Three years ago, I was a footloose and fancy-free 27-year-old. I’d just sold my first novel. My weeknights and weekends were spent hanging out with my mates, drinking beers in the park, getting up to debauchery. None of my friends had kids, and it was a rare night that I’d spend without them. Then, bam! I fell in love with the mother of a two-year-old. From 2022, I have been co-parenting with her. I’m now 30, with a life partner and a four-year-old. Life comes at you fast.
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To say that the past few years have required some adjustment on my part would be an understatement. Parenting has completely changed my conception of time, my priorities and my social life. I always wanted to have children, but only at some vague point ‘in the future’. When I did have kids, I imagined that I’d be the cool mum who brought her toddler to the group hang at the restaurant. Now I have a step kid, I’ve learned that doing exactly that is a special form of self-torture. I also vowed to never be the friend who disappeared from the scene when she had a child. But, reader: this is what I did.
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At first, my friends found it difficult to fully cognise that I was now a parent and could not socialise with them like I had done before. So did I. But I also didn’t want to leave my partner to parent alone, so I very much committed to the bit. I saw my friends way less. I spent my weekends making small talk with the other parents in the park. My friends felt abandoned and, even though I love my kid, obviously.
I also felt alienated from the life I used to have. I missed out on my friends’ birthday parties. I rarely said yes to dinners on weeknights because I was just so tired all the time. While I could get a babysitter on Saturday nights, going out became a rarity because I could not parent if I was exhausted the next day. When I did see my friends, all of my anecdotes revolved around toilet training and Lego, while theirs were about travelling and hot sex with strangers. I felt deeply uncool.
In hindsight, I should have been more open about where I was at. No one wants to feel like they’re being left behind or that their friendship is not a priority. But I felt guilty about bailing on my mates so much and therefore didn’t feel that I deserved to vent about the part of my life that was keeping me from them. It was a vicious, ridiculous cycle.
True friends, luckily, don’t give up on you. Over the past year, I’ve become much more comfortable in my parental role, so I’ve felt able to give more time to my friendships again. I’ve said sorry for being absent; they’ve apologised for not understanding the transition that I was going through. We’re all trying harder to see from each other’s perspectives.
Now, I’m back to sharing weekly meals with mates, swimming at the beach and seeing films again – and my God, it’s like a huge weight has been lifted from me. Yes, I’m a stepmum, but a parent is not all I am. As he grows up, my kid needs to see this, too. I’m a writer, a reader, a lover of pubs, a player of tennis and a consumer of trashy romcoms. My friends make my life fuller and better, and this helps me to be a better parent. In the end, I just needed to give them more credit – they can handle pretty much anything.
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