A couple weeks ago this article was doing the rounds talking about the friendship divide as people start to have children. Of course it was told from the perspective of female friendship which is something near and dear to my heart. This particular paragraph captured the essence of the story so poignantly.
It’s not that she 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, in the same deadpan tone as a sitcom character breaking the fourth wall after a record scratch. “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.”
It is true, children change everything. The caveat I would hasten to add is for a time. But of course I know this being a parent. Perhaps on the other side, it would have felt endless and entirely too child focused and actually plain boring. How many times can you exclaim ” thats so wonderful” ” amazing”.
Two thoughts from either side of the argument.
To be honest, this was not an issue that my closest friends and I really had because over a space of six years, five of us have had 11 children and in quick succession. So we have anything from older-school going kids to children being weaned. Of course all of us are working moms which has given us an appreciation of our time and energy constraints. We have been able to negotiate time for us to hang out with and sans kids with no hard feelings but it certainly helps that for the most part we have help that can facilitate this. With fewer kids we managed weekends away but as the size and age (read complexity) has grown, this has been harder to plan. Perhaps when the kids are all a bit older. All this to say, it takes a lot of conversation and a core group of Mummy friends who will understand that a meeting time can change because the nap ran long, or a child is going through a growth spurt and woke up multiple times the night before. Sometimes it looks like bring your kiddos over because you are tired and the nanny is day off. It takes a lot of communication and flexibility.
The article made me think of my childfree friends and what it looks like to support them. When you get married and/or have kids, you get so much support from an engagement party, a bridal shower, a baby shower, a sip and see …. BUT what do childfree people have? That is unique to them. It hit me that this would be a perfect starting point to figure out what are those big moments for them. Planning to climb Mount Kilimanjaro? I will throw you a party when you get back. Finally bought that house or hit that saving target, lets throw you a surprise party with all the planning, energy and intensity that goes into all the showers Moms get. Be intentional and present for their big things and to the extent you can hang kid free, do it.
first hand accounts of a former homebody 