Item number 462 that nobody clearly explains when you have kids is that friendships become very different.
I’m lucky to have collected various groups of friends throughout school, university, and early jobs. I didn’t realise this but I was often the glue that kept the friendships going by being ‘the organiser’ and making social events happen.
The pub bank holidays, the birthday dinners, the random visits to theme parks. I worked hard to make those things happen because that’s what friendship looked like to me in my 20s and early 30s. Friendship was about spending time together, sharing experiences and creating memories that we could look back on later and have a giggle about. Sometimes we needed a bit of help filling in the blanks for each other on especially messy nights out… but that was all part of it too.
I’d plug away at finding a meet-up date to suit everyone in the group. I researched places to go that looked fun, or were easy for people from different geographies to get to, and suited different budgets. (Sometimes I did pick places that were a little bit weird, including a tour of London in an amphibious vehicle – sorry friends.) I’d be adding the photos to the group chat, and sending reminders.
And theeen, babies came along. Some of my friends were first to take the plunge, I think I was somewhere in the middle, and some are still in the early days.
Of course when your friends become parents you expect them to be less available – I know I bailed out of some get togethers myself around the 6 month old baby mark, as I was getting so little sleep I could barely function.
Then add work back into the mix and you’ve got all the juggle struggle of earning a living, raising a child and sustaining a marriage going on, never mind nurturing friendships, even ones that have been around for years.
So you understand it when you can’t find a date to meet up with people this side of Christmas.
And you understand it when you get last-minute cancellations.
And you understand it when you don’t hear back from the fifth WhatsApp you’ve sent.
You understand it, right?
I understood it, but I wasn’t a fan of it. I thought I knew how to maintain friendships, but the old ways I’d been used to weren’t working. I still felt a pang of sadness when another date fell through, or a WhatsApp message from 3 months ago had been met with tumbleweed.
Where was the quality time? Where were the deep chats? Basically most of my friendships were taking place via WhatsApp chats and voice notes, and what seemed like lots of empty ‘must-meet-up-soon’ promises. I thought all the close friendships I’d worked hard to maintain were falling by the wayside and it made me a bit sad, and worried about what I’d be left with out the other side of the young-kids-and-job phase of life.
I took a bit of a step back. I’d accidentally given this new-look version of friendship-after-kids a meaning that was a ‘thought-error’. I’d somehow connected the lack of in-person time with friends to my sense of worth. Perhaps my friends didn’t think I was worth spending time with any more? This was what the little voice in my head told me, despite having no evidence or facts to support the idea.
What I’ve realised is that close friendships don’t just fall by the wayside. It’s genuinely just that friendship takes a very different shape when everyone is trying to juggle work and kids. If anything this challenging phase in life has highlighted my most truly resilient friendships, the ones that can flourish even with a lack of in-person time.
You still share experiences, make each other laugh, and support each other, even if that is mainly via WhatsApp voice notes.
I’ve shared 3am WhatsApp exchanges with other mum friends awake feeding babies, which stopped me feeling like the loneliest person on the planet.
Some of my friends’ voice notes are laugh-out-loud funny, like having your own personal podcast episode tailored to your humour.
I’ve also used written messages to share some darker, tougher times too, when bad things happen and talking is a bit harder. My friends always respond with love and care.
If you can only reach out via message, or manage to have a tea together for an hour, friendships worth keeping will sustain themselves, even through this rush-hour period of life.
If you’re struggling to figure out why your post-child-having friendships feel like they’re different now, they probably are. Remember different doesn’t mean worse, it just means different.
How do you factor in friendships to your juggle struggle of family, life and work? Does ‘friendship’ look, feel and mean something a little different than before you became a working parent? Let me know in the comments!
Juggle Struggle blog 