Find Local Mom Friends With the Peanut App
Users sarcastically call it “Tinder for Moms”, but in fact it is. Launched in 2017, Peanut helps moms find friends and schedule appointments in their area.
Why do older women need help making friends? Because even if you have a lot of friends, if most of them don’t have children (or live near you), new parenting can be isolating. Your friends care, but they don’t fully understand how exhausted you are. And it’s hard to come up with the right line of communication for the other parent on the playground to help you strike up a friendship with a complete stranger.
We wrote about Peanut back when it was brand new, but it wasn’t old enough to have many users, you only had the option to log in with your Facebook account, and it didn’t have a bulletin board component added. You can now log in via Facebook, Google or by entering and verifying your phone number. And if you don’t have to meet new potential friends over coffee or play, you can still use the message board to chat and ask other moms in your area.
The size of your area matters
The app will be most useful if there are many users in your area. One parent in our Facebook group who lives in a small town tried the app, but with only 36 local users and just one message board post, it didn’t work for her. The larger your city or town, the more reliable you can expect to have a gaming experience. In my city of approximately 75,000 inhabitants, the app has over 800 users, and message boards are quite full of posts about schools, pediatricians, local events and events.
There are also groups for people from your state or those with similar interests – for example, in my area there is a book club group, a pregnancy group, and a meeting group.
Yes it might be a cliché
Many of the design elements and vocabulary on a website can seem a little trivial. There are many words “mom this” and “mom this”.
You have to choose three categories that you “like” and options unfortunately include things like “time for wine” and “hot confusion”. But there are also options, such as “neighborhood newbie” for those who have just moved to the area, “single mom,” “stepmother,” and “LGBTQ,” all of which are helpful for moms who are trying to find friends who can to relate to their specific situation.
Dads must go elsewhere
Dads need friends too, but dads are not allowed to eat peanuts. (I had to take a selfie via the app to confirm my gender, which isn’t exactly a sure-fire way to keep men from joining.)
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a good peanut equivalent for dads, but there are other maternity and parenting apps that target men as well – there’s a good list here .
They don’t have to be friends forever.
Several parents on our parenting group Offspring Facebook have only used the app to connect with other moms while on maternity leave. Here’s what Lauren said about her experience:
I used it on maternity leave with my second child. Although a couple of mums did not respond to my request, I ended up finding a mum with a child of the same age who became my coffee compatriot. We got together several times – it was such an easy way to meet someone new in a similar stage of motherhood. And while our time has shrunk more since both of them got back to work, we share articles and milestones by text (like a digital pen pal) and get together every few months. I only really made contact once, but I was so grateful for the app – I felt much less isolated than my first vacation.
So even if you’re just looking for a little companionship / empathy during a particularly isolated phase of parenting, Peanuts can help you connect.
The app is free and available for iOS and Android.