If your friend becomes a mother, and you don’t have children (or the other way around), your friendship might change abruptly. What might that look like, and how might you keep hold of your friendships?
Auckland accountant Jasmine*, 36, feels like she’s lost a friend. One she’s been close to since they were 15. The friend in question, Emily*, has a 10-month-old baby. “I hardly see her now,” says Jasmine, who is (happily) single. “I’ve tried to keep up the friendship, but when I text her, she sometimes only replies days or even weeks later. When I ask her to do something, she’s usually busy or she cancels on me. She seems to spend more time with her friends who have kids, and women from her antenatal group.”
I’m no expert, but Esther Perel is busy, so I ask Jasmine ‘why not tell her how you feel calmly, without placing blame?’. “Maybe I should,” Jasmine says. “But I still feel like we’ll keep drifting apart in terms of our lives and our interests, particularly with the kid thing. If she still wants me as a friend, she’ll get in touch.” It’s fair to say Jasmine is upset.
Why friendships change after children
When one woman has a baby and the other doesn’t have children, friendships can change quite a bit. As a mother, you may have different priorities, interests, time constraints and financial constraints to that of your child-free friend. You might be too exhausted to put energy into that friendship. You might bond with and spend more time with existing friends who are mothers, or new friends from antenatal groups.
“It might sound bad, but I don’t really have enough time and energy for [my child-free friends]’
Mel*, 38, has children aged one and three, and works part-time as a financial adviser. Juggling work with kids has affected some of her relationships with child-free friends. “It might sound bad, but I don’t really have enough time and energy for them. I’ve been hanging out more with friends who have kids because they ‘get it’ and we can meet at playgrounds in between naps.”
Does Mel know how her childfree friends feel about her pulling back? “Nope. I should maybe ask at least one of them.” She messages me a few days later to say she’s just chatted to a friend who did feel upset about the lack of contact. “I explained my time constraints and my perpetual tiredness, and told her our friendship was important to me. She said she was totally fine to meet up at playgrounds, and would bring me a takeaway coffee!”
‘The Baby Bomb’
In thecut.com article ‘Adorable Little Detonators: Our Friendship Survived Bad Dates, Illness, Marriage, Fights. Why Can’t It Survive Your Baby?’, journalist Allison P. Davis writes: “Babies, those little assholes, really do show up in our lives like a popular girl transferring into school in the middle of the semester. Their sudden presence, though welcomed, coveted, hard won, and considered a blessing to their parents, throws the social order into disarray.”
Allison interviews Sasha, who is finding it difficult to maintain friendships with friends who have kids. “It’s not that she [Sasha] doesn’t love her friends or that they don’t love her. It’s not that she doesn’t miss them, or want to spend time with them, or want them in her life, and vice versa. It’s just that ‘it has changed everything,’ she says of her friends becoming parents.”
Sasha says: “‘More than marriage, more than a new job, more than moving across the country, I think there is nothing that represents more of a challenge or a threat to adult friendships than parenthood. It is the only thing that is permanent and time-bound. It has fundamentally shifted my relationships’.”
“When my friends announce a pregnancy, I say ‘I’ll see you in 15 years’.”
Krystal Dionne from Whanganui, who is childfree, says that “when my friends announce a pregnancy, I say ‘I’ll see you in 15 years’. It changes friendships and priorities change. I’m now at an age [42] where I have friends becoming grandparents, some trying to reconnect because their kids are teens, and others still having wee ones. I think maybe I will change my announcement to ‘we will connect up again in retirement!’”
How To Keep Your Friendships Going After Kids
Sometimes friends grow apart and find they don’t have much in common anymore. For instance, perhaps you used to hit the town together, but now one of you is burping a baby in the evenings and collapsing on the couch. If what bonded you is gone, you could let that friendship ‘fade out’, or ‘break up’ in a respectful way.
But if you want to keep the friendship – and most people want to – how might you approach that?
For both friends
Make it clear to each other that you value your friendship, but acknowledge it will be different, at least for now.
Talk about ways you could spend time together – for instance, grabbing a coffee at a time and place that work for you both.
For mothers
If you can, have a ‘date night’, but with your friend. If you’re exhausted, you could just go to your friend’s house, eat icecream and watch a movie.
Accept that some of your friends will be interested in your kids, and others won’t be. That’s not a reflection on your friendship. Some people just like children more than others do.
When you catch up, don’t spend the wholetime showing baby photos and talking about your child.
If your friend is experiencing infertility, or hasn’t found someone to have kids with, perhaps talk more about other things. Ask about what’s going on in your friend’s life (e.g. maybe her boss is a nightmare).
For friends of mothers
Don’t take it personally if your friend doesn’t have time for you for a while. Try to put yourself in her shoes; she’s doing a new, incredibly difficult job with half the sleep.
If your friend has to cancel or postpone meeting up – for instance, because her child is sick, or because she’s so tired that she can’t walk in a straight line – be as understanding as possible.
Even if you’re not wowed by baby photos, humour your friend if she wants to show them to you. She may just want validation that she’s doing a good job. If she just wants to vent at how hard it is, let her.
Offer to babysit while your friend has a shower, bring lunch over, or go for a walk with her and the pram. Even if it’s just for 30 minutes, small snippets of time can hold a friendship together. Your friendship might just have a slightly different shape.