There is no doubting the fact that motherhood changes every single aspect of your life including your friendships. Before bringing my daughters into the world, I was only 17 and my only responsibilities were making it to work on time at the call centre. At that point in my life, I only had a short period between lockdown restrictions nearly completely lifting and falling pregnant during that time which was only about three months that I spent either with my boyfriend or my friends socialising, going out getting dressed up and constantly on my phone chatting and planning things. Nowadays I am lucky if I can get a minute to respond to texts or FaceTime calls from my family never mind organising, planning or going out solo with friends.
As a stay-at-home mum who is with her daughters 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, I often feel I have nothing interesting to say to someone who does not have kids in the sense that my everyday life ‘chat’ would or could bore them. Truth be told, I get super nervous around people who do not have children of their own and that is due to my lack of social interactions with my age group. I panic inside and convince myself that I have no idea what to talk about or how to spark a conversation with those who are not parents. I admit to feeling incredibly insecure around these people because my main topics of interest revolve around mum life and my daughters. Most of my friends and people my age are graduating or travelling and I truly think that too is an amazing achievement but In my 20 years of life I have only left the UK twice so again I feel insecure as to what input I can give in those catch-up conversations. I left school when I was 16 weeks before the nation was locked down, In 2022 I became self-employed working from home as a Lash Technician. One client in particular has now become a lifelong friend of mine. There is only 6 months between Jasmine and her son. The best part is that we get each other, It’s ok if it takes three working days to reply to a simple text because we are in the same boat. Our kids love their play dates to our local soft play while get to sit and chat and enjoy a hot drink together talking about our struggles and joys of parenthood. We know we can lean on each other whenever one of us needs a break or a helping hand. We can unashamedly cry when it gets too much because we both get it. Being a mum is no doubt one of the hardest but most rewarding jobs out there. I would never expect someone without children to understand. We have such little time for ourselves that sometimes friendships come at the expense and balancing your social life is challenging when you have such little people who depend on you. Needless to say, I and many other loving parents would not have it any other way.
When I fell pregnant with Jasmine I felt so much changed quickly, at that time I felt like my friends had forgotten about me. Looking back as an older wiser young woman I could not have been further from the truth. I look back at my 17-year-old self and can see things a lot clearer now. Not that I ever wanted to consume alcohol during my pregnancy but did feel kind of left out not getting invited to pubs and clubs anymore which I took greatly to heart. I would never have admitted this at the time but I started shutting a lot of people out quite early on in my pregnancy. I struggled a lot with prenatal depression and anxiety which is something I have never really spoken about before. I rarely left my bedroom at all towards the end of my pregnancy. I forced myself to sleep a lot during the day to run away from the problems I was faced with mentally. Everyone has a fight-or-flight survival mode innately in us. I guess it was part of my flight survival instinct that cost me my friends. The crazy part is I used to feel abandoned by my friends but In reality, I wasn’t losing friends at all, I was merely moving on to the next chapter of my life and so were they. Everyone has their journey and path to walk. Many people will come and go throughout your life naturally and you can either choose to be bitter and resentful or grateful for the memories you share and made. Dwelling on past friendships can make it difficult to make new ones, there are friends I haven’t spoken to in years but I know we would never walk by one another. There are friends I have reconnected with and friends I met along the way.
I have embraced my new chapter in my life since both my daughters came into the world and I must soak up as much time as I can with my babies, cherishing their love and the sheer joy they bring me every day of my life and that I cannot possibly do or have it all. It was not until I had Jasmine that I acknowledged that if I did have it all I would be thenburning the candle at both ends which leads to burnout. My daughters won't be babies forever and before I know it new chapters begin, I will have more time for a different social life and new people will undoubtedly come into my life. Now I may not have had the experience of girls' holidays like most of my generation but I have a dream to travel with my little girls and show them the world with me. That's my path. Sometimes we do ourselves more harm than good by reminiscing on what we believe we should have been or what we should have or be doing with our lives than losing complete sight of the here and now and what we have now I do say this lightly because it's still undoubtedly tough at the end of the day being parents. I truly believe too that social media doesn't make it any easier for us. You watch the world socialise while you struggle to even bathe. You see many travel living their best lives while we haven’t been out for days on end. Our version of a break these days insists of showering or going to the supermarket alone. You see perfect homes while you're still desperately juggling renovations for months on end. You see everyone’s picture-perfect lives but forget that we all share the often best parts of our lives and that we all have our struggles and issues to deal with in this life.
As for us stay-at-home mums where do we meet new people when we spend most of our days locked away behind ourclosed doors and laundry piles? I have been lucky because some amazing mums have reached out to me via social media so surrounding myself with more people who share the same lifestyle helps me feel less lonely. There is a great comfort in having the right people to turn to and who understand what I might be struggling with as well as giving me advice mum-to-mum. To anyone who resonates, I promise you it does get better. Keep going and never lose hope because I remember calling my mum often after Jasmine was born and a few months after upset because of the loneliness. I hated seeing everyone get together online via social media apps, seeing all of these glam pictures and social gatherings but here was another conundrum I at the time could not bare being apart from my little girl. My mum promised me one day that the right people would walk into my life and that they were right around the corner. She was right! I didn't believe it at the time but two years down the line, I finally met my balance however perfectly out of balance it may be.
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