrations are smiling.

According to Nixon, that's a deliberate choice.

"I don't sit around smiling to myself," Nixon said, noting the double standard that exists in thinking women should always appear cheerful.

"I've been told, 'You need to smile more.' It's so infuriating. I wanted to show the way girls actually look, comfortably."

The theme of friendship is also an important one in Nixon's drawings.

“I have four older sisters, so female friendship has always been a big part of my life," Nixon told The Huffington Post. “You gotta have someone to talk about periods with, and dudes just don't get it."

Creating relatable scenes was key to Nixon, too — from the details of women's lives to the physical shapes of their bodies.

“It's important that the women I draw aren't rail thin with huge boobs," Nixon said. “I think there are enough images of bodies like that out in the world. The ladies I draw typically have small-ish, droopy breasts and thick thighs. They're kind of lumpy but in an attractive way. Just like real people."

The women in Nixon's work aren't real, but she hopes their stories are.

"One of my absolute favorite comments [on my work] is, 'Oh my God, it's me!'" she explained of the depictions.

"There's a little bit of beauty in [everyday life] and I wanted to bring that out."

You can view more of Nixon's artwork on her website and check out her prints for purchase on Etsy.

This article originally appeared on 04.15.16

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Joy

Making friends as an adult is hard. These five tips from an expert can help.

Friendships never stop being important.

Canva

Making friends is hard. But maybe it doens't have to be THAT hard.

Making friends as an adult is definitely not like making friends as a kid.

Remember how easy it was to make a new friend when you were young? Five minutes sharing a slide and suddenly you're bonded for life.

But as we grow older, making friends can become much harder. So hard, in fact, that some people equate having a large group of close friends to a miracle.

Friendships are an important part of life at any age.

Most everyone wants and needs friends, and research shows that friendships can have a huge effect on our physical and mental health. There's not much we can do about friendships that diminish and change as we age — people move, start families and new careers, and shift to new social circles — but it's important to keep forming meaningful, long-lasting connections with people throughout life, whether you're 25 or 80.

\u201cNobody talks about Jesus' miracle of having 12 close friends in his 30s\u201d
— LEGO Joseph Smith (@LEGO Joseph Smith) 1521411752

It's something that affects us all.

"Making friends is hard for everyone," says Ellen Hendriksen, clinical psychologist and author of "How to Be Yourself," a guide on learning to tame social anxiety. "It's not just you." But knowing you're not alone isn't going to get you the friend circle you want.

Here are five tips to getting into the mindset of making friends — and then going out and doing it.

1. Relax (aka the hardest step).

In college, my abnormal psychology professor told us about a guy who wanted to make friends — five friends (because we all seem have an arbitrary number of pals we think is appropriate). He went to a party and met five people he liked and got their numbers. This guy was so excited that he started calling his new friends immediately, asking them to do things and inviting them for coffee nearly every day.

Of course, his overexcitement became clingy, his new acquaintances suddenly started making excuses, and he ended up being a negative example for a group of undergrads learning about problems in human behavior.

"You can't make friends like a poacher," Hendriksen says. "Focus on being open and curious and thoughtful. Ask questions, listen when others respond, be friendly, and when you slowly inch into the mix, be intentional."

Allow yourself to be in the moment and ask questions that come up naturally. If someone says they're having a hard week at work, ask them about it. If someone tells you they've recently been on a trip, commit to asking something more than just "how was it?" Be interested.

shared interest, making friends, dog park, group involvement

Make friends through shared interests like a dog park.

Photo by Carol Magalhães on Unsplash

2. Repetition is key.

Most articles about how to make friends suggest that people find a hobby, join a group, or volunteer. But Hendriksen says that's not a fail-safe solution.

Ultimately, it's not the activity that matters — although it should be something you enjoy — it's the fact that you're finding a place where other people can get to know you over time. In fact, since more and more research shows that making friends takes longer than previously thought, it's important to give it some time; Hendriksen suggests giving it a season.

You don't have to join an official group or club. Hendriksen once turned an acquaintance into a good friend when the two bonded over their mission to try every Mexican restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The key is to engage in something that allows you to get to know other people and lets them to get to know you.

"You can go to the same dog park every morning," Hendriksen says. "You can join an Ultimate Frisbee team. You can walk your kids to the bus stop every day and chat with the other parents. Or you can start something with repetition. Have a weekly viewing party for your favorite TV show, start a writer's group, start a new mom's playgroup or a boozy book club."

Really, whatever works for you as long as other people are involved.

3. Disclose, but don’t confess.

Imagine you're meeting someone for the first time. You ask them how they're doing, and they say "fine." There's not much to work with because the other person hasn't disclosed anything. What else is there to say?

Now imagine a different person. You ask them how they're doing and their response is one of sheer distress: "Nothing is going right in my life. Parking was hell, my job kills me, and I'm still not over my ex." I imagine your response to this diatribe wouldn't be particularly positive.

