I’m copy and pasting this over from a blog discussion I sadly got into today. To set the scene: a mum says she’s lonely and her ‘single’ (childless/free) friends have dumped her. In the comments someone ranted about how her baby-having friends weren’t able to have any consideration for her and go out with her without the baby, because she really wanted time with them without interruptions.
[There's life without interruptions, post baby????]
I stick this here to think on it later. And ’cause it’s too late to call, so I’m reminding myself to be appreciative, and sneakily trying to appreciate some people via blog. :-)
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I’m responding not to argue but just to express my experience. YMMV Juliana and I think you have a complete right to yours and I’m glad to hear it. Because it is something important in thinking about social isolation and friendships and things.
On the topic of coffee, though, it’s a hard one. [She had said what about a baby-free hour for coffee
My experience (I can’t say what’s right or anything, just what I’ve found) is that if my friends aren’t willing to give me the benefit of the doubt that when I say it’s hard to get out it is /hard to get out/ and not some selfish spiralling lazy-assed illusion I’ve created, we’re more likely to stay friends.
To go into some detail as an example – if you’re breastfeeding on demand, for the first I’d say 6 months (depending on your baby’s personality) you aren’t sure if the baby will want to nurse, so leaving the baby is hard.
If you’re working, you may need to spend a lot of time pumping &/or nursing to keep supply up, plus your time is even more compressed than it used to be.
So two hours – a half hour to get to the coffee shop, a half hour back, and an hour at coffee, can be hard. I’m not saying it’s unreasonable. Just that it may be harder than it appears.
(Pumping, by the way, and using a bottle – things I thought would be a breeze! – is something that can be really hard to do “once in a while” because in order to have enough milk to pump you have to either have been pumping at the same time every day for at least a few days, so that your breasts produce enough milk for the pump, or you have to pump just before you would normally do a feed, which means pumping 20 min before the baby is hungry which can be precision timing to do if you’re going out. You can’t just get a phone call at 3, pump for ten minutes, and run off… at least I couldn’t. Some women with amazing breasts might be able to. :) And introducing a bottle of formula here and there as an alternative works for some babies and for others it doesn’t – they won’t take it. Plus if the baby skips a feed or two the mum gets painful, rock hard breasts – think of having a small melon stuck under your skin. It hurts.)
These are the kinds of stupid details childless/free friends often don’t want to hear about (pumping… ewww). And yet that’s the legitimate reason, not a lack of love or respect for the friend.
I focused on just one issue here but it seems like so many parenting things are like that. Skipping a nap can mean the baby’s up all night; taking the baby to a sitter that’s not the usual daycare may mean no nap. It all cascades into chaos way faster than I ever guessed before I went through it.
Also parenting is crazy busy. I breastfed my son for this first year, and recently I realized I have spent no fewer than four hours in every 24 – and really more like six – breastfeeding /every/ day for the whole year. Just breastfeeding. I am suddenly grateful for friends who were willing to sit with me while I did, since that was almost a quarter of all the hours in the day.
Aside from work I can’t think of anything I used to /have/ to spend 4 hours every single day on.
But having said all that – if it’s really just an hour and the baby’s older, well then I do ENTIRELY think spouses/partners can and should cover for an hour.
For me the problem is those do tend to be “primetime” hours – late at night after a long workday, or weekend days. So again the devil’s kind of in the details – as long as my friend’s up for coffee on Saturday at 1:30 on a weekend my husband’s not on call – yay. :) 5:45 pm on Thursday, not so much.
Having said all that I do find it’s /great/ to get out without the baby now and then – and more and more as he gets older. It’s just less often than even I would like, and I have several friends, so if I can get out once or twice a month for a baby free meal/coffee/whatever, that means each friend might get that every third month… yikes I think I’d better go at least make some appreciative phone calls. :-)
