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"Mom friends are vital. At the end of the day, your childless friends are not hanging out with you at the park talking about how your kid is on a breakfast hunger strike while he and his friends accidentally throw sand at one another. And to be honest, they&amp;#x27;re not hanging out at the park with you talking about fabulous Tory Burch flats or the latest episode of Real Housewives either. I see my single childless girlfriends every now and then, but the reality is, I hang with my mom friends five days a week (we text and Facebook, too). Motherhood is a whole new game, and you need people on your team to play. As for single motherhood, I think having a single-mom friend is super important, too, and for a long, long time, well, I just didn&amp;#x27;t. A few months ago I worked a contract gig in New York City at a big women&amp;#x27;s website. On my first day, I sat in a cube with a woman named Mareesa, and when I whirled my chair around to introduce myself, I noticed several photos of a beautiful little boy with ink-black hair and big brown eyes. In one pic he was dressed like Superman, and it made my eyes smile. Before I even introduced myself by name, I said, &amp;quot;Is that your son? He&amp;#x27;s so cute. My son is 2 1/2 years old.&amp;quot; She replied, &amp;quot;Is he potty-trained?&amp;quot; I said, &amp;quot;Define potty-trained.&amp;quot; Thus, a friendship was born. During the course of that first day on the job, the topic of child care came up. I said something to the tune of: Child care is kind of crazy right now. JD is at pre-school full-time today. I dropped him off at 8 A.M., but there is no way I&amp;#x27;m getting to his school in NJ by 6 P.M. when it closes, so my brother is picking him up at 4:30 and cooking him dinner. He&amp;#x27;ll babysit him until I get home after 7. Mareesa smiled and said nothing. &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m a single parent,&amp;quot; I said, and I went to turn around, until Mareesa said, &amp;quot;Me too.&amp;quot; In that moment, I felt like I found Where&amp;#x27;s Waldo after looking for him for almost three years. Our situations are different. She was married and is getting divorced--child-rearing is on her, 150 percent like me. We share similar thoughts about fathers who don&amp;#x27;t see their kids and the insanity of little toddler boys who absolutely must, must, MUST carry no less than four Matchbox cars on their person at all times. AT ALL TIMES. I think of my single-mom friend Mareesa as similar to say my work colleagues. I&amp;#x27;m a writer. I need an editor to grow and be better. I need that editor or other writers to read my work, hear my concerns and lend advice on being better, or in some cases, pat me on the back and say, job well done. For example: This morning, I filled the bathroom sink with water and bubbles. JD played &amp;quot;car wash&amp;quot; while I took a quick shower (just not comfortable leaving him in the living room alone with the TV on while I&amp;#x27;m in another room behind a shower curtain with the whoosh of the water overwhelming my sense of hearing)--and Mareesa gets this, because she&amp;#x27;s in it too. My mom friends are great to talk to, and I love them all, but regardless of the fact that they are the primary caretakers during the day--they&amp;#x27;re not the primary caretakers 24/7. More than physical support--there is also EMOTIONAL. Having a single-mom friend in my same boat makes the journey not only easier but lots more fun. Yesterday Mareesa, Cristiano, JD and I spent the day at Van Saun Park in Paramus, NJ. Tell me about your friends! P.S. Did I mention Mareesa has a Gucci diaper bag and Bugaboo? Match made in single-mom heaven. Just saying... ***"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/storked/2010/05/single-mom-advice-make-a-singl>