rant, vent, whatever
Ok so 7 weeks ago I logged on to this site and created my 1st blog. I did one other after that and then life being...well..life, I sort of stopped worrying about me and worried more about being Mom and wife. But today I tried to find some local resources for myself and I just have to vent (or rant) about my experiences. I feel like the city that I live in is a little too, uppity, I guess would be the word. I don't really fit in well because of it. I don't really care about the Jones' let alone want the pressure of keeping up with them. But being a new mom, and being at home for the first time with no local family, I felt I needed to find myself a network. I started attending some meetings for this mother's group. I wasn't feeling any really strong connections, but there were some other women with babies the same age as mine and the meetings where children free (giving me a night out). So I planned on joining, but they had to change the night of their meetings to a night that my husband works, so I was looking at getting a babysitter to attend the meetings. They have a playgroup for babies, but you can't play until you pay your membership fees (which are not huge, but did I mention I am not working). So I have to pay the fee AND pay a sitter to join. So I start looking at other options. I check all the local sites. No children's activities or groups come up in any searches. I do find a site that is a local mom's networking site. So I try to register. I get a message saying that they will REVIEW my registry request and get back to me. ARE YOU KIDDING?! What are they reviewing? What must their site contain that I need to be pre-approved to enter?! I checked the libraries, the link for children's groups is not working. I don't have any nice parks near me to just go walk in. There are some nice places to closer to town, but they are a 45 min. drive for us (we cannot afford to live in those areas). To be honest, they don't need parks. Everyone here lives in a housing development, and all the fancy housing developments have their own play grounds, pools, and waking paths. But you guessed it we don't live in one of those developments. We are considered middle class, what do the mom's who are below middle class do here? I feel frustrated! I love being home with my daughter, but I miss other adults, and friend, and someone to call on "those days" so that I can get a few minute break. Ok I got it all out. Any words of advice would be great, but over all I am just happy to get that all off my chest!
well, i know how you feel at least. i lived in monterey cali. this summer where a little ghetto 1 bedroom house on our street was selling for...700,000. yeah right. i think the house i grew up in my parents paid 20,000 for so that was insane to me. everyone told me to start my own playgroup or just meet people with kids, but it's really hard if you're shy, or the people around there just ignore you or look down there noses. so, i just came back home for right now and am researching places to move to next to see how kid friendly they are. maybe it sounds chicken, but it bothered me so much i had to leave. where do you live? maybe there's some people on the site you could meet up with?
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Wow, 700,000 that is crazy! It is not that bad here, but the pretty much everyone I know who owns a home (other than us and our neighbors) has a $300-400,000 house. My parents live in a small town in PA where their 4 bedroom Victorian is worth about 100,000. So you can see the difference in life styles there.
We are looking into moving back to the Pittsburgh area (that's where my family is and close to where I grew up), but my husband needs to find a job there. My mom keeps telling me to start my own playgroup instead of paying this mother's group to join their's. But it is hard to form a play group when you don't know anyone with babies the same age. Plus, I don't feel like I have much in common with most of the people here. I am sure there are people out there who feel like I do. I am just not sure how to find them. I live in NC. So there is an interesting mix of Nascar, bible belt, and new money. I am not able to keep up with the people I have met who are new money, I am married to a Jewish boy from Baltimore so I don't really fit in with the bible belt crowd, and I am a little to liberal for the Nascar crowd (I am a breastfeeding, vegetarian with a feminist point of view). And I am a little shy. It is so hard to feel like you don't fit in where you live. I hope that you are able to find some place that makes you feel more comfortable.