Mothers Groups...yay or nay?

[~ Mylitta ~]

I think it definitely depends on the group of woman that are in the mother's group as to whether you find it a good or bad experience.

I am lucky that my mother's group from my son is a great bunch of supportive woman and we all get along really well. It's been 2 years now and we still catch up weekly at each others houses.

I've heard disaster stories about some groups though. The most common gripe I hear is about overly competitive mothers. "MY child can do this! Yours can't" etc... We all know kids develop at different rates so I see no reason to be competitive. There's a huge difference between being proud of your child's achievements, and bragging in a way that puts down the other children.

In my area you only ever join a mother's group for first babies, so DS has a lovely bunch of little friends to play with and grow up with. I feel bad for my DD because she has no mother's group buddies, so a much smaller number of little friends Luckily one of the Mum's from my son's mother's group had a baby a month after my DD was born, and another is pregnant. I already feel guilty that DD's 1st birthday party is probably going to be a much smaller affair. Especially considering I didn't form a bond with her BB belly buddies like I did with DS's, so no BB buddies for her either, whereas with my DS we are all quite close and catch up in real life regularly.

[nurseymum]

So interesting to see everyone's responses. My mother's group has been going strong now for 4.5 yrs and has seen many new additions, life changes, moves and various other challenges. I agree that there are some enviroments that have a strange competitiveness to them, I was originally part of another group that had a really superficial feel to it, and as someone said in a previous post, that feeling that if I admit to not coping or not turning up looking fully made up was somehow equivalent to failure, was not nice

The lovely group I then found through the Ecc was such a better fit. We came from backgrounds that included 2nd marriages, 2nd babies, single parenting, IVF, premmie babes and even surviving international incidents!! We seemed to all need each other, and need the honesty and openess...so lucky! Still catching up weekly and even putting together a collective of our pre/post baby experiences in a book, so when the years pass, we'll always be able to look back at the raw, honest side of being a mum - not everyone gets the fairytale, but what you often get is so much better

[emc2]

I'm new to it all. I went to the local ABA group which I thought was good, when I was pregnant. However as I've stopped BF, I think I need to try some other groups. Child Health have referred me to one, then there's the regular one, and then there's a whole bunch of activity based ones. Basically I live near the Enoggera Army Barracks lmao so there's a baby boom around here.

I can't wait to go to the Babies and Rhymes at the library, as by coincidence after my first ultrasound, I went to the library and that group was there.

[nurseymum]

emc2 try your local early childhood centre for sure! You never know who you might find there, and generally the other women will have babies the same age, which I think is perfect, because then you're going through the same stuff at roughly the same time!

Hope you find something that suits, as really there's no book out there to laugh and cry with you, to support you, through the stuff that is a bit to "raw" or "real". Women can in fact be each others best allies

[Astrid]

My mothers group was OK first up. Most of us got on well enough for the sessions and a few friendships were made. Some of us knew that we were not really friend material, but did not let that get in the way of the group running smoothly. That all changed though when a new member joined, she was an outright bully and sadly I was her victim. It tore the group apart. I admit, that I did behave badly due to lashing about the treatment I was receiving. With hindsight I should have left the group, but got all stupid and stubborn, even though my gut was saying leave. I could blame her for it all, but really it was all of us that let it happen, it was worse than being back in highschool.

Since then I went by the rule of if I got a bad feeling, or came across someone I knew I would really butt heads with, I would move on from the group. After that we moved towns and I found a fantastic playgroup, along with getting involved with the ABA. Not getting more involved with the ABA first time around is something I really regret, as they would have given me the support I needed.

[fionas]

I joined a MG but I was unable to attend as much as I would have liked to because I couldn't walk very far and wasn't driving at the time. I'm not the sort of person who would say, "oh, can you stop making meet-ups at x because I can't get there, please revolve the group around me and make the venue y."

Despite that, I still feel very much part of the group even though we moved from Melbourne to country Victoria, I try to make it down to dinners in Mel as much as possible and we keep in good touch on FB which is a godsend.

They are a really good group of women. We all have different approaches to parenthood but everyone is very accepting of other people's choices and non-judgemental. I think our approach is that this is a tough enough gig already without anyone passing judgement on what anyone is doing. And that's really refreshing.

I didn't join a MG for my second born but in hindsight I probably should have. Intend on joining a playgroup though to get to know more people in our new area.