Can friendships survive when one of you has kids and the other doesn't?

I sat down with one of my friends to discuss...

Amy and Catriona throughout their friendship

Throughout my career, I’ve sat down with countless people, hit record on my Dictaphone and had a conversation. I’m very used to speaking about the intricacies of the private lives of others and taking that knowledge and creating something out of it. Using that conversation to highlight an issue, or talking point, for others to consume and reflect on.

But this conversation (which you can read below, or listen to above) was different. As this time the conversation was with one of my closest friends. And it was on a topic that required me, and her, to confront one of our thorniest fears: how motherhood will change our friendship. How motherhood has already changed our other friendships.

We had to voice, on tape, the thoughts, and actions we are most ashamed of. We questioned how honest we really are with our friends and we tried to push past our fears of alienation or hurting the other person, and speak as truthfully as our conscious minds would allow.

It was difficult. It was needed. As, so often, we tiptoe around these huge, personal subjects and, by doing so, we hide ourselves from the people we love the most. For me, and so many others I know, motherhood is a topic wrapped in barbed wire: we know how much it can sting. It’s also a constant in our lives, whether you are a parent or not, and no matter your reasons behind that. It’s something I truly believe we need to speak more about: mothers to mothers, child-free by choice to those who are child-free by circumstance, mothers to the child-free… Even if we feel the other person won’t understand, that doesn’t mean we can’t try. It doesn’t mean we can’t listen.

Which is why, after this piece sparked a lot of conversations, I decided to invite my friend and colleague Amy Grier to be my first guest on Crocuses in Conversation, a new part of this Substack where I have open and honest conversations with different people about the topics we discuss in this newsletter. As you’ll learn below, Amy wanted children for a long-time but without a partner she feared it would never happen to her, and found her pain surrounding this impacted her friendships. Whereas, I’ve made the choice not to have children, something I’ve always been terrified will impact my relationships. We had this conversation, in Amy’s living room, a week before she’s due to give birth, contemplating both the wider societal issues surrounding friendship and motherhood, but also, how our own friendship could be impacted by it.

We’re both writers, and Amy is a brilliant public speaker, and I was so impressed by her honesty, clarity and wisdom on the subject. I also found that, because her experiences of motherhood are so different to my own, it made for a fascinating conversation. I hope you think so too.

Note: I’ve put the below, edited transcript behind a paywall, as it really was labour intensive to do. It’s been edited so it’s easier to read, as it is long! However, I do want everyone to be able to experience this conversation so the audio is available to listen to, for free.

If you like listening to the conversation please let me know, this is so new for me, so I may need to employ a sound person etc to help me with the tech side of things! Also, as this is such a sensitive topic I do want to preface this by saying this is, of course, just our opinion and experience and we aren’t trying to speak for all women, mothers, or child-free people. We just want to open the conversation up, so more feel able to talk.

Pieces mentioned within the conversation:

What if I never have children? Saying goodbye to the life I thought I’d have

I keep changing my mind about children, how will I ever know for sure?

Why is no one talking about pregnancy shame?

The conversation…

Catriona: I thought we could begin by explaining who we are and how we met. It must have been seven years ago and I had just been hired by Amy as senior editor at Cosmopolitan, then I think it was about a year in that we really first began to get close.

Amy: I was very nervous as your new manager that I didn't want to overstep the mark, and be all “be my friend, liiiike me.” But we couldn’t fight it!

C: It’s interesting to think of who we were back then, and how much we have changed. As, when we first met I was newly married and I was thinking ‘I’m married and I’m going to have kids’ - I was on that timeline that we all have in our own heads. I was just passed 30, and was really keen on the idea of having kids and then, very slowly, came to the realisation that I didn’t want them. That has been a very hard thing to come to terms with. I feel very lucky that it has been my choice but it has been a rollercoaster, and I went through this mourning period, thinking about the life I could have had, and letting go of that. A life I always thought I would have but realised I didn't really want.

A: I was in, perhaps, the exact opposite situation. When we met I was in a long-term relationship with my ex partner, and we were living together and I had all these plans in my head about how we were going to get married, and have children. We had also spoken about those things. He very much knew that I had always wanted a family. Then that relationship broke up, quite spectacularly. He broke up with me. It was a real shock, this huge seismic life implosion. But it was also the catalyst of our friendship. It was when we stopped being colleagues who were friendly and started being friends.

C: We had that walk…

A: I was having a tough time and we went for a walk around St. James's Park. I just like cried my eyes out to you. And you were lovely, as you are, and said some really, really wise things. I [thought] “oh, this person is actually quite important to me as a friend.”

