your childfree friends are worth it

i don’t have any advice for how to make mom friends, that took me a while. my only advice is to pay attention to the moms who come out of the woodwork.

there are so many people from different chapters of my life who re-emerged as i began going through the completely universal yet totally unique transition into motherhood.

i don’t know much about how to make mom friends. what i do know is how to invest in the friendships that were there long before you got knocked up.

what i do know know is how to reject the narrative that childfree friends don’t make good friends once you become a parent, i know how to prove that one wrong.

i have plenty advice on how to flip the script and bring your childfree friends closer instead of assuming abandonment, but that doesn’t magically happen.

the fear doesn’t go away either.

my cloudy postpartum brain was so heady, i felt like an amorphous alien doused in breastmilk. the only thing that occupied the space where my brain once lived was insecurity.

i couldn’t recall the word for cabinet, let alone muster up the self-confidence to trust that my friends would stick around.

I questioned if some friends would ever want to spend time with me and my baby. I worried that I wasn’t interesting anymore.

How I Welcomed My Village Into My Postpartum Cocoon1

my first piece of advice: if and when this happens, phone a friend.

i called my sister every single time she left my house after we hosted sunday dinner. i’m sorry if i wasn’t that talkative. it’s gotta be so lame to hear me talk about the baby nonstop. i hope i wasn’t annoying. i’m sorry if i’m distracted, i really want to know what’s going on with you, i just don’t remember how to have a conversation.

like the angel that she is, she comforted me and told me i was doing a great job. she reminded me that i didn’t need to fret about my conversational skills or how clean my home. she reassured me that it would all come back, and it did, but it took time.

DO WHAT YOU CAN

in the early days i had nothing to say. i would show up to phone therapy and say nothing. my psychoanalytically trained therapist would sit quietly on the other end of the line for minutes before checking in.

some sessions were akin to morning pages, i have nothing to say, i have nothing to say, i have nothing to say. i don’t know that i will ever have anything to say ever again. some sessions i just asked her to be there, to hold silent space for me while i lay down.

everything felt so quiet, but in an unsettling way. the cavern of my skull echoed like a hollow vessel where endless chatter once lived. postpartum robbed me of my ability to communicate for a very long time. and then one day i had something to say.

slowly but surely complex thoughts and layered feelings came back and i could comfortably converse with my friends again. my therapist could once again provide more than just fifty minutes of silent retreat.

Postpartum needs are both deeply unique to and incredibly intimate for a birth parent.

How I Welcomed My Village Into My Postpartum Cocoon

some people need an incessant group chat, i needed to be surrounded by friends.

i wanted the warm effervescence of being in a group of people talking over each other and laughing about silly things and sharing about their lives. i wanted to be in the mix even if i couldn’t necessarily contribute to the conversation, especially because i couldn’t.

i don’t know how to cure postpartum vocabulary loss, but i do know how to throw a dinner party.

so i started hosting monthly dinners in my backyard. i provided the theme, food and beverage, all i asked is that my friends helped clean up afterwards. designing menus, choosing appetizers and cocktail pairings, all of that lit me up. i’d bop around our neighborhood with my baby, filling the stroller with flowers, artisanal cheeses and fresh baked bread.

i love hosting.

i love every aspect of making people feel welcome in my home. from cleaning and tidying up, to lighting a candle in the bathroom, clearing out space in the coat closet, you get it, i love investing in every little detail.

i knew that girl party prep would be energizing, i’d throw tasks at my pre-hosting jitters and all would be well. i also knew that it was untenable to think that i could reset the house and do all of the dishes by myself. as a new mom i needed to go to bed as soon as the party was over.

and so, girl party was born.

every month i hosted a beautiful dinner, three hours on a weeknight. during the last thirty i asked everyone to help clean up. it is remarkable how fast a group can breakdown a party and do the dishes when we’re working together. the clean up became one of our favorite parts of girl party, a time to gab and gather over a shared task. as soon as it was over, i began planning the next month.

girl party was exactly what i needed and it was the only way that made sense for me to consistently spend time with my friends during my first year of motherhood. it was my way of saying thank you to my friends for showing up and being in my family’s life as i became a mother.

GIVE GRACE

If you want your village to be flexible with you, and you do, it only makes sense that you offer the same level of understanding with them and their equally important lives.

