Meeting friends when you’re a new mom can be hard. Between minding kids and busy work schedules, it can be tough finding time to build that much-needed village or mom tribe that everyone talks about.
It’s harder still if you move to a new city or are far away from family. Peanut is a new mom dating app designed to help women meets other moms.
With the huge array of existing mom groups on social media and regular parenting groups, you’ve got to wonder, do we really need another way to connect online? Mom tribes are important: Apparently we all so time-poor that we need an app to find our people.
Perhaps the chance of finding a new mom friend the old-fashioned way at the playground or library is just not a reality these days. Then again, as with regular dating, sometimes you meet people when you're not even trying. I happened to meet one mom friend when I accidentally locked my toddler in the car.
If you are finding it hard to meet other moms, this Tinder-like app might be worth a try. It's is a little different from regular social media mom groups. Once you install the app, you log in through Facebook or Google and provide a few personal details such as your kid's age or due date if you're pregnant.
You then add a photo, a short bio and three key things that relate to you — "Single Mama", "Fitness Fiend" and "Wine Time" are just some of the categories you can select. It's a bit constraining to select a category like this, but I'm guessing it's a work in progress.
The app then uses an algorithm and offers you the chance to connect with moms or pregnant moms in your local area. You can also invite your existing friends to build your community. You swipe up to wave and connect with mamas you want to talk with.
Once connected with other moms you can chat, arrange meet-ups, create polls and engage with the wider community on Peanut on topics such as parenthood, work, money, motherhood, local events and more
The Tinder-like swipe-up-to-connect notion is a little off-putting for me. Like on Tinder, people make selections based on a photo. It’s a shame that Peanut adopted this model and didn’t just give people an avatar instead of making it so photo-centric.
I can see a couple of benefits to this app, though, especially if you are new to the area. For pregnant moms, it could be a great way to find a nanny share in your locality. For stay-at-home moms, it might be useful to discover other moms who have kids of the same age and organize play dates. For moms looking for a running buddy in the neighborhood, you could use to the app to find a motivational partner and schedule a run together.
The success of this app will very much depend on how many local people sign up.
You can currently download the app on iOS and Android devices, and it’s officially launching in Seattle on October 15.
We’ll watch this space!
