I met a friendly mom the other day and after only a few brief moments of chit chat, she ended up inviting my daughter and I to a weekly playdate they attend with some other, in her words, ‘cool moms and kids’. Always interested in meeting ‘cool new people’ I took her up on it and of course mentioned I would love to bring my own ‘cool friend’, Dr.Wilma and her posse. My ‘mommy dating’ skills are a bit rusty lately so when this forward mom plopped the invite out there I thought, sure. Now I’m wondering if I had eased up on my mom meeting practices because of so much failure.

The very brave Dr. Wilma came along which always ensures a fun day for my kid (ok and me too). The gaggle of mommies gathered at the park, kids raring to go, and they played, as kids do, with no abandon. I wouldn’t say it was a resounding success with the kids but they all played nice together. Meanwhile us mothers stood around and got acquainted. One mom asked how Wilma and I met so we mentioned that we used to be neighbors and met up at a park. In turn I asked these ladies how they met and they dropped the C-bomb… church. Hmm, sigh.

I feel like it shouldn’t matter but it does and I know that’s not ‘nice’ of me. It’s just this elephant in the room that is too big to ignore. Mind you I don’t begrudge anyone their freedom of religion but when it comes to truly making a new friend, this G factor is kind of a biggy. I don’t expect anyone else to ‘believe’ how I believe(which is probably best described as somewhere between agnostic and atheist) but if you’re the type to make the effort to join and go to a church, well, we’re just very different, and chances are, so are our families.

After several hours of play, Dr.W and I snuck the kids away for a ‘to be continued’ playdate at our place. Well we didn’t so much sneak as say a friendly good-bye and be extremely polite as we uttered, ‘See ya next time’ tho it wasn’t true. On the way out, just to truly put any doubts aside, the main mom I’d first encountered, jumped at the chance to invite us to a ‘party’ she was having… a tupperware party!!! Ok, well not tupperware specifically, but the same idea - which bothers me as much as the God Squad business. Just the whole sort of language of people who sell out of their homes, “I’m throwing a party” - you’re ears perk up, you’re intrigued, ‘Really, I like a party now and then.’ then they lay out the sales pitch, “Yes, you see there’s this fabulous line of Amish style dresses and bonnets” oh… that kind of ‘party’… See when I throw a party, no one needs to bring their checkbook.

So that sealed the deal and we left knowing that the real playdate was about to begin. We returned to my place, the kids got into a good mojo, checking out a pretty nice shell collection my daughter’s grandma furnished her with. Wilma and I got to have a normal conversation, not worry about our discussion offending anyone, and heave a sigh of relief because hey, if there’s two moms like us out there in the world, there must be other’s out there too right? Right?