How I Welcomed My Village Into My Postpartum Cocoon

i truly believe that the only way a friendship between a mother and a childfree friend can survive is if the mother still believes they are equals.

i said it. i don’t care how many kids you have, your friends without children also have stressful and important lives. their priorities, preferences, careers and relationships matter just as much as you and yours. if you can’t respect that, it is never going to work, your friendships with childfree folks will shrivel up and die.

my second piece of advice: don’t be the girl who can no longer empathize with your friends’ very valid and worthwhile childfree problems.

be the girl who remembers what it was like to have real and meaningful life stressors before children, just like everyone else. be the girl who knows that true friendships matter, your friends don’t need to procreate to remain important in your life. you’re gonna make it, if you want to, and it’s gonna be fine.

it might even be better than fine. you might just find that your childfree friends become the most engaged individuals in your life, mine sure are.

sure, there might be friends who genuinely want nothing to do with you and your kid, but then i’d argue that they’re not your real friend.

there may be friendships that were teetering on the brink of extinction and your limited capacity for bullshit runs out. amazing, they’re not who i’m talking about. all of these dynamics will rise to the surface and expose themselves, and life will get easier because you will know exactly who you want to spend your time with.

my third piece of advice: assume the best intentions and let yourself count on your childfree friends. reach out for help, the more specific the better.

When you ask for help you are giving your loved ones an opportunity to express their love in a way that is genuinely impactful. Whenever you can offer guidance, that’s a huge gift to you both.

How I Welcomed My Village Into My Postpartum Cocoon

i think one of the things that often gets left out of the parent/childfree relationship conversation is the new parent’s ownership in doing their part.

it might very well be your childfree friend’s first time having parent friends. even if they have other friends who are parents, it is their first time meeting you in this role. they are also doing parenting with you for the first time.

this october dan and i will be three years into parenthood and we are still the only friends in our crew to reproduce, so what.

we’re all figuring it out together and every new parent needs something different. don’t make your people guess, just ask for what you need. people genuinely want to help, so tell them how.

STICK WITH THEM

i’m gonna hold your hand while i share this next line:

Just because you have a baby does not mean that your relationships are suddenly going to be perfect. In fact, with all of the changes and hormones and shifts in your life, there are some that might get harder. That’s okay.

How I Welcomed My Village Into My Postpartum Cocoon

repeat after me, it is okay. you can get through this, if you want to.

true friendships require work. important, beautiful work. and relationships that process conflict together, those which repair, are significantly stronger than those that have never been tested. moving through discomfort and uncharted territory together actually builds depth and brings your people closer instead of pushing them away.

so my final piece of advice (for now): give everyone the grace to get it wrong.

over-communicate when something rubs you the wrong way. don’t let anything fester. just address it and move on.

you need to give yourself grace and you need to give your friends grace otherwise you can easily burn this whole thing down. but i think that’d be really lonely. i think life might get a whole lot less interesting if you only surround yourself with one type of person.

true friendships ebb and flow. some of my pals were newborn-centric, others can’t get enough of the toddler stage, and i know some will become the cool aunties and uncles my kid needs to help him through puberty and the teenage years.

i need my kid to know that he has plenty of people who he can come to when he doesn’t want to talk to me or dan. i need this village of eclectic, brilliant, and loving weirdos to raise my kid with me. more importantly, i want them to.

i want my kid to have a diverse set of viewpoints, lifestyles and cultural backgrounds to surround him. i want him to call on my friends for their specialized guidance in the same way that i do.

i don’t believe that people who become parents just get it and childfree folks can’t. i don’t buy it for one second and i have not found that to be true.

all that i know is that it is worth it to keep investing in the relationships that matter to you, the rest will fall into place.

now go call your childfree bestie and tell them you love them!

with all that said, mom friends matter too, of course they do.

while i’ve never quite found a mom group that fits my vibe, (read: still not a group chat girlie) i’ve been loving getting to know other cool and down to earth moms through Gina Bruno’s Latching On series.

if you’re craving more in person connecting or just want spend a lovely afternoon talking about sex, food and motherhood, this is the event for you. i’ll be there and selfishly i’d love to meet you and say hi in person!

​Saturday, May 2nd · Bon Studio, Williamsburg Doors 10:30am · Prompt start 11:00am · Babies welcome

Reserve your spot here

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Jan 14

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you can’t expect your friends to read your mind, or know how to hold a baby, or even ask how to help in a way that feels supportive to you. is it more or less supportive to ask or to simply guess and take the mental load off of the new parent? how does one go about this in the hyper-sensitive TK world of twenty twenty six?

the whole thing is exhausting and we’re all bound to screw up somehow. so instead of expecting your friends to be perfect