'I cry about it a lot.' 12 women share how their friendships changed after having kids.

Late last year I went to Sydney with two of my oldest Brisbane girlfriends to visit one of our other oldest friends for her 40th birthday. My Brisbane friends and I all have children, while our Sydney friend is child-free.

For two glorious days and nights, it felt like I’d stepped back 15 years. There were no children around demanding babycinos while we sipped our lattes and chatted each morning, no toddler to fight with about getting in the pram when we went for a beautiful walk beside the harbour, no time we had to be home by when we went for a long boozy lunch (which cost the same price per person as my family’s weekly grocery bill), no small person begging to be twirled when we were dancing around my friend’s lounge room to 90s classics, no one climbing on me and wanting the channel changed when we lolled on the couch hungover and watched Sex and the City reruns. 

It was just wonderful to be with my girlfriends. I tried to soak in every second of this time together, filling myself up with joyful child free girl time, basking in the ease of long held friendships where you know everything about each other. But throughout the weekend I found myself feeling unexpectedly sad at intervals, and regularly tearful (and not just because of the champagne) about this special time with my friends.

Watch: The things people say before having kids. Post continues after video.

It took me quite a few days after our return home to work out what was going on, and why amid such joy, I had still felt so sad. Then I realised, even while I was there, experiencing this lovely time with my friends, I was nostalgic for the way things used to be. Spending time with just my girlfriends (no husbands or children present) was so rare and so precious that it made me sad. I adore my family, but I felt a deep melancholic nostalgia for the way my friendships used to be before I had children. 

I am extremely lucky that most of my friendships (a couple faded) continued post-children, and I have made many new friends too. But friendships are different now. We’re all so busy with work and kids that venturing over 10 minutes from home gets hard. But when I do catch up with friends, the way we see and connect with each other is so different now. 

No longer can we phone each other on a Saturday afternoon to see what the other is up to, spend an hour on the phone chatting, then decide to meet each other for a wine, which turns into drinks, onto dinner, and then a late movie. Instead, six weeks in advance, we sync our diaries and find a night where we can all somehow wrangle partners, a parent, a sibling or a babysitter to be on kid duty so we can cram in a meal and catch up on as much conversation as we can before we need to get home to bed so we can be up all night to breastfeed, or up at 5am with an energetic toddler. 

Otherwise, we organise things that suit the kids, like coffee dates at the playground where we snatch minutes of conversation between pushing kids on swings, helping toddlers do the monkey bars, breaking up fights about who gets to use the spinner-thing next, and chasing children around with hats they need to wear. 

I wanted to know how other people felt about how their friendships had changed since children had entered the equation and asked the Mamamia community for their experiences.

Here's what they had to say.

1. "I found my friendships became deeper after having a child; I think this was because I understood myself and my values better."

2. "I’m in my fifties and have a bunch of long-term girlfriends who all had kids, and I didn’t. There has been an ebb and flow to these friendships, and I did do a lot of compromising to fit into their lives and schedules with kids. When the kids were young, I found there was a lot of school talk and parenting talk, and my life and experiences didn’t get discussed much. But I had other friends without children to travel and share things with. As this bunch of friends have got older and their children have grown up, it’s shifted again. Many of them are now finding life a bit lonely without their children at the centre of it. We still have great catch ups now where we dance to 80s music and talk about our younger lives, and we’ve shared so much together - divorce, cancer, medical and mental health issues."

3. "I am in a same-sex relationship, and we have two toddlers. A lot of my queer friends do not have children and don’t want them. I used to be very close to some of these friends but have found that since kids we’ve drifted. I feel like they only want to see me without the kids around and often the catch ups are at really inconvenient times for me. I have however strengthened my friendship with other rainbow families, which has been very special."

4. "I had my baby about six months ago and have always been one of those people with just a couple of really close 'ride or die' friends. My best friend and I are so close that I invited her to my birth, and I named my baby after her. We’d always talked about being each other’s family when we had kids – have Christmas together, be aunties to each other’s children. But after a few initial visits, she went AWOL. I have had postpartum anxiety and depression and she hasn’t been there for me at all. I know she’s busy and has a life of her own, but I am so disappointed that my best friend in the world has let me down."

5. "I didn’t actually have many friends pre-kids. But after I had twins in 2020, I found connections through a birth association, including another mum of twins. I wouldn’t say we’re close friends yet, but they are the closest to a support crew/group of friends I’ve had in my entire life."

6. "I’m the awesome child-free aunty and godmother. I go to the school assemblies and sports days when invited. Sometimes I’m not invited to a 'kids and parents get together' and that can sting a little – but I understand, it’s life, I can’t be upset about it."

Listen to How A To Build A Human where Leigh Campbell speaks to some of Australia’s best-known parents to work out the perfect ingredients it takes to raise a well-rounded child. Post continues after podcast.

7. "I’m 56 and have had the same friendship group since high school. Nothing changed when I had children, as we all had our kids around the same time. Our kids grew up together, and now we’re all becoming grandparents together. It has been wonderful."

8. "My best friend (who doesn’t want children and is single) has stepped up in a huge way. She’s been my biggest supporter. She’s my daughter’s godmother and loves and supports my kids in a huge way. She even has a car seat in her car and looked after my daughter when I had my son. We still do a lot together, but she does a lot with me and my family instead now. For example, she now comes for Wednesday night dinner and games when we used to do dinner and the pub quiz together."

9. "I still have lots of lovely friends since having kids – both with children and child-free. I just find it so hard to find time together, and the friendships have drifted because of this. I have had conversations with one of my child-free friends about her feeling that she’s not prioritised, and I hate she feels like that, but the truth is she isn’t prioritised by me in the same way. I’m just so busy with three kids, work, my partner, the house, and ageing parents. I have school mum friends who I’ve become closer to which is great, but I hate that my long-term friendships have changed."

10. "I found it really hard as a full-time working mum because my friends who work two to three days per week want to schedule time without their kids, which is totally understandable, but when you work full-time, it’s the last thing you want because you miss your kids so much already! I’ve found working full-time so hard and isolating. You don’t quite fit into the mum’s groups as you’re always at work, and you don’t fit into work friend groups because you need to race home to get your children before childcare closes. Plus, you just have so little personal time, it makes it hard to invest in friendships."

11. "We moved interstate just before I had my first baby and I was terrified about not having a support network, but I made so many new friends. We live in the country now and I went to the local playgroup and library story time and I had 10 new friends. I miss my friends from before, but I know those friendships would’ve changed anyway with the move, so now I just enjoy getting to the big smoke (Brisbane) every few months and going for fancy dinners with my friends there."

12. "I cry a lot about this. My baby was quite premature, so we had weeks of him in hospital and then let a very small family-focused life for the first few months. My friends were great, they texted, called, dropped over meals, but I have honestly just been so busy with my bub for the last year. My friends are still there and I’m there for them, and we still love each other heaps, but there’s just no opportunity to see each other at the moment, and I don’t know how long that will be the case."

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Feature Image: Supplied.