6 Minute English / Making 'mum friends'

Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript.

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I m Neil.

And I m Beth. Do you remember your first day at school, Neil?

Um, yes I do. I changed schools quite a lot when I was a kid, so I had lots of first days and they were never easy. How about you, Beth?

Well, my mum always tells this story about how I was crying a lot on my first day. But apparently as soon as she left, I was quite happy. So my mum spent the day being a bit sad and I was completely fine.

Well, yeah, starting school and making new friends is difficult for many children. But it s not just the kids who find it challenging. For mums and dads who drop their kids off at the school gates in the morning and pick them up again at the end of the school day, making friends with other mums can be just as hard.

Here, BBC presenter, Nuala McGovern, discusses this problem using the term, mum friends .

GovernSo if you are a mum dropping off or picking up the kids this week, how do you feel about hanging out with other mum friends ? I find that term kind of interesting as well, mum friends they re never called friends , they re called mum friends . Do you struggle to make those relationships, or do you thrive on them, or are you perfectly happy without them?

Neil Mum friends are usually the mums of other children in your child s class at school. They might go for coffee together, help out with babysitting or chat about being a mother. But is making new mum friends really the positive experience it s often described as, or an additional stress for already overworked mothers? That s what we ll be discussing in this programme, along with some useful new vocabulary.

And if the idea of mum friends is new to you, why not take a minute to read through the list of vocabulary before you listen? It s easy to find on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.