Finally, there just might be an easier way to schedule with mom friends
If you're a mom, you know how difficult it is to plan a time to get together with another mom friend, especially if your kids are in different stages of life. It's a common theme amongst moms that spills into mom groups where we joke about having to plan time to hang out months in advance, complete with fancy RSVPs. You wind up being consumed with your responsibilities of work, kids activities, appointments and overall managing a household.
By the time you finally find time to yourself, you wind up falling asleep on the couch with your streaming platform asking if you're still watching. It certainly doesn't take long to feel like you've lost yourself to motherhood, which can feel extremely isolating. So you really focus on making the effort to spend some kid-free time with a mom friend, only for someone's kid to fall ill or a spouse to work late.
Recently, a good friend and I found ourselves in this endless loop after having coordinated one glorious child-free evening together eating pizza and watching television. Weeks after getting to experience our "moms night in," we simply could not find time to hang out again but we also realized how beneficial the time was to our mental health. We were both stuck in the "busy working mom" hamster wheel desperately wanting to rest our feet.
During one of our back and forth scheduling marathons, I had an epiphany. Gen Z share their locations with their friends and don't think twice about it. Sharing location lets them know when one of the friends they want to hang out with is working, at practice or hanging out with other people so they can move along to texting someone who is free.
The thought of teens sharing locations made me question why there wasn't an app that could sync up mom friends' calendars. It would allow you to see where the holes are in the calendar so you can more easily schedule times to hang out. As far as we knew, there was no app that did that but most calendars have features where you can share it with other people.
woman carrying baby with two ladies beside her smilingPhoto by Alexander Grey on UnsplashIt took about five seconds to link our Skylight calendars. While you may not be interested in sharing your calendar with every friend you have, it can certainly help with closer friendships, and you don't have to have a fancy calendar to do it. You can add anyone to your Google calendar and limit it to where they can only see times blocked off but not what you've got going on. Google calendar actually has a handy feature that does allow you to click a button that will scan the schedule of the people trying to schedule time to meet then propose times that work best for everyone's schedules.
If you have an iPhone, you can share you iCalendar with other people that also have iPhones or other Apple products. Granted, this solution may not be for everyone but trying to meet up with mom friends is like trying to assemble the Avengers. It shouldn't take this much effort to meet a friend for lunch but it can and let's be honest, moms have enough pressure on them without having to worry about RSVPing three months in advance to have an 80s movie marathon with their bestie.
In today's age of the overbooked, there's not a lot of wiggle room for spontaneous pop ups. Calendar sharing seems to be the next best option for busy moms to find time for kid-free playdates.