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I’m so excited to share this detailed how-to guide for female friendships after kids. Grab a cup of coffee and I’ll share my infinite wisdom with you. ;)
How-to have amazing female friendships after kids, a step by step guide:
- Simply schedule a happy hour, coffee date or weekend away with your female friends. Easy peasy! Right?!
- Cancel scheduled event due to a sick kid, lack of babysitter or any number of other things that will likely come up.
- Text, email and keep up on Facebook because that’s about as good as it gets most days.
- Give up on your idea of what a female friendship should be.
- Embrace that an “amazing female friendship” after kids is one that allows for all of the things that happen without guilt and you still pick up where you left off if/when you finally get together. When you get together, it will likely be with kids.
OK, I’m NO expert at keeping friendships strong after kids. That title is a total lie! I’m sorry. So sorry. Kids add a crazy amount of joy, love, amazing living in the moment type of moments, gratitude and so much more to my life. And my children are two of three loves of my life. Nothing will change that.
But…
Kids change marriage. And kids change friendships. In a big way, am I right? It’s no longer easy. Actually, it’s super complicated to do something as simple as grab dinner and a cocktail with a girlfriend. We have to work around bedtimes, dinner times, family plans, guilt (damn guilt) and more. Oh and driving 20 miles to meet a friend feels like such a hassle, doesn’t it? We tend to just spend our time with friends who are closer and more convenient because of this.
I’ve been incredibly fortunate to maintain solid friendships with my high school friends, college friends and also make some amazing new friends in our neighborhood and in my children’s preschool. I also have a few friends who I know mostly through blog groups and texting. I know it’s weird, but one of my best friends is a friendship like that.
Some of those friendships are easy. So easy. Some are easy because the friend is such a close deep friend that you never have to think about it. This can be a problem too, because you might not make the time you need to for each other, but your love and closeness never fades. This is the case with a couple of very close college friends and with many of my high school friends. I have a group of five high school friends and we rarely get together but when we do, it’s laughter, fun, dancing, singing and complete trust.
Another easy one is with a friend who has two boys the ages of my boys. We naturally see each other on Mondays and Fridays at school pick-up. And in the spring, summer and fall, we get together at least once a week in the easiest way, just meeting at the park after school. This friendship was the most unexpected blessing for me. I never set out to make a friend the night we met. I never planned for it to become something, but it naturally evolved into a super easy, comfortable friendship. I trust this person, find her to be very drama-free and simply fun to spend time with. I’ve come to love her boys so much and I’m grateful that we both bring loads of snacks for our hungry boys who always want what the other mom has. We compare potty training notes. We chat about our hopes and dreams for our kids, our marriages and our careers. We also just chase our kids sometimes. It’s more fun with her even when we have zero time to chat.
Friendships might not be what they used to be, but they matter. I hope and pray that I’ll have more time or things will be easier soon, but I know that life will always be busy.
How will I make the time I need to make for friendships? I honestly don’t know. I don’t get enough time with my own immediate family (kids and husband), my grandma, mom, brother and sister-in-law and nearly no alone time other than work. We don’t make time for date nights. I don’t have enough time for my health. I don’t have enough time for dishes and laundry. Time is limited for all of us.
Lately, we’ve started thinking about trying more Saturday nights in with friends, cocktails, potluck dinner, play time. I don’t know if this is the solution for this season or not, but it’s something that could work.
This is something I’m thinking about a lot lately and hoping to figure out. It’s a messy messy juggle and while I wish things could be easier and we could run off for a girls weekend or a happy hour whenever the mood strikes, I’m grateful for all of these women who surround me with light, grace, forgiveness and understanding in this season of life.
The Best Part of Life by Glennon Doyle Melton
Let’s keep sistering on, shall we? Do you have any ideas for how to juggle friendship with all of life’s other priorities? Any good ways of getting together? Any encouragement on this one?
Oh Jessica! This is so perfect! Friendships ARE hard to maintain even when your kiddos are older! Thank you for your prespective :)
Thanks so much for stopping by Becky! So good to know that it’s not just us mamas of little ones. Time. Oh how there is never enough time.
You tricked me! I thought I was going to have it all figured out after reading this. ;) You articulated this “issue” so well! Moving to a new area has been hard- it took me years to build friendships back home and due to that happening around kids, they weren’t the quality of friendship I really desired. Now I’m in a new area and making the time and effort to hang out with someone you barely know (but might become a super close friend one day if you’d only try!) is tough. and sadly when people aren’t texters, I often catch myself thinking “then we can never be friends!” How terrible is that?! anyway, I think one suggestion–not solution–is not to compare friendships today to college friends. I do that often but it’s such an unrealistic comparison! Anyway, I can say I literally thanked God for you just yesterday! Love you FRIEND!
Oh gosh, I could go on and on about this subject. It’s so multi layered!
I think it was far easier to make friendships when my kids were young, because now all the parents are too wrapped up in kids sports & activities. Plus, it’s extremely difficult to bond with women at this stage, like I did in college & mid-20’s.
One of the best solutions to finding time has always been to have a standing ‘ladies night’. And even if there are 15 ladies within the group, I would only really hit it off with 2. Like I said above, making “real” meaningful connections is much harder as we get older.
I also think it starts with who you marry and have children with. I’ve never had a second thought about leaving my kids with my husband while I get together with my girls; whether it was for a few hours or an entire girls weekend away. And honestly, I never understand why a child being sick makes a woman back out of her plans. Shouldn’t ‘dad’ be able to handle that?
Anyway, those are just some of my initial thoughts. Like I said, I could talk for hours about this! LOL
Good subject!
Well said! It’s always a balancing act and it goes in cycles :-)
Just as long as we all keep trying, I think that is all that matters! Your words are genuine and so true! ;-)
While we are in much different places in our life, I feel that our distance puts the biggest damper on our friendship, but we don’t let it ruin us. I truly love the fact that we allow our friendship to pick up where it left off! Love you, Friend!
Love you, Friend. This post was on point. I do not have any brilliant ideas but rather my perspective on female friendship time – quality not quantity. When I get the chance to hangout with my favorite ladies I make sure I am all in, I’m present, because those are the memories that will hold me over until the next time – which is who knows when. In fact I still LOL when I think of a bathroom incident on a recent girls trip. . It’s priceless time for sure.
I don’t even have kiddos yet and I think friendships are still hard to maintain with everyone’s busy lives! I always think to myself to reach out and ask someone to do something, but then the minute passes and I completely forget, and get busy! The thing that has helped me the most is to be open to doing anything in order to chat with a friend! If it’s a nice meal at a restaurant, glass of wine on my couch, or a fun new workout I try to fit it into my schedule! I definitely need to work on building my friendships, it’s tough when you don’t see people daily like in high school and college!
Wow! I love the article and the BEST part is reading everyone’s responses to the article! Nice blog! XOXO
LOVE this post! It is so true! The fact that we both live in Minneapolis. I’ve been here now for 3 years and have YET to find time to get together for coffee with you is proof that this is so true! I’ve found that I get girl time really only during couples date night. I’ve also begun to do couples football game parties and game nights. This helps. One-on-one girl time is harder, but since I work from home, am able to sneak in a lunch every now and then. On that note….we must SCHEDULE a lunch soon! That seems to be the only way I actually get girl time is if it’s scheduled. So sad.
I agree! Making friends with women with kids is so hard. For me is a schedule thing too.
Love this – it IS hard! But I think the best of friends are OK with a couple “thinking of you” texts sent sporadically during the intense kid years and know your friendship is still solid. I know I am :)