One big anxiety of mine, when that relationship exploded, was the fact I was 33, I was single and I was right back at square one. I had to find the person I wanted to be with, and fit kids into this crazy timeline that is part made up, but also part a biological reality. It felt like a lot. The fear around being single was very tied to this fear that I wouldn't be able to have children.

C: It was around the time that so many of our friendship groups were having kids too…

A: It felt like all of our friends were having kids…

C: Because I'm from Scotland, but I live in London, a lot of my friends were moving back up [North] and I had this real fear of losing people. Because of both the physical distance but also the emotional distance, in terms of watching my friends have something that, at the time, I was still trying to figure out whether I wanted it or not. And one of the reasons why I really held on to the idea that I wanted children for so long, was because I wanted to do what my friends were doing. Which sounds so childish!

A: Peer pressure is one of those things that we fob off, but when you're in that place, it’s very, very real. I remember getting it in my early 20s about my career, then in my mid 30s it hit about kids. It started before my relationship broke down.

C: I’m just so used to the friendships being formed because we have something in common. I want to be able to be there for my friends, and give them advice because I’ve been there, but suddenly my friends were having problems that I couldn't help with because I just did not understand [them]. Then I was watching my friends make new mum friends and feeling intimidated by that.

A: Did you have the language to tell them how you were feeling in those moments?

C: No, but I was also in a different headspace. I still thought that [motherhood] was something that I wanted. So, I thought “I’ll get there soon, I’ll be able to understand them, and we will have this nice bond.” Then, slowly, I realised that wasn’t what I wanted. So then I was thinking “well what do I want? Who do I want to be?” That’s when I fell back into old stereotypes of who a childfree person is. It’s hard to decipher as it was all tangled up in so many other things, including the pandemic and this cyst they found on my ovary that really freaked me out, but I went into party girl mode. I was like “this is who I am, I am a party girl, I’m not a mother, I’m going to be this wild thing.” And that didn’t make me happy either.

It was a reaction to the fear of what my life was going to look like next, and there not being that roadmap. One of the nice things about being child-free is there’s no set plan, it’s very free. That’s amazing and I’m not moaning about it, but it’s also very scary because you think “OK, this is my life now, there’s no excitement.” I mean… there’s lots of excitement but it’s not excitement in the way that a child brings.  

A: I’d just like to say your life is very exciting! But it is a lonely place to be in your own head, in a friendship with people you’ve known for a long time. When you’re having these secret thoughts and you feel, for whatever reason, whether it’s valid or not, that you can’t express how you’re feeling.

I had the flip side, during this period of three or four years, where I was single. It was over the pandemic, and my friends were having a lot of kids, and, as a single person I found it really, really hard. I was quite resentful of some of them. I didn’t have the language to say “oh your joy makes me quite sad.” Which is a horrible thing to have to say to someone that you really love. It doesn't make you feel like a nice person. We're always taught that you should relish in other people's joy and happiness, but sometimes that's just really hard to do.

I think we can really get in our own heads with friendships. For you, it was wondering whether the urge to have kids would ever kick in, and what that would do to your bond with these people, and on my side (and I’m not proud of this) I let some friendships go. I just stopped investing in a couple of key friendships, because, on paper, these women had what I wanted and I was not in a good place with my own mental health. I was very anxious and living alone and very sad a lot of the time, but making my life look wonderful on Instagram. I had this deep fear that I wouldn't have kids and I would never get there. I couldn't talk to them about it, and I should have done. Maybe if I had things would have been completely different, but I couldn’t…

C: Do you think also, in some ways, they could have been looking at this shiny, single life that you were presenting and held their own jealousies towards that?

A: I know that if I am looking at someone else’s life and seeing the things I want, then it makes sense that they’re doing it to me. I was doing a lot of travelling [before lockdown] and making it look fucking great… mostly because I wanted my ex boyfriend to be absolutely miserable! (which I don’t care about any more.) But yes, maybe they were, but I [couldn’t see that] I was the centre of my own unit. I was miserable for some time… Well, not always, that’s not strictly true…

C: I don't believe anyone is miserable or happy all of the time. It’s hard to define as emotions are a very up and down thing.

A: Motherhood was a divisive topic in my friendship groups, even if that was only in my own head. It didn’t come up much in conversation. All my friends who didn’t have kids we would talk about kids, and dating, and wanting kids, and men who didn’t want kids… But we didn’t talk about the impact on us, or how that could impact our friendships.

C: Distance (of all kinds) really plays its part. I've actually been very, very lucky with my friendship group in that, with those who have kids, I’ve managed to be quite open and honest. A lot of them are long distance, and voice notes, I think, allow a little more honesty? Being able to express myself that way has been very helpful to me, and I hope they would feel able to open up to me about the hardships of motherhood.