And why should it be? These are things you'd tell to a very close friend, not just someone you've met at your new book club.

This doesn't mean we can never say anything negative — after all, we all have bad days. But your goal is to keep the connection on even footing. Sharing a little bit about yourself is fine, but the goal is to lead to further conversation rather than a deep emotional connection right off the bat.

Why doesn't confession work? Because it's too much, too soon. The goal of confession can be to foster a sense of kinship, but when that strong emotional connection has new acquaintances wondering whether you're looking for a friend or a therapist, the relationship is already off balance. You can get closer, but give it time first.

"Don't let them see all of the mess right away," Hendriksen says, "but let them see a little peek at the mess. What do you do? How do you spend your time? What do you think about? What are you like? Where are you from? What's your story?"

She notes that disclosing things about yourself may feel weird and even "selfish" at first, but it's just because you’re not used to it. Keep trying.

movies, specific day, concrete timeline, new friends

Suggesting a specific activity is better than 'let's hang out sometime.'

Photo by Simon Ray on Unsplash

4. Don’t fear the follow-through.

All of this meeting new people and sharing interests is leading somewhere, right? You also want to make more lasting connections with some of your new acquaintances.

To do that, you must initiate a plan and then follow through.

Sometimes, you'll be lucky and someone will ask you to do something first. But most people are a little bit terrified about stepping outside their comfort zone. And that means making the plans and following through can be tricky — for everyone.

The key is to be specific. "Do you want to hang out sometime?" seems like a nice, safe question that gets to whether someone wants to spend more time together, but it doesn't work. Even if the person says yes, you have no concrete timeline in place. You've thrown the ball into their court and are now at the whim of their schedule.

"Do you want to go see a movie on Saturday?" for instance, or "do you want to take a hike with me on Sunday?" are both great options to feel out if someone's interested in a specific activity on a specific day. If they say yes, then you're good to go.

If they say no? Well, they might come up with an alternative activity.

5. Allow yourself to be anxious. And then go for it anyway.

We've all been there: Someone invites you to an event, and you get excited, but when the day of the event comes, you'd rather be doing anything else. After all, comfort zones are ... well, comfortable.

Although the urge to cancel may be strong, recognizing that these feelings are normal is the first step to overcoming them.

Your brain, Hendriksen says, comes up with worst-case scenarios — What if you say something foolish? What if the other person is only doing it to be nice? What if you have nothing in common? — to keep you safe. "But really, it's a false alarm."

Remember when you were terrified about that presentation in class or that important meeting you were leading at work? Did it end up going OK, even if it was hard? Then why shouldn't this? After all, if you don't try, you'll never be ready.

Though most of us would rather, as Hendriksen says, cocoon ourselves away and hope that we'll emerge as beautiful social butterflies, the truth is that experience is the only way we can get there. So keep moving forward. You just have to take the first step.

This article originally appeared on 07.05.18

advice

Pop Culture

Woman gets emotional while admitting she feels 'so jealous' seeing girl best friends

Her tearful confession elicited a lot of responses from other women who felt a similar loneliness.

@via..li/TikTok

"It's a different kind of pain."

From the gal pals in “Sex & the City,” to besties Romy and Michelle, to even a casual scroll through #bffsforever on social media, we are inundated with images of female friendships brimming over with glamor, intimacy, laughter, connection…sort of like the grown-up version of sugar, spice and everything nice.

And while it’s lovely to see examples of women lifting each other up rather than putting each other down, it can feel painfully isolating for the many women who simply don’t have those types of friendships.

Loneliness is something that nearly every person deals with in some capacity due to our increasingly technology-driven, post-COVID world, but it’s the particular juxtaposition of girl squads constantly showing up in pop culture against the very different reality of many, if not most, women that is its own unique type of suffering. Friendships, friendships everywhere, but not a drop to drink lattes with.

This is why so many women are resonating with a TikTok NYC-based Via Li made after seeing two girlfriends chatting at a cafe and feeling intense longing for that type of platonic relationship.

“I just got to this cafe and I saw these two girls just sitting next to each other. You know, they had their laptops out and they were just smiling with each other,” Li says as her eyes well up with tears.

“Why am I crying? This is so embarrassing, oh my god!” she exclaims. It’s okay Li, we’ve been there.

She continues by describing how the two girls seem so comfortable around each other, giving her the inkling that they probably even live together. “I think it’s just so great to have this best friend that you can do everything with…It just seems so happy, you know?”

Meanwhile, Li is sitting there by herself and “literally about to have a mental breakdown.”

She then explains that seeing those two friends together is a “different kind of pain” than seeing a couple together. “When I see couples, I don’t even get jealous,” she says. “But when I see two girl best friends…I literally look at them and I just feel like I’m gonna start crying.”

@via..li
why tf am i so emotional today oh my god
♬ original sound - Via

Though Li felt alone while filming the clip, she is certainly not alone in her sentiment. Shortly after posting, several other women flooded the comments with similar feelings of this specific kind of loneliness, whether they once had a friend group and lost it or never seemed to belong to one.

