I never expected that
it would happen to me. I always thought that the friends I cared about most
would be my friends throughout any situation – including when they had
children. I imagined being there for them, spending time with them and their
kids, listening to funny stories about what their sons and/or daughters had
done, and being a sounding board whenever they needed one.
The truth is – when you
can’t have kids, and your friends who were without children when you met them have
their babies, you may find yourself on the outer edges of their world, or not even
in their world at all.
This has happened to
me. Fortunately I still see most of my friends who have had children and I am
so grateful and blessed for this. But, there have been a few that no longer
contact me or make any effort to try and catch up. I’ve tried a couple of times
to organise coffees or a trip to a local play café so their kids could come
too, but to no avail.
I don’t know why this
happens. Some people have told me that it is because my friends have children
now and they will have made friends with other mums – women who have more in
common with my friends and understand their situation more than I do.
Maybe that’s true.
But, I have friends from a range of different situations – from single to
partnered or married, to divorced or widowed; friends with and without children
(some children are young and some are adults); people in their twenties to
people in their seventies; people who are gay and people who are straight;
people from all different cultures…I don’t see why becoming a mum means you can’t
have a range of friends from all walks of life as well.
Especially when a friend
outside of the parenting community is willing to drive for 45 minutes just to
have a five minute coffee, if that’s all the time their parent friend has to
catch up.
I don’t get it. Maybe they
no longer contact me for some other reason – something I’m not aware of that
has upset them perhaps.
Anyway – I need to
remember the friends and family I do have that are amazing, that seek me out as
much as I do them, and for whom I have such love and admiration – family who
are my blood relatives, and friends who are my soul family.
3 comments:
You're right - there's no real reason for this. But I had one friend - the last person I would have thought I would have lost - who withdrew from me when her children started school. A few years later I was invited to a dinner, and there were all these new friends I'd never met - all parents of her kids' friends. None of the friends she'd had five or ten years earlier.
I'm lucky though - the friends I have who have children have mostly not changed. And you'll find that once their kids are older, they start to come back too. Case in point - I'm going to my aforementioned friend's new house for dinner this week.
That's a really good thing for me to think about Mali. I hope that the friends I'm thinking of do come back to my life someday - they would be welcome with open arms x
This is so true.
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