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This past week went perfectly, sort of…
I went to work on Monday. I spent time with my kids on Tuesday. I was able to be creative on Wednesday. I got some GREAT news on Thursday. And on Friday we went to a fun family activity.
And the weekend, well the weekend was also pretty good. I successfully accomplished some more work. My husband and I had a double date. (Not the kind of double date you had in college, the kind of double date you have when you have three kids of various ages.)
Dinner and a 3D movie with my husband and our two oldest kids
And to top it off, we ended the week with our 1st family bike ride of the season. It was a successful week as an employee, a volunteer, and a mom…
Yet not so much as a friend.
The 5 Friendship Types
There seems to be a direct connection between motherhood and many things in my life. For instance:
- The longer I am a mother the more confident in motherhood I get.
- The longer I am a mother the more I learn how to better balance my family and work.
YET (more noticeably sometimes to me)
- The longer I am a mother the more I struggle with maintaining friendships.
Last year I wrote a post about the evolution of friendship.
(Go ahead, take a second to go back and visit it, it’s a good one!)
That evolution continues to unfold. As our family’s life gets busier and busier, my friendships get harder and harder to maintain.
This year - Year 8 A.C. (8 years After Children) - with 2 elementary-aged kids and 1 (practically) preschooler, I am now able to categorize all of my friends into one of the following 5 Friendship Types. How about you?
Friendship Type 1: Facebook Friends
These are the friends I manage to somewhat keep up with socially via Facebook. It is very easy to tell if am having a good Facebook-friend-day or a bad Facebook-friend-day by judging the following: (the below list is in order from bad to good Facebook-friend-day)
a.) I never even made it on Facebook
b.) I was able to at least view my Facebook Newsfeed
c.) I actually “liked” a status update or two
d.) I managed to leave a comment on a status update or two
e.) I put up my own rare status update
f.) I updated my status more then once (most likely a sign that I am on vacation)
Friendship Type Positives: Quick and easy.
Friendship Type Negatives: Impersonal. Often doesn’t always give me the support I need or allow me to give the support I would like to give to my friends.
Friendship Type 2: Friends whose kids are involved in my kids’ activities
These are the friends I mostly see because their children are involved with one or more of the same activities as my children. However, don’t discredit these friendships. These friends seem to “get me” the most because they are in the “thick of life” with me.
It is amazing how much you can share with, vent to, and be supported by someone you may only see on the side of a soccer field or via a phone call to organize a coveted carpool!
Friendship Type Positives: I get to see these friends face to face - often multiple times a week!
Friendship Type Negatives: Conversations are frequently interrupted and/or cut short due to the less-then-ideal location and setting.
Friendship Type 3: Mothers’ Center Friends
Due to returning emails, writing blogs, teaching, volunteering, driving around my kids and prioritizing sleep - I tend to not do nearly as much with my local Mothers’ Center group as I used to. Yet I still make it a priority to attend as many Thursday morning meetings as possible. And these hour-and-a-half, discussion-based meetings mean the world to me.
Friendship Type Positives: Forces me to focus on friendship and support once a week.
Friendship Type Negatives: Frustration due to the lack of time to form better relationships with these women.
Friendship Type 4: Friends who live within eyesight*
Because we do so much driving around to my kids’ activities, on our days off we usually just want to stay close to home. I am lucky to live in a neighborhood with a lot of kids in it, and many of these kids’ parents have now also become my friends.
*Note: In the above friendship type, “eyesight” is key because, if I can’t see you, you don’t count! This is primarily due to my 2-year-old. (I’m hoping the older my kids get, the more square feet we can cover and include some more out-of-eye-sight neighbors!)
Friendship Type Positives: Kids play, parents talk, laundry still gets done - simultaneously!
Friendship Type Negatives: Weather. (Rain, hail, sleet, snow… I live in Ohio! Weather is ridiculously unpredictable!)
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Friendships are important to me. Having other women as friends - to add to the support of my family - is not only good for my own sanity, but also for the sanity of my husband and children! There is nothing like a good girlfriend. (or two!)
Yet keeping solid friendships as a priority in my life continues to be a struggle.
So I guess, if you’re not on Facebook, don’t have kids involved in soccer, piano, swimming, speech, T-ball or Kindermusik, live within eyesight of my front or back yard, or belong to my Mothers’ Center you unfortunately fall into:
Friendship Type 5: The Long-lost Friend.
These are the friends who I think about constantly, but who don’t quite fit into my life as much as I’d like them to at the present moment.
And I miss them…
For now. Or until Year 9 A.C. - when I am certain that my friendship evolution will evolve again…
Leave a Comment: How do you work to make maintaining your friendships more of a priority? What type of friendship categories would you put on your list?
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s so true; adding friendships to the juggling mix is tricky. Right now it’s easier with my gal to connect over playdates, but that’s as you say,those are fraught with choppy, distracted, half finished conversations. Finding time to actually go out with friends or have friends over for a semi non-kid focused moment is a challenge. I imagine when the child-centered life winds down though that the tried and true folks will be waiting at the end…hopefully…having navigated the same waters. Good post, as always!
That’s my hope too Pamela - that the friends are still waiting for me afterwards. The problem is: I still need them now… the juggling mix IS definitely tricky.
Great post, Kate. This is such a hard issue! I know I myself always struggle with maintaining more than the Facebook-type relationship with long distance friends, and many of those who I would consider the best friends I have ever made fall into this category. One of my goals is the next year is to figure out a way to be better at that! And, even with local people I feel so out of the loop with all the changes and increased demands on my time this year…the past week, I’ve barely even been on Facebook !
With all the limitations of using Facebook to maintain friendships, the one positive is that it has kept me in touch with friends whom I might have lost all touch with because of these “busy family years.” It is a constant juggle Sara. At least you seem to acknowledged that there is friendship/life/work unbalance currently for you. For me, the first step to fixing any imbalance is recognizing that it’s there and then committing to fix it (even if it means just taking “baby steps” in the beginning).
Wonderful post! So on target on so many levels.
Thank you Karen!
Sadly, that about sums it up!
With the ever increasing demands on my time, I depend a lot on emails, text messages and Facebook. I know it’s not perfect, but it allows me to at least keep in touch and let the other person know I’m thinking of them. A lot of my friends are just as busy juggling it all as well so hopefully understand.
Sometimes I look at email, Facebook, and texting as negative factors in maintaining my friendships … but I really do believe that the positives of these forms of communication totally outweigh the negatives - primarily in that they are at least a way to still keep me connected to friends when I have no other means.
And yes! Just as you said, I too am hopeful that since a lot of my friends are just as busy as me juggling it all that they will understand and still be there when things slow down. (Things will slow down, right???)