5 Ways To Love On Your Mom Friends

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

I’m not a mom, but I have a lot of mom friends. Over time, I’ve learned a few tricks that help me make their lives a little easier and maintain a solid — but also limber — friendship with them through different seasons of life. Feel free to borrow my mom-friend wisdom this Mother’s Day!

01 | Be the friend they can hang up on.

Moms never know when a need, a tantrum or a spill will happen out of the blue. When we recognize that they can’t always give long goodbyes, and sometimes just need to hang up the phone, we’re allowing them space for some chaos that they live with daily.

If we don’t get offended, we’ll keep the lines of communication open in the future, we’ll help keep them from feeling embarrassed, and they’ll likely recognize us as one of the friends who gets it.

02 | Dance with them but let them lead.

When staying with a mom friend, especially overnight, prepare to be a helper. Prepare to dance the dance of kids and food and chores and activities throughout the day. 

But don’t take the lead in her house too quickly, or we’ll just add to the stress. Adapt to what she says is the priority in the moment — if she needs to be with the kids, check if the dishes need to be washed (provided she likes someone else doing the chores); if she needs to run an errand at naptime, offer to babysit; if she needs some downtime, find a way to occupy the kids.

Practice observation skills, notice when her stress is up and when it’s down, and be the friend that can help take some of the craziness down a notch.

03 | Ask good questions.

So, in not making assumptions, ask good questions, like, “What do you need right now?” “Do you want help or do you want to do this yourself?” “Is it okay if I get groceries from you, or put a load of laundry in?”

The more time her kids are home, the more our mom friend will have a help deficit and most likely a sleep deficit, as well. Give the gift of our presence, both in friendship and in helping to ease those deficits, if only for a moment. If our mom friend likes to keep her house in a very specific way, try not to step on her toes, and find other ways to ease the burden.

04 | Find a fun thing to do together… sporadically.

Another deficit moms will almost always have is time. So learn to make time for something fun together, but also hold it loosely, as her plans may change or she may just not have the energy to ‘people’ that day.

When my sister and I were in college, we started to read a kids’ novel together long distance because we needed something to focus on, rather than just talking all the time.

Now, we’ll pick a show to watch together remotely, most recently The Amazing Race, which creates a sense of ongoing camaraderie, downtime, and something for us both to look forward to, especially in her long week of chasing two toddlers.

Friendship can happen while doing the normal things like grocery shopping or sitting at a park, too. If the kids are there, just go back to the first idea, and be ready to be interruptible.

05 | Honor her love language.

First, we have to learn her love language, of course, and recognize that even if we knew how she received love before, it might have changed after having kids. But once we know it, we can bank on it every once in a while.

Brighten her day, lift her out of the funk of a routine or tough stage where nothing she does as a parent seems right. I know very few moms, though there are exceptions, who don’t enjoy a shoulder rub every once in a while. There’s no small amount of stress in her day and it sits right in her neck and shoulders. If she has toddlers, wrist and hand massages are good too, since those car seats create some major carpal wear and tear.

Another love language moms seem to crave across the board is a good listening ear. When the kids are small, they’re a constant danger to themselves and it’s often primarily up to mom to keep them out of harm’s way. That alone can wear someone out. When the kids are older, there’s often a million places to get to in the day and mom friends can start to lose themselves. Help her feel human again by hearing her stories and struggles.

In short…

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but use it along with your own creativity to love on a mom when you can. And as a special shoutout, I want to encourage Mary, my big sister and most special mom-friend, for rocking it daily with her two boys. Happy (almost) Mother’s Day!