I have had the pleasure of getting to know her fiance, Tom, over the past couple of years and I now consider Tom to be a great friend as well. Lora and I have seen each other through just about all of each other's past relationships and I am confident in saying that we have now both gotten it "right".
I remember the day I told Lora that I was pregnant. As most of you know, I was in my prime as a college party girl when my life abruptly came to a halt and I took on a wife/mom "role" overnight. Lora, being two years older than me, had started her big-girl-job working full time and living with her serious boyfriend (yes, Tom;) ) in Minneapolis.
In conversations later, I was telling Lora all about how every single relationship in my life is changing as I become a mother. From my guy friends (nope, don't really talk to many of them anymore), to my parents (no longer the college student asking for money or leaving my parents with a whirlwind of parking tickets), to my college friends (whom I loved and love but were really less funny after a couple cocktails and I am still sober...and driving them around...). I was surprised when Lora said that she suddenly felt we had more in common that day I told her I was expecting. We were both finally in the beginning phases of our "adult lives" and had come a long way since the days of Abercrombie and prom.
Lora and I support each other always. She stood up in my wedding, surprised me with tickets to see our favorite band as a bachelorette/wedding shower gift, and had dinner dates with me on Saturday nights while pregant when everyone else was "out" and she could have been too. (I could go down memory lane and make a very long list that goes back ten years, but I will spare you). Lora is amazing with my kids and loves them and they love her too. She has made it a priority to drive to see both girls when we got home from the hospital with them. Just a couple of weeks ago, Lora came to visit and she took a three hour nap with Lucy. It was the sweetest thing. I always feel like I do not do enough in return. Between living further apart now and having such different schedules, it's almost as if we have to schedule phone dates, and those are typically interrupted several times by a bump on the head or a spill...I could go on.
As we are now both adults living adult lives we, as I said before, have much different daily agendas. I have sensed some envy on both sides. I get jealous from time to time of her and Tom's carefree lifestyle and their ability to go and do as they please with two incomes and nothing tying them down. It is funny how it always comes down to the same thing, though. Every woman seems to struggle with that balance between work and family. From what I have seen, it seems Lora goes back and forth with the idea of either starting a family or really moving forward with her successful career. For me, being a mom, I also struggle with my identity as a woman, feeling like my role as a mom is what defines me.
Lora sent me this article today. It brings up many good points and emotions I have felt, put down into words. Black and white. I told her I can identify with this article and wonder if she is trying to tell me something :)
Relationships // New mom, old friends, a surprising shift //
New mothers face countless adjustments. One of the more surprising, say some, is having to renegotiate once-effortless relationships with child-free girlfriends.
Gail Rosenblum; Staff Writer
Star Tribune
Lonely.
That's the word Tina Kabunuk uses to describe one feeling of
early motherhood. Yes, she's also happily exhausted as a
stay-at-home mom to two little boys, Tristin, 20 months, and
3-month-old Constantine.
But, particularly after Tristin arrived, "it was kind of lonely,"
said Kabunuk, 35, of Minneapolis, "because my other friends weren't
going through it. I spoke to a friend far away who had just had a
kid and she said the same thing. I love being a mom and I know my
friends love my kids, too. But they can't relate and they don't
have time to come over all the time."
A new baby requires Mom to renegotiate nearly every relationship
she has - with her spouse, parents, suddenly clingy older siblings.
Less obvious is how, or whether, to maintain another cherished
bond: that with her closest friends who don't yet, or maybe never
will, have children.
In interviews, new moms spoke not just of loneliness, but of
frustration. They miss the opportunity to be spontaneous or
carefree. They worry that they talk too much about baby stuff. They
envy their girlfriends who are cruising up the career track. They
bristle when their child-free friends appear to view their new-mom
lives as dull.
"The hard thing now is that you like to think you're this fun
person who's vibrant and lively," said Jennifer Jeanne Patterson,
34, of Edina, mom of Max, 2 1/2, and 6-month-old Caleb. "You
realize that, when you leave the house, having showered is your
milestone."
Friends without children are jolted by the birth, too. They feel
annoyed that long-awaited plans are canceled at the last minute
because a baby is sick. Once-seamless phone calls are interrupted
by "Gotta go! The baby just spit up." Yes, they're happy that their
friend's baby rolled over, but couldn't they get two minutes to
talk about their job promotion? They wonder if they're being judged
because they don't have children. A few expressed guilt about how
"clueless" they were about their friend's highs and lows as a new parent.
