To Facebook, Or Not To Facebook? That is the Question!

My dear friend Jill Effron, entertainment industry veteran and mom, has been kind enough to write a guest post for me today. Let's all welcome her with open hearts and wallets. I don't know where that came from. Enjoy!

So here’s the situation: new preschool, new moms. Suddenly, the moms you bonded with at the neighborhood playground over sleep training and strained prunes are now dispersed throughout different preschools. You’re back to square one, three years into your job as mom. It’s like puberty all over again. You’re insecure. You worry your breath smells like pizza because that’s the only thing you can eat cold when you’re in a hurry to get your toddler to school. You wonder if your outfit looks like you tried too hard or like the harried mom you really are. You wonder if they’ll find a sticker on your ass. It’s kinda like a funky game of “Where’s Waldo?” except it’s a sticker and your ass is like the size of two coloring books these days.

Somehow, someway, you wind up bonding with another mom at the water table, a table built to piss off germaphobic moms like me. One of you suggests a play date. The other one says, “That would be great!” A week passes by at the water table and only smiles have been exchanged. Suddenly, one of you remembers that one of you suggested a play date. This is where you do the obligatory, “Oh right, baby brain, we were so gonna put something on the calendar,” followed by nervous laughter.  You go back and forth on dates that would work until you land on one. 

Once the date is settled, you decide to do a little recon on the mom. Back in the day, you would call upon the local rumor mill to get the dirt on someone. These days you can look them up on Facebook and see the kind of company they keep. Well, you can hazard an educated guess, because let’s be honest, most people talk to about 1% of the people they’re friends with on Facebook. The other 99% are there to make them look popular.

Now, do you friend your play date pal on Facebook before the date? Or does it send the wrong message? Or do you do it after the play date? Or is that suggesting that the date went well and we should take our play date relationship to another level—say, the, “Let’s just go out as moms and leave the ankle weights behind,” level?

What do you do? Do you Facebook before the date? Or three days after the date so you don’t seem desperate? Or do you wait for her to friend you? I really think this is worse than, “Will he call?” Just when you thought you’d never have to worry about that feeling again. Thank you, Facebook. Thank you.

Jill Effron is a work-from-home-mom of two darling kiddies. Before succumbing to motherhood, she spent ten plus years working in every genre of television. Outside of the TV world Effron wrote, directed, and produced plays and award winning short films. Once her daughter was born she started a personal chef business that you can read about at http://blog.foodservicewarehouse.com/catering/2010/09/.  The only writing she does these days is Facebook status updates and Shutterfly captions. She hopes to return to the blogging world. She hopes you like this post. She will now stop talking in third person.