The Mommy Club

Knock, knock! Who's there? A Mom.  Oh! Well why didn't you say so? Come in! Show me pictures of your kid, tell me about your baby weight, spill your guts about your breast feeding catastrophes and your labor pains.  Tell me about your lack of sex life, how you haven't showered in 3 days, and pretended to have a stomach ache but instead sat on your bathroom floor, reading UsWeekly and eating Doritos.  Welcome to the club!

Before I had my son, I knew there was a difference between moms and non-moms.  Kind of like Bridget Jones describing "singletons" vs. "smug marrieds", they just don't speak the same language.  But before I became a mom, I didn't fully know what that meant.  To be a fly on the wall, in a rooms full or moms, would truthfully probably only be interesting to other moms, but wow would you hear full disclosure! I don't know what it is, but moms really love to spill their guts to each other.  It's like all boundaries fall away.  Yesterday I had a facial.  (This fact alone is probably worth its' own blog - so amazing.)  But as the aesthetician and I began chatting, within 15 minutes I knew the ages and names of all her kids, how her husband had just had a vasectomy, and how she needed and operation to fix her bladder control issues.  And believe me, she just as quickly learned plenty about me too.  It made me wonder, if I was not a mom, what would this lady and I be talking about?

I have long marveled about men's abilities to bond over the topic of sports.  You put a bunch of guys who don't know each other in a room who seemingly have nothing in common, but sooner than later the conversation will turn to sports, and the men quickly seem like old pals.  I always said that women didn't have a topic that could be such a common denominator.  But boy, was I wrong.  I just didn't know about it yet!

So after my confessional/facial yesterday, it got me wondering why are women are so quick to tell all?  Is it because we all want to swap "war" stories of the labor room? Is it because our children are so all consuming that we have nothing else to talk about? Or maybe it's because after you have a child, it's almost as if your body has been "repurposed" and nothing is left sacred.   As the parent of a one year old, and especially as a stay-at-home mom, Jon Jon has pretty much taken over my life.  So if you want to talk about my current events, you're going to get an earful about sleep training, food throwing, and teething.  That's just the way it is.  Sure, I can talk about other stuff.  But if you want to hear passion in my voice, it's just gonna have to be about child raising.

Mom's just get other moms.  You know what they're going through.  It also reminds me of how it is said that once people have been through a traumatic experience together, they are bonded for life.  Being a parent can definitely be traumatic at times! So, maybe that's where the mommy bonding comes from.  All I know, is that I'm glad to be a part of the club and I'll gladly tell my 20-hour-labor story to anyone who wants to listen.... and then I will gladly listen to yours.