friendships - before kids, and after kids
I can still remember when my dad told me that when he was a working parent, he could only focus on three things. Work, family, and health. As a teenager, it used to blow my mind - what about his friends??? Roughly when I turned thirty, I started thinking about friendships as sine waves. Finally understanding that relationships naturally ebb and flow, and that if you didn’t hold on too tight, sometimes the wave would eventually curve back toward you.
Fast forward again, and now I am the one who is a working parent.
Between a 40-minute commute to the office three times a week, daycare drop-offs, a demanding tech career, and the goal of having dinner on the table by 6:00 PM, to get the kids in bed by 7:30PM, I started wondering how my dad managed to juggle three things. I was barely scraping by with two.
Shortly after my first son was born, one of my best friends sat me down for a conversation I still think of often. With incredible vulnerability, she shared that while she was celebrating the birth of my child, she was also mourning the death of our friendship as it was. She loved me, but she recognized—perhaps more clearly than I did—that our friendship was about to change significantly.
I remember sharing my own fear: What if you eventually won’t want to hang out with me? She told me she always would, as long as I still had interests other than parenting. I honestly couldn’t tell if it was a joke or the truth, or a mix of both. Regardless of the intent, she gave me a north star.
Three years and a set of twins later, that memory recently hit me with a wave of "hobby shame." When I look at my baseline—the commute, time with the kids, cleaning, sleep, the work—I realize I don’t really have any interesting hobbies right now.
In social settings with non-parent friends, it's really challenging to answer the “what have you been up to” question, when trying not to inundate them with cute things our kids have done. My recent go to has been a story about figuring out the logistics of dropping off three kids at school solo. I’ve failed that test my friend had given me.
But lately, I’ve been thinking about my best friend David. David is a very busy guy, traveling all over the world for work. His time is filled with self care and reflection, going deep with friends, giving back to his community, dating, family, and working. Yet, whenever I need him, I know that he will be there. His "busyness" doesn't diminish his dependability; we can go really deep really quickly.
That’s the type of friend I want to be. I may not have tons of free time or a fascinating new hobby to share, but I can be the friend who shows up when it matters. Maybe that is all I can do at the moment. I am realizing that being a dependable teammate—to my husband, my kids, and my friends—is something that I shouldn’t overlook.
How am I going to do that - be intentional with my time to connect with friends, even for a few minutes to keep those bridges strong, even in the "busy" seasons:
Commute time: Call a friend to see how they are doing, even if it's just for 7 minutes. If it's a non-parent friend, try not to talk about the kids, but to share a thought from a podcast or a win from the office.
Try not to be everything for everyone, and make time to invest in my personal and mental health.
I’m trying to remember not to "hold on tight" to this old version of a sense of self, or the way things used to be. Things are wonderful now, just different. It might have been David who mentioned that I am in the phase of my life where I’m an expert in parenting, and that’s my hobby now, and how that’s a wonderful and beautiful thing.
I might not feel particularly interesting at the moment, and I know my friendships—and how I spend my time—have fundamentally shifted. My hobby right now is building a family and raising three young boys. It’s a phase of intense learning and exploring, and honestly, I wouldn’t change any of it. So yes, I have changed. The old version of our friendship may have died, but I’m still here, honoring the commitment to show up when it matters and bringing the only thing that actually does: being present.