Inches added to waistlines, dark circles under bloodshot eyes, pacifiers hiding in leather handbags-all women understand the obvious outward ways in which their lives are sure to be changed by the arrival of a baby. Being realistic, they also know there`ll be adjustments in their married lives. Much less likely to be anticipated are the puzzling changes that will affect their friendships from pregnancy through their children`s teenage years.
During her pregnancy, Bonnie swore she`d never fall into the trap of baby talk.
”Don`t let me bore you with all that,” she told her best friend, Carol.
But after the baby was born, Carol carried things a bit too far. She acted as if the baby didn`t exist.
Carol expected their long telephone conversations about books and movies to continue uninterrupted, wanted dinners with their two husbands to be unaffected by infant sniffles and the difficulties of finding baby-sitters. Eventually, they drifted apart. Bonnie still misses Carol, but now that Bonnie is pregnant for a second time, she doesn`t think they`ll ever get back together.
Peggy and her neighbor, Julie, had absolutely nothing in common. Peggy read through piles of classics while Julie watched soap operas. They`d exchanged no more than a neighborly ”hello” before Peggy`s daughter was born. Then Julie, whose boy was 2, invited Peggy to drop in anytime. One day, desperate for company, Peggy did. After half an hour spent listening to Julie detail her son`s toilet training, Peggy said she had to start dinner and ran home vowing never to return. But loneliness won out, and she has called Julie more than once. If nothing else, at least they share the kids.
The day after she and her husband moved to their new apartment, Marla`s upstairs neighbor, Linda, brought over a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Each woman had a 3-year-old son, and before long they and their kids became constant companions. They went to the zoo, rode bicycles and sat at the sandbox together. Marla couldn`t have been happier. Then September came. Linda returned to her teaching job, her son to his day-care center. Marla mourned her loss for weeks, tried to make weekend dates, but discovered that Linda preferred to be with her husband. The two families got together, but it just wasn`t the same.
Throughout every woman`s life, friendships are made, change and are lost. When we go off to college, take a new job, move, marry or get divorced, we disturb not only our personal lives but also the relationships we have with other women. Why should we be surprised to find the equilibrium of our friendships shifting when we become mothers?
In fact, just a couple`s decision to have a child can affect friendships. ”For a woman who isn`t having a baby either through choice or because it hasn`t yet happened,” says Myra Leifer, psychologist and author, ”it`s extremely painful and difficult when her friends begin having babies.”
Women who have waited to have children until their late 20s or early 30s may encounter problems of infertility. Months and even years can pass between the decision and the pregnancy. A normal interest in the latest ideas on how to improve chances for conception can grow to an obsession. A woman who is not involved in her own effort to become pregnant may find a friend`s nervous preoccupation with her menstrual cycle tedious and even embarrassing.
When Wendy suggested casually that she and her friend, Ellen, have dinner, she didn`t know whether to laugh or blush at Ellen`s refusal. It seemed that night was the one on which Ellen expected to ovulate. She and her husband were planning to spend it alone, taking full advantage of the opportunity. Wendy understood their purpose but wondered aloud how dinner after work could interfere. Ellen, a bit embarrassed now herself, explained that she and her husband wanted to spend a romantic evening so that their efforts would be more than mechanical.
Even when the pregnancy has been preceded by months of openly discussed
”trying,” a woman may worry about her friends` reactions to the news. And her worries will not be unfounded.
”Even for women who are committed to an involving career, the announcement of a friend`s pregnancy can cause some twinges,” says Joel Block, coauthor with Diane Greenberg of ”Women and Friendship” (Franklin Watts, $17.95).
Recognizing this, Sue felt uncomfortable revealing the exciting news to her best friend, Connie. Single at 33, Connie had an excellent job but no likely prospects for marriage. Sue sat through an entire lunch of intimate conversation keeping it back.
Then, as they left the restaurant, she blurted out: ”I`m pregnant.”
Connie congratulated her warmly, disguising her displeasure over Sue`s peculiar saving of the news. It was the first time to her knowledge that either of them had had a secret from the other.
Such longtime friendships, those based on two women being primary to each other, suffer the most when one of the women becomes pregnant. The nonpregnant woman may feel left behind. Especially if she is single, she may find herself alone, her friend and her friend`s husband suddenly more exclusive than newlyweds. If they`ve regularly made outings as a companionable threesome, this can be most painful. A couple may become a closed family circle months before the child is born.
