The Catharsis of Coffee with your Mama friends

We all know friendships come in different guises. The friends you have from your uni days, your schools days, the friends you met at that job you once had, your best friends, your friends who don’t have kids, the friends you can dance till dawn with, the friends who you can share anything with, but I believe one of the most supportive of all these friends are your ‘Mama friends’.

I don’t know where I would be without my Mama friends. They’re the ones who really know what life is like raising a young family. They’re the friends you make along the path navigating parenthood, from antenatal classes to baby yoga, from playgroup to nursery, from singing classes to the school gate. This tribe of women are THE ONES WHO KNOW.

They know you because they (and only they) really know what you’re going through, right then and there at that very time in your life. Your children grow-up being friends and you, as Mamas, grow your friendship sharing everything from how you spent the morning vacuuming and crying when your dropped your little one at nursery to how you’re finding this weeks homework.

This group of wonderful women support each other constantly without knowing it. Some of them are SAHM, some work full-time, some work part-time, some work nights, some work weekends, some are self employed, but all of them are Mamas. All of them are doing their very best for their families. All of them are passing through life on the same journey as you for that same time in your life. They help each other out along the way as best they can, a shared lift here, a listening ear there, a passed on bag of kids clothes, a chat over a coffee, a conciliatory text, a blind eye to your child’s less than perfect behaviour, a laugh over a bottle of wine, an understanding over the chaos raising a young family brings.

These Mamas who listen to me vent about my life on the home front, who make me laugh when I’ve had a bad morning, who will offer a hand just at the right moment are the ones I wouldn’t be without – these are the women who I share my day to day life with. While sometimes it’s over wine, more often than not our lives are shared over a coffee. Sometimes it’s snatched after a mornings school assembly, an odd day off or as part of a meet up with our young charges. When I need some solidarity in my life, someone who gets me and what I’m going through, it’s these women that get it, they get me – they know, as they are in it too.

Some of my lovely mama friends and I met up last week at the West Park hotel in Harrogate to vent, to listen, to share, to understand, to laugh, to chat, to connect, to spend time together, to drink coffee and to eat cake. We had a really gorgeous time, thanks to the hospitality of West Park Hotel, you can read all about it over on my Discovering West Park Hotel’s Best Kept Secret blog post.

And this time, just like whenever I have coffee and cake with my Mama friends, I came away feeling a bit lighter, a bit happier and a little bit more me. It’s such an old cliche that a problem shared is a problem halved, but cliches exist for a reason and that reason is because they’re true! We chatted, we laughed, we ate cake, we cooed at the newest baby, we shared our lives and our problems and we each listened and talked and helped ourselves and each other through our ongoing parenting journey. Sometimes it’s the small things that can make a big difference to our day, and coffee and cake with like minded Mamas is always just the therapy for me.

Do you love coffee and cake with your Mama friends? Do you find it helps you on your parenting journey to talk things through with those people who really know what you’re going through? Tomorrow I will be revealing an exclusive Mama coffee giveaway on the blog – so keep your eyes peeled for more details!