One of the first articles I ever read on Women’s Agenda was about friendship. Marina Go wrote about the art of maintaining friendships in the face of family and work commitments and asked how others manage to do it.
It’s a topic that resonates with me because I quite often feel nostalgic for the freedom – and free time – with which I could once enjoy my friendships. I went to a boarding school so I spent High School living among a big group of people. I spent a year in college, again living in a big group, and I then lived in share-houses for the next four or five years. It meant school, university and my first few years in the workplace, were very social times.
I had the time – and the opportunity – to know not just the macro issues in my friends’ lives but also the minutiae. And I loved it but it is no longer so. Now, even before I fit work into the equation I find the intersection between motherhood and friendship busy. And I’m not alone.
I have read two pieces recently which dealt with the sometimes tricky terrain of friendship in the post-baby world. One was written by a friend about her friends having children and another was written by a mother who, despite her best intentions, neglected her friendships after welcoming her baby into the world.
It is, in many respects, inevitable that friendships take a backseat when a baby comes along. The simple fact is that the number of hours in each day doesn’t change when a baby arrives but the hours of the day in which a parent will be occupied increases dramatically. Even if a new parent desperately wants to spend hours with their cherished friends like they once could, time is unlikely to permit. And, even when time does permit and two friends are physically in the same spot, the nature of babies, toddlers and small children is such that the parent’s attention is likely to be divided for the duration. It’s not often conducive to meaningful conversations and it’s multiplied when the friend in question also has children.
I have lost count of the number of times I have caught up with a friend and have walked away realising we started fifty conversations and ended none. That I am no more aware of their goings-on than I was before I saw them. I am now very aware that the difference between seeing a friend and actually catching up can be stark. But it’s never for lack of wanting or interest.
Regardless of children, I think, it’s a reality of growing older that the time and opportunity to catch up with friends is not as abundant as it once might have been. Between work, sleep, exercise, family and the various other things we do, chunks of spare time rarely pop up. And yet friendship matters more than ever.
I don’t see enough of my friends, not even close, and it’s something I miss. But despite that, somehow through the phone conversations we grab, the texts we share, the catch-ups however distracted they might be, and the emails we flick back and forth, somehow there is friendship and support.
They are friendships that would undoubtedly benefit from a weekend away and more regular time spent together, which will come in time, but even without that they survive and thrive regardless. Which is a tremendous blessing because they’re a sanity check and a safety net that makes the life in between far more enjoyable.
How do you juggle your friends with your life?