Do You Value Your Friendship Before And After Motherhood

Friendship Before And After Motherhood

What is everyone’s friendship looking like since becoming a mother? Has it gotten better or worse? What is the value of friendship before and after motherhood?

Friendship levels since mother hood has definitely changed. To say it changed for the better or worse might be an understatement. Most of the single friends or the friends that don’t have kids tend to hang out with the people who have the same status as them. They slowly phase themselves out of gatherings that involve children in most cases. Birthday parties and celebrations of any type start to have less friends and more acquaintances through your kids or kid related relationships.

Friendship Before Motherhood

I definitely understand it because before I had kids myself, the only kids activities I participated in were for my niece and nephews. Other than that, I wasn’t too interested in watching parents chasing after their children. Having to listen to children screaming and crying outside of my work was not something of interest.

I worked with kids for so long that, away from work, I wasn’t too interested in kids event.s Occasionally, I would be invited to birthday parties of the kids at work and I would attend, but it wasn’t a regular thing. Outside of work, I just wanted to do my own thing with my friends, without having to deal with more kids, so I understand how others might feel as well.

Friendship After Motherhood

Then slowly, you start making friendships with mothers who have kids within the same age group or have similar interests. Most of the time it will involve kids in someway. Whether it’s a play date or a school event, you start gathering in parent groups. You start sharing your stories with one another and many times, you’ll see that they are or were on the same boat as you at some of time in their parenthood/motherhood.

That’s when the friendship starts to development. When you find someone who can agree with you or experience similar things, you start to create a bond. You realize that this person or these people will understand what you are going through and will not make judgements, for the most part.

Friendship That I Miss

I must say that sometimes I miss being with friends without all of our children there. Just to be able to go out to eat and enjoy a good time without having to chase after kids, or wiping their mouth and hands full of food. What I miss the most is being able to just drop things and go for a drink, to relax from a hard day at work.

I miss not having to be home because it’s getting late for kids bedtimes. (I wasn’t too strict with bedtimes on the weekends). The spontaneous trips without having to pack EVERYTHING the kids need is something I miss as well. Nowadays when we try to go somewhere, the kids things come first before mine.

Friendship Before And After Motherhood

And then there’s friendship that maintained from before motherhood and continues on until motherhood, mainly because of children. Friends before having kids, start having children around the same time. It helps them close in time and continue their friendship as mothers. The friendship carries on with more conversations about children, but you can still pick up where you left off as “friends” before mothers.

But motherhood is a different type of life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Whether the friendships change for the better or the worse, I’m content with my friendships now. People come and people go in life and it’s just the circle of life. So friendship since motherhood has changed but it’s a new relationship. It’s almost like building a relationship with an accountability partner (other than your spouse). They can help you walk through this parenting path with you.

Quotes About Friends

• “To the world you may be just one person, but to one person, you may be the world.” ~Dr. Seuss

• “Friends are the siblings God never gave us.” ~ Mencius

• “I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.” ~ Helen Keller

• “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” ~ Walter Winchell

• “Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” ~ Muhammad Ali

• “Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” ~ Oprah Winfrey

• “If you live to be a hundred, I hope I live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.” ~ Winnie The Pooh

• “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” ~ C.S. Lewis

• “For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.” ~ Audrey Hepburn

• “If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together… there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart… I’ll always be with you.” ~ Winnie The Pooh

• “A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.” ~ William Shakespeare

• “The greatest gift of life is friendship, and I have received it.” ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

• “A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.” ~Charles Darwin

• “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.” ~ C. S. Lewis

• “The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity.” ~ Ulysses S. Grant

• “To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.” ~ Barack Obama

• “Where would you be without friends? The people to pick you up when you need lifting? We come from homes far from perfect, so you end up almost parent and sibling to your friends – your own chosen family. There’s nothing like a really loyal, dependable, good friend. Nothing.” ~Jennifer Aniston

• “There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.” ~ Linda Grayson

• “There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends.” ~ Jane Austen

• “Women’s friendships are like a renewable source of power.” ~ Jane Fonda

• “The only way to have a friend is to be one.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

• “When the world is so complicated, the simple gift of friendship is within all of our hands.” ~ Maria Shriver