As a mother of two young children, I think about friendship a lot.
My eldest son is pre-school age and I am often told with pitying eyes that he plays alone at nursery and that he is “shy”. I find these comments triggering as I too found it hard to make friends at school, and I start to imagine that he won’t make any friends in the future and it will all have been my fault. Along with passing down some variant of loner genetics, I will blame lockdown, failed NCT groups and my own failure to make friends in motherhood. I have been a bad example to him; if he doesn’t know how to make friends, then it is because I haven’t shown him how.
Yet, I know that he is only three. Children at this age still enjoy playing alone and are not particularly interested in other children. He hasn’t even started school yet and I am worried about the fact that he hasn’t been invited to any birthday parties, or that we don’t often have play dates. I keep reminding myself it is still early and that these things will come.
I say I am worrying about him but I know that this is actually about me. I have found many of my own friendships strained by motherhood and watching him with other children brings up the insecurities I have around my own friendships.
Extra effort has to be made with kids in the picture and this hasn’t always been reciprocated. The very nature of motherhood is an obstacle, along with the lack of understanding - there’s no time to meet up, the children are always ill and it can be hard to have a proper conversation even when you do meet. A lack of understanding can mark the death of a pre-motherhood friendship leaving some friends in the past with the people we were before motherhood.
In
latest Culture Study essay she talks about How to Kid-Proof Your Friendship.Kids absolutely bomb out your friendships. If you think “everything can stay the same” you’re 1) lying to yourself and 2) going to deal with some real hurt and disappointment, regardless of whether you’re the person with or without the kid(s). So we should stop thinking about whether or not it’s true and start thinking about how all members of the friendship are responsible for building upon the wreckage.
Anne Helen Petersen, Culture Study
Writing from a child-free point of view, she offers an alternative perspective. Here she likens the arrival of a child into a friends’ life to watching your best friend replace you with a new best friend:
But here’s where it’s essential to remember that the friend without kids is also experiencing a more subtle form of catastrophe, not unlike watching your friend ditch you for a new best friend. Think about it: suddenly, all the Instagrams that used to feature you now exclusively feature their kid; all the interstitial time they used to spend hanging out with you doing nothing is now spent hanging out with the baby doing nothing…
Anne Helen Petersen, Culture Study
She also talks about how the need for true empathy of the new parents’ situation can mean that those friends drift to other friends with children in order to feel better understood, leaving those without children behind.
Whilst I have seen some of my own friendships suffer with the arrival of new motherhood, some have also blossomed. With plenty of opportunities to meet on maternity leave, lots of common ground to talk about and a growth in understanding, I feel like some friendships have been cemented by motherhood rather than destroyed by it.
That’s not to say I only hang out with other parents now (or at least it hasn’t been my intention to) I still really value those friends who have different lives to mine.
The reality though, is now that I have children, time to dedicate to friendships is more scarce, and I am realising that decisions have to be made. I am not about to do a massive friend cull, but I think it is important to know where you stand on friendship and for me not everyone is as important to me right now; it isn’t possible for them to be.
This isn’t to say that those lesser friendships aren’t important at all.
piece on the 18 Different Type of Friends explains that not all friendships are equal and it’s better when we understand it that way.…some friendships thrive with the pressure taken off. Some of my favourite people are just casual friends, there’s no real label on them. I think Adam Grant calls these people ‘weak ties’, a phrase I don’t really like as it sounds a bit corporate — but he has said a similar thing, that our ‘weaker’ or ‘dormant’ friendships matter a hell of a lot too, just in a different way. These more transient relationships can be so enjoyable and worthwhile for different reasons. You can enjoy a friendship even if neither of you are that committed, but the important thing is knowing where you stand.
Emma Gannon, The Hyphen
Motherhood after all is a season, and friends whilst they come and go can remain dormant during this season, potentially to be revived in another.
For me, it really is quality over quantity and maybe with children that is even more important. Staying in touch with friends is hard with children. I am always reading messages and not replying or not asking someone how they are for months. Similarly unanswered messages can make you feel ghosted, and repeated failures to meet make you feel like you are wasting your time. Sometimes the children’s illnesses cancel meet ups so many times we give up trying to meet as if scheduling a date only tempts fate. There isn’t the time for too many friendships, not if I am going to be a good friend.
I envy my twenty-something self and the amount of friends I so easily kept in touch with but it is easy to keep friends when you have similar circumstances - life has changed for me and so have my friendships. Once bought together by the same work place, the same house and the same lectures, those same friendships which were once easy have become taxing and arduous. Children are just one of life’s big changes and it is those big changes that truly test a friendship.
But no friendship ever stays the same forever. Your friendship would change for some reason, even if it weren’t kids.
Anne Helen Petersen, Culture Study
I feel closer to friends who live much further away and in a way it is these friendships that have been tested by distance, that have not been phased by the obstacles of having children. With the miles between you, effort has to be made if you want to be part of each other’s lives and if you both still want to make the effort, it is evidence that the friendship is valued.
Similarly family relationships can’t be taken for granted and effort needs to be made. I have never been one for celebrating Christmas or birthdays with family, but it is starting to make sense to me now that these occasions are important to keep people together. They are dates in the year reserved for important gatherings. It really is something my own family aren’t very good at and I know we can improve.
I think I am only really understanding now that friendships and relationships need work. They need effort to be maintained. Birthdays need to be remembered, messages need to be sent and that you must show up when you can, because these days, with two children, opportunities to meet are more scarce. Time is more valuable, and friendships should match this.
I don’t want to be worrying about my children’s friendships already but I am. I know my experiences will have some affect and I worry that I won’t have the answers when they have issues with friends later in life. In my memory, my own parents had barely any friends when we were growing up and I feel like as a teenager, I didn’t have the tools I needed to fix ruptured friendships. I had some bizarre break ups with friends even into my twenties that I don’t really think I understand even to this day. Marked with a dramatic letter or a series of angry text messages, I never really knew how to fix it when it all went wrong. We would go from intensely seeing each other most days/weekends to not speaking to each other over night in the way of teenage dramas, but I often wonder what I could have done to avoid such abrupt endings.
I do, however, see a little hope for my children. I have mentioned before that we have started attending a regular toddler group where I do feel much more welcome, and there have been small steps made to seeing little friendships evolve there, especially with my eldest.
I know my son isn’t really as “shy” as they say he is at nursery as he loves to talk to strangers on public transport and he warms very quickly to people he knows we are close to. I have every faith he will make friends when he finds his people, wherever they are, just like I have.
Have your friendships been killed my motherhood?
Perhaps you have some tips on how to survive this and other tests of friendship.
I’d love to hear your stories, please do join me in the comments.
Hard relate! So many great points in this. I’ve often thought about friendships that have fell dormant since becoming a Mam last year, but the thing is, these are the same friendships that fall by the wayside whenever I’m exceptionally busy, like with work or travel or wedding planning (or whatever) so motherhood isn’t entirely at fault. Like you say, the key is knowing where you both stand and not taking it personally. It’s just effort, and putting it in the right places. Your little ones will be fine, though, so try not to worry 🥰
Very wonderful piece. One thing that has helped me, and it didn’t happen overnight, is moving into this next phase and making all new friendships. At first, I connected with these new friends over motherhood but then you sift through those friends too. You begin to find new friends that gave children and are writers (like me) or they have children and love to travel (like me). I’m still close with my friends before kids but I cherish these new friendships just as much.