The offer of an honorary ”aunt-ship” hardly helps when one is faced with this drastic change in what Lillian Rubin, author of ”Just Friends”
(Harper & Row, $7.95), calls ”the internal dynamics on both sides of a relationship.” Some of the tension can be relieved if the single woman is able to face her own feelings.
Rubin adds: ”If she is angry at a friend for being too involved with a lot of boring pregnancy talk, it will help for her to understand that part of the issue is that she is envious. If she can own up to that envy, she will be better able to hang on to the relationship.”
Even the most well-adjusted woman will experience a renewal of unhappy feelings once the baby is born. ”At that point,” says Eva Margolies, author of ”The Best of Friends, the Worst of Enemies” (Pocket Books, $4.50), ”the friend who does not have the child may feel even more rejected. To some extent we look to our women friends almost as surrogate mothers. And it`s a fact that the woman with the child now has very different interests.”
For a friendship to continue, it`s important for the new mother to recognize her old friend`s discomfort or boredom with the discussion of babies. Of course, she expects to be asked about the child`s health and well being. But once this has been discussed for a reasonable amount of time, it is up to the new mother to ask after her friend`s interests. And, for the nonmother, it`s helpful to remember that her friend`s most intense infatuation with the baby is temporary.
”The thing that concerns a woman most,” Margolies says, ”is when a friend, for whatever reason, does not plug into her current interest. This is true whether the interest is a baby or a promotion at work.”
When Jean`s longtime friend, Holly, became pregnant, it took all of Jean`s patience to continue their frequent phone calls. Holly had sustained Jean through many a dark time in her love life, and that alone kept Jean listening to successive worries about pregnancy, labor and nursing. For three months after the baby`s birth, Holly remained in a trance of sleepy involvement, while Jean fought a childish craving for their old warm interactions. Then, when the baby finally starting napping, to Jean`s delight, the Holly she remembered reappeared, making her extremely glad she`d stuck it out.
Less deeply rooted friendships-those based on only one area of connection, such as participation in a particular sport, hobby or professional association-won`t make it through this period of change. When a once-a-week tennis date no longer can be kept, a friendship supported by nothing more will die a quiet death.
This is most obvious for a woman who decides to quit her job and stay home with the baby. Automatically she will see less of her work friends.
”For women who stay home,” Leifer says, ”it`s often a very difficult time. A lot of their social relationships and friendships were centered around work.” And, as Rubin points out, ”If that`s all they share, the friendships may not survive.”
Further complications ensue for women who stay home.
”When a woman gives up her job,” Block says, ”there may be a strain on the couple`s budget. This can ripple into their friendships with other nonparent couples in terms of doing things together, like meeting in town for dinner.”
A pizza at the new parents` apartment hardly substitutes, especially if the baby is whimpering in the next room and the nonparent couple is exchanging not-so-discrete irritated glances.
Should the new mother let the baby cry and disturb the peace, or should she drag him out to be nursed, an even bigger distraction from conversation?
Inevitably it becomes most comfortable for couples with new babies to get together with other parents. As Margolies says, ”When people no longer share the same primary interest, when their lives go in two different directions, there is bound to be this separation or parting of the ways.”
The need to talk about what has become central to her life leads a woman to seek friends with similar interests. ”When people assume a new role,”
Rubin says, ”they always look for others who are already in that role or are assuming it with them. Sharing the experience makes the transition easier.”
Women make new friends in Lamaze classes or at the obstetrician`s office. Sometimes, as in the case of Barbara and Dorothy, hospital roommates become friends while learning how to nurse their babies. These two chatted all day, barely making time for visitors. They exchanged telephone numbers and, as soon as they could, met for afternoons of visiting and child care.
”For a time after the birth of a child, a woman`s friendships may be more focused on women who also have small children,” Block says. ”It`s a unique experience in terms of exhaustion, coping and joy. She will be more drawn to women who share that experience with her.”
This accounts for the proliferation of children`s play groups. In many ways they serve a higher function as mothers` support systems than as get-togethers for children. Once a week Milly takes her 9-month-old daughter to
”play” with youngsters ranging from 3 months to 3 years. Usually the only interactions among the children are squabbles over toys. But between changing diapers and wiping noses, the mothers take deep comfort in discussing problems that they have had or are about to have.
