‘My Friends Abandoned Me When They Had Kids’

Illustration: Emma Erickson

Dear Emily,

I don’t know how the hell to talk to my friends who are new moms. It’s an age-old conundrum, certainly, but it feels like the stakes have ratcheted up significantly this year. I’m 31, so my friends have been settling down, getting married, and buying houses for years at this point. (Where I’m from, women start getting engaged at 25, sometimes earlier.) But this year was the first that I felt being the only single person in every room — family included — and it’s been really isolating.

I hope to head down the path of motherhood someday, but at the moment, it feels like my mom friends and I are living in different universes. On the one hand, I understand why it’s becoming more and more difficult to stay close friends, especially with those who have newborns. Everything happening in their lives feels urgent, so it’s not realistic to expect them to pick up the phone and make time to chat aimlessly about Housewives. But on the other — and this is going to sound selfish and a little out of touch — I’m getting sick of being the last person asked how they’re doing at every dinner table. I am making efforts to understand what their new lives are like, but the only consistent questions I get about my own are “how’s dating, seems fun” or very simplistic questions about work without much follow-up.

Friendships ebb and flow, and I’ve seen that happen throughout my life. Some of my best childhood friends have come back around and are now important fixtures in my life 20 years later. And I’m sure that these friendships will get back to some semblance of normalcy when my friends aren’t so worried about feeding schedules and learning developments. But for now, I’m really sad about my life taking a back seat to everyone else’s, and not sure how to stay involved without getting resentful.

I know ten years from now, I’ll be going to these same friends for advice when I have a child of my own. In the meantime, I just want to make sure we don’t lose or severely damage the friendship. What should I do?

Sincerely,

The Last Single Girl on Earth

Dear Last Single Girl on Earth,

To think through your very good question, I reread Allison P. Davis’s magnum opus on this subject, “Why Can’t Our Friendship Survive Your Baby?” I recommend doing the same if you haven’t read it recently. In it, Davis talks to people from both sides of the kid-having divide and gets them to open up about how their friendships have changed. She is also candid about how her own child-free life has distanced her from some of her closest friends. This is the line that stands out to me the most: “Everyone is right to feel how they feel, and everyone is being just a little bit of an asshole, but eventually the dynamic rights itself, and it has the potential to be even better than before.”

It’s an optimistic take on a situation that, while you’re in it, can feel pretty dire, for both the moms and the single girls (and boys) alike. One thing that might reassure you to know is that your friends who have truly fresh newborns are so sleep-deprived and hormonally crazed that their brains aren’t really capable of making long-term memories, so if you feel like you’ve said something tactless or failed to buy the right present from the registry, chances are good that they won’t retain that information in the future. They’re living on a different planet, at least till their babies are a good 3 months old. If you live in the same city, they’ll be very grateful to you if you drop by with a large icy beverage and some tasty snacks in hand. After you make pleasant chitchat for a tight half-hour, leave them in peace to try to nap. Like it or not, that’s your role to play in their lives right now. The friends they really need are people who are in the exact same boat they’re in. The reason mom groups and listservs exist is that people with 8-week-olds really need to talk to other people with 8-week-olds. They might even find people with 9-week-olds alienating. It’s a very short, very specific life phase, and when it’s over, it’s hard to even remember it except as a blur. You can just stand on the sidelines doing the bare minimum, texting memes or recommendations for obscure bingeable TV shows (GLOW got me through week two of my second child’s life, and I’ll always be a Betty Gilpin stan for that reason alone).

The larger issue, though, is how you handle your close friendships with people who have settled into some form of domestic life that’s very different from the life you’re currently living. As Davis acknowledges, it’s just hard. I’d pick one or two friendships to prioritize and let the rest fall by the wayside. It sounds harsh, but the alternative is to keep feeling like the odd woman out, which sounds like it’s been painful as well as boring. With the close mom friends you’ve chosen, you’ll still have to resign yourself to the fact that your role in their lives has changed. It’s not realistic or kind to expect them to be able to keep pace with your dating and professional life. But if you put in the effort and make yourself a part of their and their kids’ lives now, things will eventually shift back to a reasonable new normal. Bring the kids thoughtful little gifts, join family mealtimes, and do your best to enjoy the meditative boredom of a coffee date at the playground. This won’t last forever! It’ll last about five years, by which time you may have embarked on a new life stage of your own.

Don’t hang out in the rooms where you’re the only single girl any more than you absolutely have to. Instead, cultivate old and new friendships with fellow single people and make those relationships your primary focus. This is a phase of your life that you should be enjoying to the fullest, especially if you plan to have kids later on. Have fun while you still can, without paying a sitter! Don’t stick around in situations that make you feel left out or unimportant — unless, of course, you’re deeply invested in preserving relationships that are important to you, but even then, you’re gonna need to pick and choose.

The reality is that some of your friendships will bounce back after an off period, but not all of them will. Some of your current friends won’t wind up being part of your life, and it’s okay to mourn that as a loss. But the loss is clearing a path for your new friends. These will be the people to aimlessly chitchat with you about Housewives and ask non-surfacey questions about dating and work. More importantly, they’ll be the friends who get you through your 30s.

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