Genevieve Roberts explores the hot topics and parenting issues she encounters while raising her three children – two daughters and one son – in her weekly column, Outnumbered
To say I’ve neglected my friendships since becoming a parent is a laughable understatement: I’ve had two nights out with friends in the past two years.
In fact, since my eldest daughter Astrid was born almost eight years ago I must have been out with friends after dark around a dozen times. It’s so infrequent that I feel slightly nervous on the odd occasion I do make it out – will I be the mum who is so incredibly excited to shake off their responsibilities for a few hours that they drink three glasses of wine and promptly throw up?
I know I’m not alone in feeling sad that I don’t spend more time with my friends. The charity Action for Children found that 68 per cent of new parents feel “cut off” from friends after having a baby, while a study in the journal Demographic Research found that the strength and quality of friendships “typically decreases after people become parents”.
Few parents will be surprised to learn this is most pronounced when their child is aged three and most in need of their parents’ time and energy, while friendships strengthen once children start school. It’s such an easy trap to fall into that friendship neglect can feel like an inevitability when brutal sleep deprivation collides with mid-life.
But it’s not just persistent lack of sleep – which I find so hard that I become overwhelmed and dysregulated every month or two – that has led to my lifestyle changes. Also, my tastes have changed over the past decade. By the time I became a “geriatric mum”, the end of hangovers felt long overdue – I’m overjoyed that I’ve swapped nights out for playdates and children’s parties.
I loved my sober 40th party, pregnant with Xavi, who’s now five and I don’t want to miss out on time with my children. The idea of multiple wake-ups with a dry mouth and headache is totally unappealing, though I admire the stamina of friends who are able to manage both.
Since becoming a parent I’ve also followed the hordes of families who move out of London once they have children. Many of my friends who are also parents have also scattered so going out in the capital involves long journeys and expensive, unreliable train services.
I went to see the brilliant Richard Herring record his podcast with my husband Mark earlier this month – a belated birthday gift – and despite my excitement at a rare night leaving my postcode, I fell asleep on the train home.
We’ve also all lived through a pandemic, where socialising was wiped out overnight. I remember the pubs shutting when Xavi hadn’t even turned one and thinking how it wasn’t going to have any effect on my life. But I think more broadly I’ve never quite regained the habit of going out for long meals with friends (hello, cost of living crisis).
I also met my husband Mark almost four years ago so we’ve been learning about each other, falling in love and navigating relationship foibles – all while learning to co-parent three amazing children. I regularly pinch myself with joy at how lucky I am to be a parent of such kind, funny children who I learn from every day.
So I’ve been very unavailable. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel regular angst about on the one hand not being a better friend and at the same time that my lack of sociability might mean that everyone has gone off me.
I know, rationally, that many of my friends are in similar situations and feel hugely busy but it doesn’t stop me worrying at four in the morning, when I’m clumsily trying to find a milk bottle, whether some of my friends might be slightly relieved that I’ve dropped out of circulation so they can diplomatically loosen the ties of our friendship. Perhaps I wasn’t as inner circle to them as they felt to me. While I know that some friendships might not weather this season of unsociability, I’m sure most will.
But what I’m really learning is how much I miss my friends and the shared love we feel. I might feel exhausted and lacking in time, but I’m slowly realising how much that is an illusion – investing in friendships makes me feel energised and counteracts my tiredness.
I admire my friend since school Sarah Stevenson for a million reasons, one being the importance she places on her deep friendships. So I asked her the secret of her ways while she was away with a group of friends in Cornwall. She’s quick to point out that infrastructure is important: in her case her husband and an after-school nanny for her 10-year-old daughter Luna.
“I’ve got the means to take time out if I need to,” she says. “I’m a sociable person and the guilt of neglecting children, job or family extends to friends for me – it’s a conscious choice.”
Sarah spends a lot of time talking to Luna about friendships. “It’s easy to say that prioritising friendships is a selfish thing, but I see it as a valuable life lesson,” she explains. “Just as I’m proud that Luna sees me going to work, I’m proud she also sees me supporting my friends and doing nice things for them – like bake them a cake, for example.
“We have an active dialogue about friendship, how it’s a fundamental for whole life happiness; how we learn to develop and keep good friendships; how there are sometimes challenges and bumpy bits but how it tends to come good in the end.”
She rarely drinks alcohol, but finds valuable moments in her day to “chat and reconnect”, combining a dog walk with a catch up, or arranging a coffee after school drop-off or getting her nails done with a friend. Her friendship groups are widely dispersed around the country and Europe. “Some WhatsApp groups are worth investing in to keep connected,” she believes. “In the absence of being able to see someone for coffee we still share anecdotes to keep our friendship alive.”
She recently went on a mums and daughters ski trip. “It was such a liberating, amazing experience for the eight of us: the four mums and four daughters had so much fun, all of our needs were fulfilled and it was a magical thing to do with the children,” she says.
So this year, now Juno is two, I’m hoping to find more balance with friendships. I’ve started going for a weekly sauna with a friend who lives round the corner. Sweating, cold plunging, chatting and laughing is a complete pleasure and gives me a huge mood boost – I find myself grinning afterwards.
We go away camping with friends each year to France, and I love having a week where we can spend completely unpressurised time together, rather than trying to condense things into a day or an evening. Our children and theirs are growing up together and gain as much as we do from these friendships. So while boozy nights out might remain strikingly rare in my life, I’m prioritising long lunches and trips away with other families, even for a night, so there’s no sense of rush.
As I come out of not only winter hibernation, but also baby hibernation, I’m conscious that I’ve been absent for so long that I’ll need to build up a bit of courage to get in touch with some of my friends. Especially now picking up the phone seems to be something people do by appointment, rather than spontaneously.
But if I don’t receive a reply, or hear that they’re too tired or overwhelmed at the moment with children and other commitments to meet up, at least I’ll understand that it might just be the season of life they’re going through.
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