The modern-day demise of the extended family increases a woman`s devotion to her play group. So often a new mother lives hundreds of miles from the grandmothers, sisters and aunts who in the past helped with the overwhelming task of caring for an infant. And more than being relieved of part of the physical burden, a woman needs to know she is not the only one who feels confused about her new situation.
”It`s a very wonderful sharing experience for mothers of children of all ages,” comments Margolies on the benefits of play groups.
”There is really not enough acknowledgment of the tremendous ways having a baby changes your life. To be able to sit down and say, `I`m having a problem,` and to hear another mother say, `I`ve had that problem, too,` gives a sense of confirmation. The feelings of inadequacy, of being overburdened, of not knowing what to do, are tremendously alleviated by talking to other women in the same position.”
Beginning with the earliest days of pregnancy, working mothers face other problems. At the office, even before obvious physical changes take place, a woman may begin to feel a difference. Pregnant and exhausted, she may have what Leifer calls ”a sense of living in two worlds.”
A woman who returns to work after her baby is born will not have time to participate in daytime play groups. At the office she may feel the need to repress the motherly side of herself. Once the initial curiosity about her child is satisfied with photographs, she may find that her coworkers have little interest in that part of her life. While her work-based friendships carry on as usual, her craving for the
”A woman may engage in many peer groups simultaneously,” Leifer says.
”She may feel a reluctance to talk at work about parenting, even with other parents.
”Thus, while she continues with her work relationships, she may also feel the need to communicate with other women on issues of parenthood. Very often the worlds of these friendships are completely separate.”
How many women have time for two sets of friends?
”If the new mother is also working outside the home,” Block says,
”between her job and taking care of a young child or an infant, she`s going to have her hands full-energy-wise and emotionally. She may not have the reserve left for any friends.”
Even worse for old friendships, Block says, ”She may wish to spend whatever spare time she does have with others who share her new interest, preferring the focus of any get-togethers to be on children. There is nothing unusual or `wrong` about this.”
Friendships based on motherhood alone are no less subject to disintegration than any other single purpose relationship.
A once-staunch play group participant may return to part-time work or simply reach the point at which talking exclusively of children no longer satisfies her. Then she may choose to ease away from those members with whom she has nothing in common except motherhood. The circle of mothers will resolve into individuals, some of whom she may retain as friends.
”Friendships or acquaintanceships based only on the convenience of the moment do not last,” Margolies says. ”Two women can `use` each other to good purpose. If they have a mutual interest and, by sharing it, they both benefit, that`s very positive. But when that bond no longer exists, the chances are that the friendship will no longer exist.”
As our children grow, we continue to feel a need for sharing feelings, problems and events with other mothers.
”One of the initial requirements of friendship,” Block says, ”is the opportunity to meet somebody. This can occur at a soccer field, or at Little League, or through the PTA. Children`s activities offer natural beginnings for communication.”
Greta and Helen met in the audience section of their children`s drama class. After their 7-year-old boy and girl acted out fairy tales, they`d make a mother-child foursome for lunch.
They continued bringing the children together to play until one day Greta`s son decided he no longer cared for girls.
Now the two women take long walks without the youngsters and find greater satisfaction than ever in their uninterrupted conversations.
But these child-based relationships are just as likely to work out the other way. When children who have been the cement in a friendship draw apart, their mothers may do so also.
Block says: ”Friendships vary in intensity and degree of intimacy. They may start with many kinds of contact, but whether or not they last depends on chemistry.”
In the end, it`s that chemistry, the presence or absence of an almost magical connection, that determines the life span of a friendship.
The most vital and lasting friendships are, as Rubin writes in her book,
”bound together by a complex set of emotional ties that include love and obligation and a thousand moments in the past that bring meaning to the present.”
Two women lucky enough to have that special kind of friendship will work hard to make certain that it lasts through every change in life stage, including motherhood.
And what of the ones that don`t? ”It`s really important to understand,” Margolies says, ”that not all friendships are meant to last forever. We can save ourselves a lot of disappointment if we understand that certain women suit our needs in a very positive way for a certain period of time.
”Rather than feeling disappointed when these friendships end, we should feel good about having shared a part of our lives with someone who, for whatever length of time, meant something special to us.”