Kari Clark of St. Paul remembers when the first of her four
closest friends had a baby eight years ago. She and the other two
women weren't even married yet. "We still look back on those days
and I don't think one of us thinks we were very good to her. We
sent the baby gift, visited her in Texas when her baby was 1 year
old. I don't think she had much support from us for that whole
first year because we didn't get it. We have separately and
together said, `We're so sorry. We just didn't get what you were
going through.' We were so busy having our single life."
Today, Clark is divorced, has a 3 1/2-year-old son, and is
full-time director of gift planning for Gustavus Adolphus College
in St. Peter, Minn. In other words, she now gets it.
"Sometimes you have to prioritize your friends, down to the
people who are enhancing your life. You go for quality over
quantity. We don't even have time to make a phone call," she added
with a laugh. "It's almost an unspoken agreement that we'll
reconnect in 10 years."
Patterson, too, had little empathy for moms with crying babies
uuntil I had one." The sticky issue of friendships and babies
wasn't on her radar when she wrote "52 Fights: A Newlywed's
Confession" in 2005, a lighthearted collection of essays tracking
her first year of married life. Her challenges are different, more
baby-focused, today.
"I feel so self-conscious," Patterson said. "Just the other day,
I felt like I was stuttering. All I want to talk about is how tired
I am. Nobody wants to hear that." She worries especially about her
close friend, Anne Antonenko, with a successful sales career, great
fashion sense and no kids.
Antonenko said her friend is being too hard on herself. "At the
root, she is still my friend. What would I be like if I wasn't
getting any sleep or changing diapers every two hours? We still
have a lot of things to talk about" (usually by phone and usually
during nap time).
Besides, she's a little intimidated by Patterson. Motherhood,
Antonenko said, "just seems to come naturally to her. I don't think
I have that."
An inevitable rift
Carolyn Whitson, a professor of English at Metropolitan State
University, has a personal and professional interest in this topic.
About two years ago, she began collecting stories from a broad
section of women for an anthology titled "Women's Ambivalences
About Motherhood and Non-Motherhood." While the work-in-progress
focuses on the cultural impact of choices that women make, or do
not make, regarding motherhood, she understands the struggle.
"There's a feeling of loss, betrayal even," said Whitson, who
does not have children. "You were so important to each other and
now it's not possible. You were intimate friends who understood
each other and now there's a rift."
The new mother's "engulfing duties and life changes," she said,
"can be completely absorbing," she said. And the nonmother? Her
friend's "drastic change," as Whitson calls it, may force her to
re-examine her child-free status and fight the implication, perhaps
unintentional from her friend, but certainly intentional from her
culture, that as a non-mother she is selfish, "as if parents have
children for completely selfless reasons." Can such a friendship be
saved? Of course.
A heavy dose of maternal amnesia doesn't hurt. Alyssa Hammar,
whose friends allegedly abandoned her in Texas, cracked up when she
heard Clark's mea culpa. "I totally didn't see it that way," said
Hammar, now back in Edina and the mom of three children. "I thought
they were great to me. We e-mailed all the time."
Ultimately, Clark said, she and her girlfriends (three of the
four now are mothers) have survived big jolts because of a shared
history. "At the point where we are, with almost 20 years of
friendship, there's a crossover into sisterhood," Clark said. "It's
a bond that sees you through anything."
Gail Rosenblum
Tips for new moms and old friends
"If your friends are having a hard time with you having a baby,
try to make time with them without the kid. Go to lunch without the
baby. If you need support, find other new moms. They care about how
many diapers you go through a day and what kind of pacifier you
use. Have your mom friends and your nonmom friends. There's room in
your life for both."
Suzy Frisch, 35, Apple Valley, freelance writer and editor,
children ages 4 1/2 and 2, and expecting a third
"One thing I try to do, for myself and my relationship with my
husband and kids, is I try to dress fashionably. When I go out with
my friends, that must be why they don't think of me only as a mom."
Tina Kabanuk, 35, Minneapolis, stay-at-home mom, children 20
months and three months
"We've made it a priority to have our annual [girlfriends']
retreat. It's the jewel of our year."
Kids or not, Lora and I remain to be close. I can't wait for the day that my kids can babysit hers ;)
It's funny Anna, I estranged from a majority of my friends the first year we were married- I didn't have any wild party stories to add and suddenly the single life seemed more annoying than atttractive. It feels good that now more of my friends are getting married, have or are having kids or are "growing up". This article puts a lot into perspective.
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