Okay. I have been doing the working Mum thing since my DD was a couple of months old. Mostly it has worked great - we don't have family living in the area, but I have an amazing DH who understood and supported my desire to work and we get along okay.

And although I don't have friends who I have known from childhood in this town, and I don't tend to make friends easily, I have a couple of friends who had kids around the same time and we have been able to share some of the ups and downs.

The trouble is that I really need a friend who is in a similar situation with childcare, no family around, working full-time etc that I can spend time with and bounce ideas off. One of my good friends is in the fortunate position of having her Mum nearby to help out, and she also lives out of town, so whilst we get on really well she doesn't struggle with quite the same things as me and I don't get to see her all that often.

The other friend has been amazing, especially when I had a health issue not so long ago. Unfortunatley we have just had a disagreement and all of a sudden I feel really alone.

One thing I learned a while back was that I need to look after myself, as well as my family. I need to take time for me, to do things I enjoy, spend time with friends, and part of that for me, is having a fiend who knows where I'm coming from, can offer me different perspectives and be honest as well as supportive. It also helps when they say they can take the kid(s) for a bit and give you the time out you need.

But in this day and age, whene we are all so mobile, we don't end up in places where it's easy to make friends and without family nearby, support networks are non-existent.

I'm thinking about taking up an evening class to meet people and maybe make some new friends, but if you have any other ideas, I would love to hear them. I guess the tricky thing is meeting other Mum's in a similar position . . .

I think an evening class is a great idea. Noone at work on your wavelength? You do kind of have to find situations where you can meet similar people. A night class would also help with the needing to take time for you too, even if you don't meet someone you click with, at least.

A night class is a good idea.
I've just moved City/Island, Have no partner. And knew 1 person here before i moved. Feeling Pretty Isolated!
My closet Family is in Dunedin and while for the first time in almost 12 years i feel like i've got the support from my Dad, its not like he can babysit! (or Visit often for that matter!) and Mums too sick.

I plan to next term go to a night class (decided i should find out my school schedule and A's too before i commit to it hence why i didn't sign up for next weeks class!)
Also want to look at another exercise class, since my last one i made a couple good friends!!!
Basically I'm doing what i would never normally do, and get out and about in the vague hopes i might find one or two like minded people!

It kind of feels weird putting myself out there but yep, I think there is no other way, so off to night class I shall go :-) I think I am going to try learning cake decorating as have heaps of fun doing DD's but am not very arty so some techniques would be handy.

oh what a cool idea! One of lily's friends mum has been doing a course and the stuff she has learnt is amazing. So much so that her latest Mr Potato head cake got into some competition on FB!

What a neat idea I'd love to do cake decorating too but then i'd want to be all fancy with my cakes... I also suspect i wont be a good student cos i actually hate icing

From my experience you don't really meet new friends at night school classes, but that may be because when I've done them I've done them to learn new things. But they are a whole lot of fun so I'd give them a whirl anyway!

However, depending on how old your daughter is, I would look at finding activities that involved her to meet people at the same stage in life as you.

Totally a good way to do it, esp if your DD can make friends with someone elses DD and want to play while you hang out
However Sadly in my experience Once the kids get older the interaction with the parents is very minimal. Often just a case of drop off and run away because its more beneficial to not hang around the kids activities

Yeah, unless you homeschool and then it works.
You could homeschool, you didn't REALLY want to do your course did you??

Don't think i'm motivated enough to be a good homeschooler!!
(and hey don't tempt me out of my course! As the first day approaches i'm looking for any way out!)

When I first moved here, the only people I knew were the outlaws and my Aunty and Uncle, so I stayed pretty isolated for the first year, wouldn't get involved in any school activities and would drop and run when it came to school drop off. I didn't meet anyone and kind of just kept to myself, and I hate it, I was so lonely. Of course I had the kids and DH around, but there were times where I craved female company.

So last year I promised myself that I would make a huge effort to put myself out there. I met some mums from another parenting website a few times and one of them has actually become a really close friend and our kids play really well together. I then joined the PTA at my daughters school and met some like minded ladies there and we've hung out heaps over the summer, helps that our kids are similar ages and get along out of school. AND tomorrow I am starting an Adults hip hop/modern dance class with these ladies and I can't wait, nervous as anything, but I'm hoping I'll meet more people. Orewa is a pretty tight knit community I have found, so in order for me to make friends I had to make the effort first.

So for me it was make one goal at a time, and I'm really proud of myself that I have achieved every single one - so far this year.

When I moved to a new town a few years ago, I started a book club, just inviting other people I met who were interested in reading. We didn't do one of the pay book clubs, just all agreed that we would bring along any books we'd bought and swap them. And at Xmas we each buy a book and wrap it as a gift, which gives up about a dozen books for the bookclub to circulate the following year.

The bookclub is largely a gossip over a few glasses of wine, and then a 30 minute book swap, but its a nice social group, which has a purpose to avoid it being awkward in the early stages. We've been going for about 5 years now and its a lovely bunch of ladies. I also started a baby sitting circle with the mum's at a similar kid-stage from the bookclub.

I've just moved again and I'm taking my oldest DS to karate, we both stay and we both do the karate. Its early days, but I think that will be a nice bunch of people too. I'm planning on getting involved at the school as much as I can (working full time too) so will make an effort to help at fundraisers and go to the PTA type meetings when I can and see if I can meet some people there.

Thanks for your answers :-)

Felicis - there's a couple of people at work that are in very similar positions to me, but unfortunatley my position ranks higher than theirs which can make friendship a little awkward.(There's a funny split evident at times at work).

Mistywood - I LOVE the idea of a book club as I really enjoy reading. I might try putting an ad in the newsletter of DD's school or something and see if I get many responses.

DD has a couple of good friends - one of them the Mum is a bit crazy but the other is pretty good and has recently started working full-time so is now in a similar position to me. I try and make an effort at school for one-off events since we don't have time to help on a regular basis but that has the effect of seeing people once in a blue moon as it's not always the same ones helping on those one-off events.

I have joined a running club recently so that's turning into "my" time, and the people there are lovely. They also reckon that more people come in the winter as that's the running season, so I might get lucky and find someone in a similar position to me when numbers pick up.

AND I have joined that evening class for cake decorating. It's only for 8 weeks so not a huge committment but it will get me out of the house.

Thanks ladies :-)

lol i met one of my besties walking up the kindy driveway..she looked familiar from school - but couldn't quite place her...but she had a bag full of uniforms...so i asked her if she was doing 2nd hand uniform if she needed any help etc etc...turned out our kids ended up being super besties as well - its so nice having a friend to whip out for coffee with or go to the movies with etc etc.
honestly tho - i don't think you need anyone in EXACTLY the same situation as yourself - heck if i did that i wouldn't have any friends - i think almost all my friends are married and about 10yrs older than myself with nice cars, nice houses, and big fat mortgages to worry about - I'm no where near that stage but we all bring something diff to the friendship, i listen to their problems they listen to mine. I'm single, I'm studying, I'm broke lol....I have friends from study aswell but mostly they are younger there are a few in similar situations but even thought thats similar we are very very different one is a bit tooo religous for me and the other goes to town drinking all the time so not a good fit either - im better off with my married couples lol

oh that's right - also joined school fundraising committee which has bn great - but there is of course the babysitter issue for something like that- ummm sports? a social sport team is a good way to meet people.

yay you t4b! That is an awesome line up of things.