Lonely stay-at-home mothers woo each other for company

Lonely stay-at-home mothers woo each other for company
CHRISTINA DUFF

CHICAGO, NOV 18: Lipstick on and baby in tow, Sarah Jane Marshall cruises the streets here trying to pick somebody up. She plants herself and her 11-month-old son Noah, at a table in a bagel shop known for attracting good prospects. ``I feel like such a loser,'' says Marshall (35), smoothing her hair and eyeing the door.

A single mother? Actually, Marshall has been married for four years. But she is one of today's more overlooked lonely hearts. Mothers who leave careers to stay home with new babies are trying to do what men have attempted for ages: Meet, seduce, date, then settle into a lasting relationship with a desirable woman. ``There has to be someone out there for me,'' says Marshall, a former technology-group manager, gazing longingly at two mothers sharing a bagel.

With so many books and Internet sites now devoted to caring for newborns, professional mothers-to-be expect few surprises. They buy the baby backpack and the designer diaper bag. They've read up on infant sleep patterns and the advantages of breast-feeding. Yet rarely do they anticipate loneliness. Their own mothers didn't prepare them. Back then, plenty of women were having kids at the same young age; most hadn't already spent time in the work force. But many of today's at-home mothers, having worked for a while, are used to having colleagues around for gossip or lunch and they miss that at home. Without bosses to provide the atta-girls they learned to crave, they look to other women. The question is, how to find them?

Organised mothers' groups work something like singles clubs. At a 20-member group in Fort Collins, Colo., Nancy Ebby says she began to ``panic when the whole room started hooking up.'' Two mothers were arranging lunch. Two more made plans to see a mall Santa Claus. ``It hurts,'' says Ebby, 33, who left a career as a physician's assistant to care for her daughter. But she vows sometime to invite over one mother who lives nearby. ``I don't want to be too forward,'' she says.

Other groups provide more cover, maintaining that they are really for the babies, not the mothers. At Chicago's Adams Playground, a line forms at 7 am to sign up for under-age-two classes that feature art projects and tumbling. ``It's worse than getting concert tickets,'' says Maureen Belling, the playground supervisor.

So what if a potential mate doesn't cook or like the same movies. Moms on the make can't be bothered about ``hobbies or shared interests,'' says Vicki Iovine, mother of four and author of The Girlfriends' Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood. ``That woman who picks up a Kleenex when your daughter's nose is running? You love her. You don't care if she's a Martian.''

Choosing the pick-up joint isn't hard. There's the park, the zoo, the mall. It's the execution that's tricky. Here are several rules Dr. Spock doesn't divulge. One, flatter the mother, but really pile it on her baby. Two, never walk away without a phone number. Three, if you chat someone up, make sure you could have a future together.

Gosia Dolinski, a nanny in northwest Chicago, is a daily tease. Pushing 13-month-old charge Sam Stevens around a Whole Foods store, the fashionable brunette who looks a lot like Sam first gets some stares from a mother across the vegetables. Then some smiles. The mother giggles when Sam grabs a green pepper. Dolinski shoots her down: ``His mother says he'll eat anything.'' (Read: I'm the nanny.) The mother nods, wits, then moves on to dairy. Mothers are ``always friendly, until they hear I'm a nanny,'' says Dolinski, 31. She tries to break it to them ``before they get too interested. It's sad.'' But try busting into the world of women-chasing-women as a father. David Ginsburg, a former high-school teacher with a one-year-old, Victor, is the only stay-at-home father he knows. At Chicago's Hamlin Park, the mothers sing to and flirt with each other's babies in falsetto. Ginsburg, after 40 years of acting only one way around women manly simply can't join in. ``I'm so inhibited at the swings,'' he says.

Yet even he finds cause for hope. One day at the park, he spots the ideal companion. Young. Attractive. Great conversation about nap times. But he doesn't get her number. Each day, at his wife's urging, he looks for her. She doesn't come. Finally, she's there talking to other mothers. Ginsburg keeps on walking. ``I'm not worthy of getting involved with,'' he tells himself. ``She's got other people.'' He rounds the corner, stops, and says, ``D- it! Be a good role model to Victor!'' He turns back.

She spots him and calls to him by name. They talk a bit. But still, he doesn't get her number. That requires his wife, Christine, an accounting manager, on a later park visit: ``I need your phone number for my husband,'' his wife tells her. ``It's more acceptable for me to be on the make than David,'' his wife says.

The Wall Street Journal