How friendship changes with membership to the motherhood club

My 12-year-old daughter Rebecca came home from school the other day in a state of mild distress.

Forlorn, morose and appearing in desperate need of a hug, she finally admitted that she felt ‘left out’ by her friends.

I doubt there are many women out there who have made it to adulthood and not experienced the twinge of hurt that can accompany this feeling of isolation.

Whether it happened in primary school, during a rough few months in secondary school when your best friend turned her attention to another girl in class or at the beginning of a new job in your twenties, most of us know what it feels like.

Feeling left out or unwanted can have a devastating effect on your confidence so I felt my daughter’s pain acutely.

Telling her I was no stranger to the feeling myself, I attempted to comfort and soothe while simultaneously wanting to wring the neck of the girls who had made her feel this way.

I opened up about my own experience, but instead of focusing on a time in my life she might be able to relate to, like my school days, I realised the incident which stayed with me most was when I had my first child.

I was the first of the group to become pregnant and while attention was showered on me during my nine month journey, I soon began to feel isolated once myself and my baby son were left to our own devices.

Joyful visits from friends waving balloons and cuddly toys soon dwindled into the odd phonecall or obligatory dinner invite.

I understood on some level why it was happening, but it didn’t lessen the hurt.

I was the first to become a mum, so while I spent sleepless nights tending to my baby boy, they spent sleepless nights out on the tiles. While my focus was on baby bottles and burping infants, theirs was on wine bottles and burping boyfriends.

I didn’t blame them for taking a step back, but I blamed myself for not speaking up and telling them how I felt.

Yes, I was now a mum and yes, my focus had shifted, but that didn’t mean I was no longer myself.

I could still be the friend I always was as long as they didn’t mind the presence of a baby on my hip or a puke-strewn tea-towel on my shoulder as they bemoaned the newest boyfriend.

I was careful not to name any names when chatting to my daughter about this difficult time because the thing is, the women who made me feel like this are my daughter’s favourite ‘aunties’.

No, that time didn’t signal the end of our friendships because once they gained membership to the motherhood club, they soon realised that being the first of the gang to ‘mum-up’ couldn’t have been easy.

Bridges definitely weren’t burnt, but I’m sure they would have been mended a lot quicker if I had spoken up and simply said, ‘I feel left out’.

I know it, my friends know it and now my daughter’s friends know it because I’m trying to teach my girl to be braver than I ever was.