Back in January when I wrote my 'Working Mum Resolutions', I promised myself that I wouldn't crawl back into my all-male world. I'm struggling to keep that promise even though I thought I'd done enough to ensure I made time for mummies!
I work in a department where 95% of the staff are male, possibly more. They're a great group of blokes (and because most of them are daddies, many of them are Mellow Mummy readers); I even socialise with some of them. I like living in an all-male world and have always been more comfortable in male company than female so I wouldn't change it for the world.
But sometimes, just sometimes, I crave a little bit of female company... even if it is just so that I can talk about mummy-related things without people switching off.
When I started maternity leave, and after Lara was born, I made a number of mummy friends. NCT ladies, neighbours, sister-in-laws and mums from swimming classes, music classes and baby clinic. It felt good to have a different type of person to talk to, to spend time with, to enjoy a coffee with. I made the most of my maternity leave with walks in the park, car-shares to exciting places and shared an occasional email rant.
At 7 months, I went back to work a lot earlier than most of the other mummies I knew. I reserved my one day off a week for doing fun things with Lara and quite often this involved visiting the other mums and their babies. I thought I was doing a really good job of keeping in touch.
Then, about 2 months ago, other people started returning to work and now the opportunities for female company are few and far between. None of the other mums from our swimming class renewed for this term (which means Lara is swimming with 18-24 month olds which is actually quite cool). I do still get the chance to go for an occasional evening meal and I have a couple of NCT meet ups planned; but in general, I've gone back to my pre-baby friends and colleagues. It seems a shame to have reverted back to exactly how things were before.
There is a glimmer of hope on the horizon. The inter-web! Next month I will be meeting up with lots of my online bloggy friends at the Cybermummy conference. The idea of a whole day with 100 or so other women (and a handful of men) is actually slightly terrifying to me! And then, in September I will be meeting some more of them at the MADs award ceremony. Currently, the only females I regularly keep in contact with are family and the amazing group of online mummies to be found on twitter, in the blogsphere and on forums. I'm sure they'll turn out to be a great group of mummies but I could do with some real female friends too, not just virtual ones!
I work in a department where 95% of the staff are male, possibly more. They're a great group of blokes (and because most of them are daddies, many of them are Mellow Mummy readers); I even socialise with some of them. I like living in an all-male world and have always been more comfortable in male company than female so I wouldn't change it for the world.
But sometimes, just sometimes, I crave a little bit of female company... even if it is just so that I can talk about mummy-related things without people switching off.
When I started maternity leave, and after Lara was born, I made a number of mummy friends. NCT ladies, neighbours, sister-in-laws and mums from swimming classes, music classes and baby clinic. It felt good to have a different type of person to talk to, to spend time with, to enjoy a coffee with. I made the most of my maternity leave with walks in the park, car-shares to exciting places and shared an occasional email rant.
At 7 months, I went back to work a lot earlier than most of the other mummies I knew. I reserved my one day off a week for doing fun things with Lara and quite often this involved visiting the other mums and their babies. I thought I was doing a really good job of keeping in touch.
Then, about 2 months ago, other people started returning to work and now the opportunities for female company are few and far between. None of the other mums from our swimming class renewed for this term (which means Lara is swimming with 18-24 month olds which is actually quite cool). I do still get the chance to go for an occasional evening meal and I have a couple of NCT meet ups planned; but in general, I've gone back to my pre-baby friends and colleagues. It seems a shame to have reverted back to exactly how things were before.
There is a glimmer of hope on the horizon. The inter-web! Next month I will be meeting up with lots of my online bloggy friends at the Cybermummy conference. The idea of a whole day with 100 or so other women (and a handful of men) is actually slightly terrifying to me! And then, in September I will be meeting some more of them at the MADs award ceremony. Currently, the only females I regularly keep in contact with are family and the amazing group of online mummies to be found on twitter, in the blogsphere and on forums. I'm sure they'll turn out to be a great group of mummies but I could do with some real female friends too, not just virtual ones!
