How to Keep Your Friends When You're a SAHM

We don’t think about breathing – we just breathe – and my friendships with women are as important to me as air. Yet, like breathing, I often take them for granted. Daily life gets in the way. I’m busy.

Since my daughter, Claire, was born in 2011, I’ve focused on family. My friends seem to have taken a back seat to parenting.

I find this reality to be ironic and frustrating because being a mom can be extremely isolating. There seems no better a time to seek the connection, warmth and understanding of the women in my life, and yet, I’ve failed to nurture my relationships the way I should.

I read a book recently which brought the richness of female friendship into focus for me. The HerStories Project: Women Explore the Joy, Pain, and Power of Female Friendship is a collection of essays from over 50 women writers. The authors of this book share their stories of friendship loss, enduring bonds from childhood, navigating the transition to motherhood, and renegotiating the role of friendship in their adult lives. Each author spoke to a different dimension of friendship and it reminded of different women in my life.

It grew in me a great recognition of the value of my frienships.

Along with this recognition came a realization: part of the reason I wasn’t nurturing my friendships was because I was trying to have the same relationships that I had before having my daughter. I was waiting for the time and energy to have a girl’s night out, complete with red wine or tequila, or a stretch of time to take a leisurely stroll through a museum with a coffee afterward. (I have such good memories of doing these things with my friends.)

I finally got honest with myself. If I wanted to connect with my friends more, (particularly the ones who did NOT have children, yet) I had to get a little creative. I had to figure out how to have them be a part of my life as it is now – as a Stay-At-Home Mom who barely has time to take a shower or afford a babysitter.

I started inviting them over for dinner. I’m making my daughter dinner anyway, so it’s no big stretch to make an extra plate. I had to get over my angst and realize that my friends would not mind talking over a bowl of spaghetti Bolognese instead of the Thai Curry that we used to share. I was also banking on the fact that they wouldn’t mind dividing their time between me and my mini-me.

I was surprised how enthusiastically my friends embraced my offer and how much fun we have had together.

It’s been different. We spend less time having heart-to-hearts or long diatribes about “Top Chef.” And we spend more time reading books to Claire and spelling out words that we don’t want my daughter to hear.

But our dinners together have taught me so much about the importance of my female friendships.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what we do together. Time with friends is about being in the same space, looking each other in the eye and recognizing that you have a shared history and a future that has yet to be made.

Tell me, what do you do to nurture your friendships? How do you make time, when time is the one thing you don’t have?

Rachel Demas spends her days with her delightful and frustrating two-year-old, Claire, in New York City. She blogs at The Tao of Poop about the shock and amazement of being a first-time mom. She has contributed writing to the anthology, The Mother of All Meltdowns, and the upcoming anthology, Do Not Disturb: Desperately Seeking Slumber. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter and G+.