Moms Here's How to Sustain Your Female Friendships After Kids

“Cherish family time, not stress over little things in life/ focus on the important things in life family, friendships and growth.”

“(I’d like) a chance to get together with friends, without children around.”

“A new thing I’m doing is Zoom/facetime calls with far away friends; I hope to continue this.”

Since March of 2020 over 3,700 parents, mostly mothers (97%) have participated in our study about changes to work, life, health and wellness needs. Many want to invest more time into friendships with other women. This challenge was especially acute during lockdown. However, when everything rushed back onto our calendars, the structural permission to pause, disappeared. Once again honoring vows to create “more time” for “self-care” meant fighting against culture. And it’s hard to do, especially when it comes to connecting with other adults who are just as busy.

Countless studies validate what many of us feel, friendships are healthy and their absence is not. As shared by the American Psychological Association, “… strong, positive friendships significantly increase life expectancy, combat depression, and lower stress hormones like cortisol.” Friendships fuel soul-level satisfaction. After all, having friends to talk, laugh, worry, and commiserate with is restorative. In our study, most want to reclaim time for female friendships. But how do you make space to show up and nurture those relationships over time?

Tend to Your Close Friendships

We often manage friendships with varying levels of depth, tenure and promise throughout our lives. According to the Mayo Clinic “…Having a broad network of friends and contacts might be good. But having close friends who mean a lot to you does more for your sense of self.” Those deep relationships, with your besties who helped you through breakups, illnesses, loss or self-defeating patterns, are the ones we tend to neglect after having kids. When gaps in proximity and availability increase.

Multi-Task Errands Together

We carry heavier calendar, mental and emotional loads after kids, and it competes with all forms of self-care including friendships. But there are many ways to connect, virtually and in person so, get creative to add time with friends back into your routine. If you live close to each other, you can plan to do something you need to do anyway, and just do it together. I used to grocery shop with my friend Lori when we were both on maternity leave.

That may sound very dull but strolling our babies and shopping during robust conversations about everything from teething, postpartum moods, our partners, dinner menus and seasonal produce was fun. It was a gift to keep the connection going and as a sleep deprived new mom, I cherished those outings.

Make Calls in Transit

You don’t have to ‘wait’ for the perfect time. Call when you think of someone, and yes, sometimes that means leaving a quick voicemail but that’s okay. I call close friends, or my sister (who is my best friend) when I’m on the train, waiting to pick up prescriptions, or walking loops at the playground. Of course, virtual catching up doesn’t feel exactly like meeting in person. But it’s ‘live’, it’s unscripted and better than letting long blocks of time elapse without connecting.

Leverage Virtual Tools

After Zoom weddings and eye appointments through the pandemic, the bar lowered for what can and cannot happen online. Of course, Zooms don’t exactly replace thoughtful in person experiences. However, it’s better than not being in touch at all, right? If you have a celebration, you can ‘hybrid-ize’ it. Like for a graduation or the singing part of a birthday gathering, extend virtual invitations to those at a distance.

Reach outs don’t have to be synchronous either. Send text, voice, or video notes to let friends know you’re thinking about them, ask a question or congratulate them. It has positive emotional impact even if it’s not your first choice. I send ‘happy birthday’ video messages from my kids to close friends and family members because they all require an airplane to visit. I also try to send messages when I have a great memory or thought about my friends without an expectation they will get back to me.

Choose to be Genuine

The beauty of close friendship is being your unafraid-of-cancellation, vulnerable self. When you have freedom to make mistakes, not know, have needs, or rage your way through difficulties, it’s liberating.

Psychological safety is key to reciprocal relationships with other people. Not only something we seek in work cultures. With newer friends, you may need more communication to make sure there’s enough shared understanding to preempt misinterpretations.

Offer (and Receive) Apologies

Regardless of the length of your friendship, there may be times when you owe or expect an apology. Perhaps you missed a birthday, forgot about an activity or the amount of distance between greetings has grown too big to overlook.

Whatever ‘it’ is, try to address it. The art of civil disagreement has been declining in our society for quite some time. And the will to work through differences, accountability, and disappointments, helps us and our relationships grow stronger.

Reevaluate Old Wounds and Forgiveness

Okay, at some point someone might have said something that shouldn’t have been said. Maybe that someone was you. The reality is, women are already held to impossible standards by society so, question whether that’s at play inside of the friendship. Was the catalyst for the falling out truly personal or circumstantial? Was it an aberration or a trend? Most importantly, do the circumstances behind the hurt feelings still matter?

Perhaps with time for reflection, the friendship means more to each of you than holding anger from the disagreement. If that is the case, have an honest conversation and decide if you can dismiss whatever it was. And move forward with shared commitment. Of course, offense is in the eye of the offended and there’s no knowing whether you can align until you try.

Navigate When You Can’t Give Hands-On Crisis Support

We all go through difficulties. Like the loss of a loved one, forced career transitions, illness and financial hardship. Many people, including our friends, need more support, empathy, grace or resources than they can access. They might hit emotional walls and need a lot of hands-on help when you’re not able to give it, despite how much you care.

There aren’t exactly rules, but within every friendship, there are certain norms. There’s precedent for what ‘typically’ happens and some expectation about what you ‘will do’ when conditions change for each other. We go through new seasons in our lives, as parents, partners, or daughters to aging parents. Not to mention new kids, perimenopause or menopause and other changes in health within our families.

If someone in your life is going through something hard, be there in ways that you can and if you can’t do what you did in the past, let them know you wish you could. For example, pre-kids when a close friend who was already a mom had major surgery and needed a lot of help afterwards, I was honored to fly out and provide it. I had more discretion over my time and priorities then. If that same circumstance happened today, it would be harder for me to be on point because of the demands of my own family.

Friends Go Through Mental Health Challenges

Perhaps the elephant in the room is that not everybody is at their best or having the same experiences, despite the friendship. Conditions for mothers and families have worsened in the past six plus years. Mothers report mental health at epic lows. And in historically overlooked groups, threats to physical and psychological safety have increased.

Your mood and capacity for presence can change based on what’s happening within your family, professional life, community, health or finances. That ‘goodwill reservoir’ can dissolve when people reach their limits. Of course, that is not personal and often, it can be temporary. Yes, it can feel like disrespect when someone doesn’t do what you hope they will, especially if you don’t understand why. If it’s not the kind of relationship you want to save or navigate, there’s no rule that you must stay friends when it no longer serves you.

Friendships Can Change and End

Not every friendship will last, some are fleeting and perfect for the season you found each other in. That’s okay too. Sometimes you lose touch with each other, and can’t possibly think of a good reason why that happened and it’s easy to rekindle. Other times, too much difference has grown between your values, goals, hopes, priorities, or interests. And the friendship doesn’t have enough shared purpose to stick.

Play the Long Game With Friends Whenever Possible

Even when it’s hard to keep navigating through shifts in a friendship, keep rebuilding that bridge even when it feels too fragile to hold your mutual expectations. Why? Friendships are worth the effort and close relationships in adulthood become increasingly rare.

Grace and compassion when people are imperfect is also becoming a relic of another time. So when you find it, cherish it and if you mess up, try to repair it. If the other person messes up, don’t ‘ghost’ them. Tell them what went wrong for you and request an apology if necessary.

Seek to understand each other or at the very least, honor the time you spent in the friendship. Because regardless of the outcome, friendship is a special bond, that you grow and learn from.

Go on, call that friend! It’s not too late to reach out and she’ll probably be thrilled to hear from you.

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📚 Buy the book, Repair with Self-Care: Your Guide to the Mom’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Enjoy the gift of more time for you. Self-care support+Moms Rescue Kit.