Welcome to the Poly Pathways podcast, helping you create paths for practical polyamory. Your hosts are Kat and Doc. We're glad you're here. Yeah, I think when I was a new, when I was a new mom, I actually used. the app peanut for a while, which was supposed to be like a mom matchmaking, friendly type of thing. And what I learned about myself during that time is I could really not stand other moms, which I don't know if it sounds mean or not, but we might have a good community. Yeah. It wasn't my vibe, like because I've discovered that I was one of those people that really wanted to hold on to my identity and wanted to still be seen as something other than a mom. And most of the moms that I were meeting were full on in their mom era, embracing only mom and nothing but mom. And I'm only going to talk about my kids and my feeding schedule and diapers and stuff. And I'm like, no, I want to talk about hobbies. I want to talk about books. I want to talk about, you know, fun things, not just mom. But I need someone to understand my schedule from the mom perspective. And that's not what I found either. We never talked about that, but that was the same for me is that it was so important to you. not lose my identity as a mom that I found I found that the same thing with the communities that was so mom-centric and not like human-centric and that was just couldn't do it. Yeah, that's, we're going to talk about that later offline. But yeah, the biggest slap in my face is I'm very career-oriented and very, I do a lot of things and I'm very passionate about the things that I'm involved in. And I think they're what make me who I am, that being. being a mom is just kind of a footnote. Like, it is hugely important, love my children. Like, it's not like that, but it's not the basis of who I am as a person. It's a chapter in my life. Like, for 20 years, I'm going to be raising these people. But there are women in my family. I have mom that basically in their annual recap letter deduced my entire being to being like a mom. And didn't talk about my career, didn't talk about what I was into or anything. It was just, you know, cat has some kids and the kids are doing these things. Like, I stopped becoming a person when I became a mom in some ways. And that was really hard for me, I think, at that time. I think it's really illuminating when you hear how someone sees you and views you. And they're so wrong. And they're so off base. Like, these? Yeah, like, that's very interesting. And obviously, take it with a grain of salt because it has nothing. to actually do with you at the end of the day. I love that the mindset of, oh, that's super interesting and like, not my business. That's not for you to go and try to convince this person to see you the way you are because they're choosing to see you in a light that's not real and it's not accurate, but it is always super illuminating when you're just like, boy, you miss the mark. You don't actually know me at all. Which is weird because I think that comes up in the polyemort. world too in how we develop friendships and things like that. Like, I have friends that have stopped seeing me as a friend because I'm polyamorous because they can't see beyond the label of polyamorate. Like, and it doesn't matter how many times you explain to them, like, I'm not interested in your husband, I'm not trying to get in your business, like I'm not trying to do whatever, but they also get that lens that they can't see around. So maybe finding the community is just finding the groups of people that don't see people through a specific lens or have that self-awareness, that challenge, that they challenge themselves to see people as the multifaceted prisms that we are and not just, you know, a rock. Mm-hmm. I know it is wild when you realize someone's just so committed to misunderstanding you and knowing when you just kind of have to check out, tap out, be like, not my work to convince you of a different path. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing and follow us at Poly Pathways podcast on all the social medias that you enjoy.
