Opinion
I thought our friendship could survive anything. Then I fell pregnant
Zoya Patel
WriterI am ashamed to admit that before I became one, I was not kind to mothers. In the audacity of my youth, I sneered at the single mindedness I saw in my friends who were having children. Of course, you think your child is special, I thought. You’re biologically coded to think that. Being a mother is the single most ordinary thing you could do.
Before I had a child, or a desire to have one, I resented the implication that motherhood was an experience bigger and more impactful than anything I had experienced up to that point. When mothers expressed the immense difference in their perspective since having kids, it felt like they were devaluing the experiences of women who didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t.
While some of my friends have been supportive of my decision to become a mother, others haven’t. Credit: Istock
But once I was pregnant, I realised how isolating it is to be plunged into an entirely different world – one of appointments, bodily changes, and teeming with unsolicited advice – and not be able to navigate it with the support of your best friends, either because they don’t have children and can’t relate, or because they don’t have children and aren’t interested.
It’s entirely natural to want to share huge new feelings and experiences with your friends. And the reality is that as a first-time parent, they are massive to you, even if they aren’t to others.
Society has created a divide between women with and without children – one that posits each as needing to defend itself against the other, and that doesn’t recognise that between those two distinct ends of the spectrum are many women whose experiences lie somewhere in the middle.
When I first told some of my friends without children I was pregnant, their reactions were varied. One expressed her dismay that I would be becoming “one of them” and would no longer have time or interest in her. Another listed all the things I would miss out on – parties, trips, drinking and dancing – because of my pregnancy.
Their responses shocked me because though I was growing a baby, I hadn’t suddenly stopped being interested in anything outside of that. The idea that I would no longer want to go to dinner or gigs, to have brunch and talk about books was preposterous.
Fast-forward over a year: my son is eight months old, and I haven’t changed much as a person. I have all the same interests and priorities as I did before, I’ve just expanded them to include my kid and all that raising him entails.
Unfortunately, some of my child-free friends can’t accept this new version of my life. One goes out of her way to remind me she isn’t interested in hearing about my child, that she dislikes all children, that she is so glad she isn’t going to have any. I have no issue with these viewpoints, but it’s hard not to feel hurt when someone repeatedly expresses how adamantly they don’t want to engage in a very important part of your life.
I can’t bring myself to raise this with her because I see how sensitive she is to the difference in our lives now, and I worry any comments I make will be interpreted as a judgment on her life. Maybe I’m not giving her enough credit, but it feels easier to just shoulder to barbs and try to move on.
While her reaction is extreme, I’ve had varying degrees of this sentiment from other friends too – as though they’re preempting the loss of our friendship, guarding themselves against a distance they think is inevitable.
I can’t blame them; I felt the same way when my friends had kids before me. But now I wonder if it’s that new parents stop having time for their child-free friends, or if they feel pushed away when they have kids.
If I could tell my friends one thing without opening a can of worms I don’t feel equipped to manage, it would be this: parenting a young child is intense and a big transition, yes, but it’s temporary. I want my friendships to be for a long time, not a good time – to weather the changes in our lives, whatever they may be, and shepherd us into old age, when we will again find ourselves with all the time in the world for each other.
If we’re lucky, there will come a time when whether or not we have children will be among the least interesting things about us. The friendships that will make it to that point will be the ones that were able to stretch and reshape throughout the tumultuous years, not those that fall victim to the parent versus child-free divide.
Zoya Patel is a freelance writer and author.
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