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Becoming a parent not only changes your own life but also shifts the relationships you have with other people. Friendships, for instance, will not remain the same after childbirth. The reality of parenthood is that now you have a human being that looks to you for survival.
You are not the same person that was able to go for dinner dates and stay up late for a fun night.
Consequently, you might lose some friends in the process, which happens for a lot of parents. Your priorities change, and so do your friendships.
So here are a few recommendations for maintaining relationships with your friends when they don’t have kids of their own.
This is not an easy one. It might be the hardest. Parenthood can be a very lonely place and when you get an opportunity to vent, you take it. So it is easy for new parents to start talking about nothing else but their baby. Your friends might be very interested in the beginning, but it will get redundant for them after a while. They don’t understand the fascination with little humans as much as you. After all, they are not parents. So be conscious of how often you speak about your child to your friends. They probably don’t want to hear how many times your child pooped last night.
As mentioned, parenthood can be a lonely place and we start telling ourselves negative things and making assumptions about our friends. The biggest one is that they probably don’t think you are fun anymore or even want to hang out with you. This will feed into your anxiety so much so that you end up not even checking in with your friends. This is how some friendships are lost. You fixate on these assumptions and you start declining invites to get-togethers, then your friends start assuming that you don’t want to spend time with them. Friendships can be lost due to webs of assumptions.
“You don’t have time for me anymore” will be a line you hear a lot from friends that do not understand that your life has changed. You will be judged for this a lot, and you need to be stern in the face of judgment. This presents an opportunity to teach your friends about your new reality. Make them understand that this journey is very demanding, but it does not mean you love them any less.
If you know you will not be able to make it to an outing, or you would rather sleep in, then be honest with your friends about it. Friends that get it will understand. It is much better than committing yourself to something that you want to back out of the last minute. This creates unnecessary tension.
For a lot of parents, it is much easier to close yourself up in the house with the same shirt you wore yesterday and your messy hair. It does not require much from you. Getting out of the house to meet with your friends requires a lot from you. Even having them visit you at home can be quite daunting. But making time for your friends is important. It will also help you feel normal again.