For mothers who want it all
Thanks to new groups, moms can enjoy grownup fun - with kids in tow.
It's a balmy autumn morning, and Lewis Wexler is leading a small group of women through an exhibition of art glass in the Old City gallery that bears his name.
The pieces are in sensuous and silly shapes, some in outrageous colors, and Wexler is a fantastic guide. Yet the women - in their black shirts, most over denim jeans, and their stylish, low-maintenance haircuts - listen with half an ear.
They're also keeping an eye on their babies. The infants lounge in elaborately cushioned strollers and dangle off their mothers in ergonomic wraps while snacking on Cheerios. Some extend chubby fingers toward the $50,000 paperweight that Wexler circulates, unconcerned, to demonstrate that art is not to be feared.
An exhibition of hand-blown glass isn't the first place you would look for a gaggle of mothers and their babies.
But this is a Metropolitan Moms event, designed for women who crave culture and adult conversation, and who don't want to leave their little ones at home.
Started by former investment banker Molly Snyder in Manhattan in 2004, Metropolitan Moms is one of a new breed of social groups designed around the interests of mothers, not their children. The logic is obvious: Infants have no social preferences, mothers do - especially intellectually curious women who have worked for years and have led culturally active lives.
In New York, mothers' clubs include Baby Bites NYC, a lunch group, and Big City Moms, a social night-out organization. The Metropolitan Moms in Philadelphia - launched in late September by Kristin Fairweather, 32, and Holly Maher, 30 - is the New York group's first spin-off and the first organization of its kind locally.
Socially, the first six months of motherhood are difficult. Infants are demanding, and it takes a while to put together a mommy network.
"I wish I'd gotten out more to do things like this with my first baby," says Alexa Grollman, 37, of Allentown, who is at Wexler Gallery with her 2-month-old daughter, Sasha, while her 3-year-old son attends preschool.
"Then, I barely left the house for the first six months. With Sasha, I'm getting out more and having more fun," says Grollman, a former U.S. Senate legislative aide.
The stay-at-home mother, who attended the University of Pennsylvania's Fels Institute of Government with Fairweather, learned of the series through the grapevine. The gallery tour was the second of four weekly Metropolitan Moms events in October. Also in the series were a ghost-themed architecture tour and behind-the-scenes tastings at several chocolate shops.
Metropolitan Moms Philly got started when Fairweather, of Chestnut Hill, saw Snyder on a talk show. At the time, Fairweather was pregnant with her daughter, Addison, now 19 months old, and wondered if she could continue to do the things she enjoyed with a little person along.
She contacted Snyder, and they began to explore the possibility of bringing the concept south. As a lifelong Philadelphia-area resident and former director of program analysis at the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, Fairweather knew the city well. She enlisted the help of her friend, Maher, then an aide to Philadelphia Councilman-at-Large Jack Kelly. The launch here has gone so well that Snyder is now considering franchises in Washington and Miami.
Although they have attracted mostly suburban women, the activities of Philadelphia's Metropolitan Moms are all in the city. Besides mothers and infants, the group stages events for mothers and toddlers, as well as for grandparents and babies. Parent couples may attend outings such as a recent dinner and wine tasting at Fork restaurant in Old City.
Mothers-night-out events, such as cooking classes and Sotheby's auction previews, have been popular with the more than 3,000 women on Metropolitan Moms' New York mailing list. Fairweather and Maher are contemplating similar outings here, including a possible spring architectural-garden tour and a preview at Freeman's, the Center City auction house.
Individual Metropolitan Moms events are planned through the holiday season; series of four weekly classes, at a cost of $220, will resume in February.
Each Metropolitan Moms tour is led by an experienced guide. At Old City's Pentimenti Gallery and, later, the Wexler, art educator Krystyna Warchol delivers a short lecture about contemporary art in general and certain pieces in particular. Inevitably, the conversation turns to parenting.
Pentimenti owner Christine Pfister describes bringing her son to work through his first year. And Wexler assures the women that fine art can survive in a house with young children.
The group is a great idea, says the father of two, who welcomes the mothers and "young future collectors."
"I remember that feeling of 'I'm dying for some culture, some intellectual stimulation,' " Wexler says of the days when his children were infants.
As the women finish looking at art glass, Wexler is inspired.
"Want to see something neat? Come on upstairs," he says, and starts for the steps. The women freeze for a moment. The building has no elevator.
Five-month-old Ivy Lockwood is asleep in her stroller, peacefully sucking her thumb. No way is her mother, Stacy, who is Fairweather's sister, going to wake her.
"Can you keep an eye on her?" Lockwood asks Caitlin Cherry, a mothers' helper provided by Metropolitan Moms. Child-care assistance is part of the package, about one aide to every three children.
Cherry agrees, and Lockwood moves to the second floor with the others to see some laser-cut nylon sculptures that have just been acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Even walking up the stairs alone is a treat for a busy mother.
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