The Lifeline

Everyone needs a friend. Even a mom.

Come to think of it, maybe no one needs a friend more than a mother.

Who else do you call when your son calls his sister the “b-word”? Or when your daughter brings a note home from school telling you she excluded another girl from playing tag?

Not exactly what you write about on your Christmas cards. (Although that would be a really entertaining letter.) These are not the episodes that get you nominated for Mother of the Year.

I have several wonderful friends. But when these things happen in my house, I call Jennifer.

I met my friend Jennifer at a parent-teacher meeting when our daughters were in first grade. We realized our girls, Emma and Emma, rode the same bus and that we lived just blocks away from each other. She was a stay-at-home mom; I worked. She had three kids; I had two. (We both obviously loved the name Emma.)

We shared a sense of humor about raising kids. And we found we really needed someone to laugh with.
Because, let’s face it, raising kids is a comedy of errors. If you can’t find someone to laugh about it with you, you can end up crying over spilled milk from the stress of motherhood.

Jennifer is what I call my “mom friend.” We didn’t know each other in high school or college. We’ve never worked together — aside from the annual school fund-raiser. We relate to each because we are moms of children roughly the same age; because no matter what unimaginable thing my kids have done — her children probably already have, or will, think of doing it.

“John asked me what the f-word is,” I told her the other day.

“Did you tell him?” she asked.

“No! Of course not. He asked if it was fudge and I lied and said yes. So now he’s going around the house saying 'Fudge' all the time and I can’t explain why he really shouldn’t be saying that.”
Jennifer had the response I needed.

She laughed.

“That’s hysterical!”

“No, it’s not! It’s awful,” I wailed, although by this time her infectious chuckle had me laughing too.
“That’s nothing,” she said. “Half the kids in kindergarten already know what the f-word is and how to use it. Consider yourself lucky he had to ask.”

Then she went on to tell me some crazy story about her own kids that had me giggling like my 10-year-old.
That’s what makes “mom friends” so valuable. They support, they listen, they accept. They laugh with you; they cry with you. They rue the bad teacher or soccer coach along with you. They celebrate your last orthodontist payment.
They’ll listen to your birthing stories without wincing and don’t tease you about the Miley Cyrus CD in the car stereo. (Chances are they have one too.)

Jennifer and I have made it a routine to take our families out for dinner together every Friday night. The kids get root beer, we order super-sized nachos and share a week’s worth of stories.

“The kids locked themselves out of the house when I left for 10 minutes,” she said.

“That’s nothing,” I countered. “John threw Emma’s comb in the toilet.”

“They’ll never name us Mother of the Year, will they?” she said.

Nope, but Great Friend is a pretty good title too.