“Same it’s hard to find someone who matches your energy, humor and morals,” one person shared.

Another added, “I miss having girl best friends. Everything was so easy omg this makes me sad.”

“I know exactly how you feel. I crave it so badly and never experienced the full thing” wrote another.

Feeling envy is part of being human. It’s a way of remembering that we truly care about something. Friendship envy is no different. And the good news is this thing we care about can be achieved with some effort and attention (though it still may never look like a well-crafted sitcom).

Psychologist and Forbes contributor Mark Travers suggests being proactive by initiating conversation with neighbors, organizing a movie night, starting your own book club, etc., and committing to creating your own community that way. He also emphasizes the power of being honest about your personal life with others in order to form connections. Even those who are more introverted can “start off small,” he writes.

Considering tons of viewers reached out to offer Li friendship after she was so vulnerable, perhaps there is something to this strategy. Regardless, her story is one that nearly all of us can relate to. You never really grow out of that desire to have a sleepover, paint your nails and share your feelings with a chosen tribe that feels like family.

Looking for more friend-finding tips? We actually have some here.

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community

Culture

Poet perfectly describes the fatigue so many are feeling at this stage of the pandemic

Photo: Canva

We're nearly a year into the pandemic, and what a year it has been. We've gone through the struggles of shutdowns, the trauma of mass death, the seemingly fleeting "We're all in this together" phase, the mind-boggling denial and deluge of misinformation, the constantly frustrating uncertainty, and the ongoing question of when we're going to get to resume some sense of normalcy.

It's been a lot. It's been emotionally and mentally exhausting. And at this point, many of us have hit a wall of pandemic fatigue that's hard to describe. We're just done with all of it, but we know we still have to keep going.

Poet Donna Ashworth has put this "done" feeling into words that are resonating with so many of us. While it seems like we should want to talk to people we love more than ever right now, we've sort of lost the will to socialize pandemically. We're tired of Zoom calls. Getting together masked and socially distanced is doable—we've been doing it—but it sucks. In the wintry north (and recently south) the weather is too crappy to get together outside. So many of us have just gone quiet.

If that sounds like you, you're not alone. As Ashworth wrote:

You're not imagining it, nobody seems to want to talk right now.

Messages are brief and replies late.

Talk of catch ups on zoom are perpetually put on hold.

Group chats are no longer pinging all night long.

It's not you.

It's everyone.

We are spent.

We have nothing left to say.

We are tired of saying 'I miss you' and 'I can't wait for this to end'.

So we mostly say nothing, put our heads down and get through each day.

You're not imagining it.

This is a state of being like no other we have ever known because we are all going through it together but so very far apart.

Hang in there my friend.

When the mood strikes, send out all those messages and don't feel you have to apologise for being quiet.

This is hard.

No one is judging.

- Donna Ashworth

Those of us who find ourselves feeling this way certainly hope that no one is judging. We hope that our friends understand, either because they're in the same boat or because we all get that we're all handling this weird time differently.

It's not that we don't care or that we don't miss people outside of our household desperately. It's more that we miss people so much that we can't stand this half-baked way of being with people anymore. Personally, I'd rather just wait it out until we get enough people vaccinated over the next few months. I'm holding out for the hugs, man. Going into hermit mode in this final stretch feels more doable than straining to make socializing work with all the limitations and the exhaustion on top of it.

There are exceptions, of course. People who live alone probably need whatever socializing they can get. And checking in with people, especially loved ones you know struggle with mental health issues, is important. Some of this pandemic wall can be veiled depression, so we need to look out for one another and touch base sometimes. It's also good for us to make connections even when we don't necessarily feel like it. Sometimes the desire might be lacking, but we're happy to have connected once we've done it.

And of course, there are people who have just pretended that the pandemic isn't happening this whole time. Maybe those people aren't feeling this, even while they're making life harder for the rest of us who are trying to follow the guildelines.

It's all just hard. There's no right or wrong way to make it through a pandemic, as long as we're not actively harming ourselves or other people. Everyone has different needs, and those change as we go through different phases of this thing. It's just nice to see a common feeling in this phase put into words so eloquently.

Donna Ashworth has published a whole book of poems about the pandemic called "History Will Remember When the World Stopped." She also has a book of poetry for women, "To The Women: Words to Live By."

The arts are always a gift, but they can be especially powerful during tough times. Thank you, Ms. Ashworth, for using your words to give voice to what so many of us are experiencing.

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Real talk: These are difficult times, and there's no shame in needing a little extra love and support from your favorite humans.

No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, you’ve probably had to lean on your friend, partner, or fellow activist throughout the past year.

In this political climate, it's clear that our votes, our dollars, and our words matter. That's why we've put together 10 timely Valentine’s Day cards you can print and give to the people who help you get by.

From your BFF to your senator, we've got a card for everyone.