From the archives (January 27, 2007)….

I came across an article on msnbc.com on how having kids can make our child-free pals feel alienated. The article goes on to talk about how we, as mothers, can become so wrapped up in our new lives that we often forget about those that do not have children. The woman quoted in the article really hit a sore spot with me and the article got me pretty fired up.

“The issue of having children — or not — can pit women’s friendships with land mines. What for some is a joyous event can trigger painful feelings in others. Some may have regrets about their own choices, worry they’ll lose their friend to the pull of playgroups and other mommies or feel a stab of grief about their past own losses or infertility. And even when both women in a friendship are at peace with the decisions they’ve made, having a child often still means the relationship needs to be renegotiated.” It goes on….

“As lives evolve, so do priorities. Some childless women complain their friends with children turn into mommy machines — always wanting to talk about their babies and resembling very little of their former fun selves.” And on….

“Happily child-free by choice, Lisa Giassa, a 35-year-old public relations executive who lives in Bergen County, N.J., saw many of her friends get sucked into what she calls “the mommy mafia.”

“All they do is talk — more like complain — about their kids, their husbands, dramas with teachers and other mommy mafia members,” says Giassa.

“It’s as if they became incapable of doing anything that didn’t fit their ideal of what a mommy should be and do. It just became too much effort and I began to ask what am I getting from these friendships? What am I giving? Then I realized we just grew apart. So it was time to find new friends.”

I do not know about the experiences that other women had when they became mothers, but it was definitely not how it went down in my world. In fact, it was the exact opposite.

With one group of friends, as soon as I announced that I was pregnant the phone calls began to fade. It was as if they made the decision that I would not want to go out anymore. That all of the sudden, since I was pregnant, that I would not be interested or able to gossip about celebrities or that I must no longer listen to music or watched movies. That I didn’t go out to eat. That I should be a hermit.

I was devastated. It was really hard for me to come to terms with. The fact that some of them felt that they no longer had anything in common with me. That they stopped calling. These had been people that had been my “friends” during college. I am interested to learn if any of you experienced something similar? Here is the rest of the article if you want to check it out.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16491375/

With my brother coming today, I spent most of yesterday putting up the lights and decorations outside the house. I know I am late in the game, especially as a person with children, but the weather the past few weekends has been nasty.

Check out the nice little manger display SM and I made on the porch using the bale of hay I purchased for Halloween. Talk about the best $5 I ever spent. I’ve used it for Halloween, Thanksgiving and now Christmas.