Solidarity Sisters: How Women Help Each Other

When my first child was born, I already had been in contact with the . I knew I needed help with this new stage in my life. Sure, Mom was here and helping me immensely, but my feelings of inadequacy and mild depression and all-around fear were not understandable to her – she had her children 30ish years ago and didn’t remember how terrifying these feelings were even though I’m sure she remembered going through the same things herself. 

I made new friends with the same issues – our first playgroup, Punkin Patch, came with 10 women who all shared the same joys and fears. Many, many mornings we’d show up at the park, looking like death-warmed-over, a sleepless night followed by a colicky morning, and we needed each other – we shared our dark circled eyes, our no-makeup looks, our no blow dried hair, and leaned on each other. Sure, there was generally one “Dad’s group” going on, but one Dad’s group and perhaps 15 different Mom’s groups just doesn’t seem like a good ratio to me.

When my dad died, Mom joined a support group for new widows / widowers. It helped her immensely. At meetings, they would talk, cry, talk some more. She went on retreats with this group, bonded over their losses and they grew to accept their changes. One of the things she pointed out was that each group she joined, whether it was a group through San Mateo County or through our church, was that each group was generally 90 percent women and 10 percent men.

It's ironic that for each divorcee that’s female, there must be a male counterpart, and although the statistics show that women do live longer than men, I’m sure that there are widowers out there too, but men seldom join these types of groups. Instead, they try to work out their issues on their own, probably taking longer and maybe not achieving the peace of mind the women do after sharing their problems together.

Mom told me a funny story once about a man who showed up to one of these meetings, one that was intended to be a bit more on the social side. He explained to my mother how he was amazed at how friendly everyone was and what a welcoming group it was – we all got a chuckle out of this comment because he didn’t even seem to be aware that he was the lone man that night in a room full of single women!

Mom also joined the Newcomers Group in Foster City. This group was designed to welcome new citizens to Foster City, help them make friends, and help them become comfortable and aware of all that Foster City has to offer its residents. Again, this group was about 99 percent women, 1 percent men.

A few years ago, I went through a very nasty divorce. My single friends didn’t understand all the conflicts I was facing, although some of them sincerely tried. I joined Parents Without Partners, a group designed for divorcees and widows/widowers with children. Again, I saw the pattern my mother saw in her groups – although in looking at the roster for the group, it appeared to be perhaps 75 percent women and 25 percent men, it was rare to see more than a couple token males at each event amidst a group of perhaps 20 or more females.

This group definitely fulfilled a purpose for me, gave me people to talk to that would understand what I was going through and let me listen to stories that sounded so very familiar to me. It gave my family a chance once again of socializing with families because many of the families we used to socialize with didn’t seem to want a single parent with kids involved any more.

But I outgrew this group when I grew tired of complaining, tired of commiserating; I was past the “healing” stage and into the “learning to be a single woman” stage. So, I started looking again for a different type of support group. It took awhile, but I now have a “support group” that is once again wonderful. We’re five divorced women, all with children in middle school or high school. We share are trials with our ex-husbands, our financial dilemmas, our everyday woes and triumphs at being dumped into a single life again, and our constant, ever changing issues concerning our children. Whether I get an answer for my current issue or just a warm hug and a compassionate listener, I’m better after being with this group.

There are some types of support groups that seem more frequented by men. I’ve heard that Alcoholic Anonymous has a fairly even number of men and women members. Checking the statistics on Google, it seems that men are twice as likely to have an alcoholic issue, yet the ratios at these groups are more like 50:50 whereas they should be 65:35 if they were in the same ratio as people inflicted with this issue. So again, this group shows the same pattern as many of the other support groups I’ve mentioned – women are much more likely to seek help for their issues from other individuals with the same issues than men are.

We women are so fortunate that we have each other to lean on and that we feel comfortable asking each other for help. If only men could see the healing benefits from a warm embrace and a sympathetic ear and the learning potentials from our peers' woes and experiences!