I know I have kind of covered this territory before, but this is still very important and overlooked. Not just by society, but by mothers themselves. I want to give all the mothers out there permission to spend time with friends. With and without the kids. To talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of motherhood. And to not talk about it at all!
Humans have pretty complex social webs if you think about it. If we look at the important roles a woman plays in her life, she is a daughter, and may also be a sister, a cousin, a niece, a wife or partner, an employee, an employer, an aunt, a mother, a grandmother, not to mention all the in-law titles too, and the ones I’ve missed! It is fair to say as a society, perhaps even as a species in general, we value family relationships!
This starts as soon as we are born and our basic human needs must be met by the people we depend upon the most – our family. We look to them to meet our actual needs for living, and they do this, for no other reason than they love us. Babies are cute, and if I had to guess I would say this is some sort of survival tactic. They love us because we are theirs. They created us, and in a sense we belong to them. It is supposedly the most unconditional form of love.
Let me be clear in stating I do not doubt that parental love is the strongest form, the most natural if you will. It IS pretty unconditional, but it doesn’t always feel unconditional. Most of us live in the same house as our parents growing up, and if your house was anything like mine, it was a pretty universally “my house, my rules” kind of situation. As we reach adolescence we start to explore who we are as people and sometimes rebel against those rules. It starts to feel like our parents don’t really see us as separate people and we long to be free individuals. Ask most teenagers, or parents of teenagers and almost all of them will admit living together at this time is tough. Petty day to day things like who did or didn’t empty the bin, or put washing in the basket become bigger power struggles and detract from our ability to enjoy our kids as people. Sure they know we love them, and they know how proud we are of them when they achieve something, but those achievements may start to feel like conditions.
I have heard quite a bit in the media about humans craving parental approval. No matter how late in life, we want to feel like we have satisfied the people who chose to have us. Feelings of stress and anxiety arise when we disappoint them or make mistakes. We know they love us, but this does add an extra layer of pressure trying to win their approval. “Approval?” What does this word even mean in this context? We already know they love us – but do they like us? Pretty quickly we learn that maybe it isn’t their job to like us, more for them to mould us into likeable respectable people?
To your family you are the world...... No Pressure.... Lol
Luckily for us, our friendships during adolescence are ripe and plentiful. Definitely not to be categorised or minimised as easy, but intense, because we seek validation that people actually like us. Around this time we may turn away from our parents when we face dilemma’s and instead turn to the ear of a friend? Why is this? Because a friend is less invested in the outcome. They are less worried about the potential bad things that could happen to us and don’t have a need to protect us (mostly from ourselves!) They are more likely to be encouraging which makes us feel competent as we prepare to embark into adulthood.
It is with the support and encouragement of our friends that we start to explore the world of dating, relationships and sex. What an exciting time, even with our parents telling us we have more important things to be focusing on such as our future, or alternatively pushing their own values onto us. Alas, we wont be told and most of us have had at least one romantic relationship by the time we reach our early 20’s.
It feels important to find someone to partner up with, even from a young age. We prefer not to see out this life alone, and even if the statistics are against us, most of us hope and believe we have met “the one” pretty quickly. As we enter this phase, friendships may start to fall by the wayside, to make room for our partner in our lives as we prepare for our future and the responsibilities that start to face us. As we start to settle into these much desired romantic pairings though, we realise they too, have their conditions and compromises. Certain sacrifices have to be made as we find ways to become a “we” and let go of being “just me.” Thankfully, we are still young, relatively free, and usually have just started working and earning money, which we are mostly free to spend on ourselves. How wonderful. Again this stage of life is very conducive to friendships. We start making friends in the workplace and these people see and treat us as capable adults, and we have the time and the money to socialise with them after hours. Most of us somehow successfully navigate the balance between being ourselves and part of a couple, with working and studying providing outlets away from our partner to still be who we are.
It all starts to change though, when in a few short years people start getting married and having kids, or trying to have kids. Many of us lose our identities completely as we give up the people and situations that validated us as complete competent confident individuals, such as work and a social life, to raise a family. Only at this point do we start to understand where our own parents were coming from, and how much of themselves they gave up to raise us. (This kinda explains the high investment in us and their inability to see us as people separate from themselves I suppose?! Lol)
As I transitioned into motherhood myself at 26, I felt ready and mature enough to handle this. Ha! I started to notice pretty quickly though, how irrelevant my identity had become. Instead of asking me how I was, people asked how my son was. I almost never talked about anything other than him, although I wanted to, the opportunities were small. It had become my sole purpose in life to take care of somebody else, and I felt so guilty for the longing I had to be away from the role and to just be myself. As my own mother will readily tell you – it always feels as if a mother is taking care of everyone, but nobody is taking care of her…..
And this is of course where friendships come into play! A place to be yourself, to remember who that is! Tune in next week for more reasons mothers need friends, and if that makes them needy friends?
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx