Raising a tiny human can be a lonely endeavor, and for many parents, it can mean skipping happy hour with friends, foregoing weekends away, and — in general — spending a lot more time simply keeping your tot alive. But now, there's a new app for moms who want to make friends available for iOS, and it looks like a friendly Tinder for mothers.
Peanut was recently released for iPhone users, and it's completely free to download and use. Moms connect to the app using their Facebook profile, select or upload photos to use, and get matched to other mothers based on their interests and location. Women can also choose up to three icons that describe her, including badges like "spiritual gangster," "sleep deprived," and "geek chic," according to Mashable. Moms can also select whether they're single parents or if their children have special needs. Any moms with kids under 16 years old can join the app, and users can see moms' children's ages, too, so their kids can end up being friends as well.
Like dating apps Tinder and Bumble, users have to swipe "yes" or "no" to profiles presented to them, and once both users have swiped positively, they can message one another.
"I genuinely think that good things happen when women do stuff together, but it’s not always that easy to find your natural home or natural group of women," Michelle Kennedy, the app's founder, told Mashable. Kennedy has worked on apps like Bumble and Badoo, and she said the idea for Peanut came to her soon after she had her own son three years ago.
"I thought, I can help all of these people date, but I can’t find liked-minded women to have coffee with," she told The Daily Mail. "I didn’t stop being me because I was pregnant nor did I lose my identity, but I could not find other mothers who had the same interests as me."
On Peanut, women are able to select the languages they speak, what their work schedule looks like, and what kind of activities they're into, making it easy to connect with moms whose lifestyles might mesh well. Peanut also allows moms to create group chats, poll times to meet, and create events.
Currently, only a beta download is available for iPhone users, but Peanut is also working on an Android release. There are a few questions I have about all of this (will all of those options lead people into socioeconomic bubbles? Will there be an option for dads to join in the future? Will parents actually meet up in real life?), but overall, it looks like it could help some busy moms connect to other women who are going through the same thing. Happy swiping!