When I wrote about not being able to decide whether I want kids or not, I had a lot of people write into me. I was surprised how many of them were mothers. They read my piece and told me they felt the same, about the opposite decision, and that they weren’t sure either. Not because they didn’t love their kids, but because they could see this other life that they could have had. I think there’s a lot of aspects of motherhood that we tiptoe around, and struggle with admitting “this is hard for me.” We worry that the other person might judge, and I think this is particularly hard for mothers as there’s so many stereotypes about how a mother should behave. And those infiltrate… Which I guess leads us to discussing where you are now in your life now…

A: So… spoiler! I am eight and a half months pregnant now. It happened very quickly. I wrote about it for Elle Magazine recently, how I met someone on Hinge and we fell in love and we both really wanted children. We had a very honest conversations, started trying and it has happened for us and we're incredibly grateful for that. I am also still shocked to this day that it did happen that way. It was a real rollercoaster ride of discovering that we were pregnant, after three and a half months of knowing each other, alongside the anxiety that comes with being slightly older and pregnant.

I had become so invested in my single life and I really loved, still do, my friends and the ecosystem I had built around me. It had become my entire support network. A lot of those people were either childfree by choice, like you, or they were single like me and we would go out together, unified in our hunt for this life. I froze my eggs, and some of my friends did too. So then, I felt kind of embarrassed, like “oh my god, I’m leaving this club that I founded and now I’m going to this other club of people that we hate.” We don’t hate them, of course we don’t, I don’t hate mothers or pregnant people, but it was a joke that was almost like a survival mechanism. I went into my early 20s again and dating was part of my identity, and I wrote about dating all the time.

I was really afraid that by telling [this group of friends] that I was pregnant and becoming a mum I would lose these friendships, these bonds, this identity. It’s not past tense. I’m still worried, and I still worry, and a large part of even this conversations between you and I is how motherhood will change our friendship.  

C: Something we don’t know. We can’t know. You’re so right about the different ‘camps’ as, I now follow a lot of childfree people, to try and make new childfree friends, but on these Instagram accounts there’s this idea of a mother that really doesn’t reflect the mothers that I know…

A: The type of women who will only talk about her children is very rare. I have met some women who are like that, but didn’t have the guts to raise it, which is on me. But then there are also so many misogynistic cliches around motherhood that there definitely is a fear that your friends will judge you for being in this other ‘camp.’  

C: I remember very early on in your pregnancy I said to you “if you want me to ask you about this stuff you have to tell me as I don’t know [what to ask].” But then, I’ve also heard a lot of mothers say people suddenly stop asking their lives, assuming that they only want to talk about the baby. Which, I can imagine, if we didn’t know each other that well I might just come around and be like “what’s happening with the baby?” And while I do want to hear that I will want to hear about the other stuff as well.

A: It’s okay [if we don’t talk about baby stuff] as I have people in my life thankfully, that I can have those conversations with. It's really nice to have a diversity of friendship, so you can go to people for different things. I hope that will continue with us. But there’s definitely the fear in friendship groups of not asking the right question, or asking too many questions…

C: Just tripping up and saying the wrong thing. Or being insensitive because you’ve not been there.

A: I have definitely learned this. I wrote about this, but I had a Zoom call in the pandemic with a group of friends and… well, I’m such a cow for talking about it in this way [EDITOR’S NOTE: she’s not a cow, she’s wonderful and honest in a way I believe will truly help] but it was really hard. I was single, living alone in a pandemic, and I was really scared. It was a really difficult time. No matter who you are, it was a difficult time. But we were on this call and I noticed that everyone was going around the houses, asking questions, and it took a really long time to get to me. And when it did, no one asked me if I was okay. It was all to do with work.

I can see now that they probably were just absolutely terrified of upsetting me. As they knew my situation. I was newly broken up with and living alone and why would they want to draw attention to that? I totally, totally get that. But when someone doesn't ask you feel like they don't care. I love talking about my job, it's always been a real source of joy for me. But, in that moment, I really could have done with my friends being like: “Ames, how are you? This is really hard. Are you on your own? Are you getting out?” Just asking. Even if I had cried, or got upset, that should have been okay. That was the level of friendship that we had. We'd been friends for a long time.

I think the same thing can happen with new mums. From what I know it can be a very lonely, very scary time. And just someone acknowledging that, and asking, can be a really massive thing. It doesn't mean you need everyone to do it or that it has to be the only topic of conversation between you and your friends but I do think speaking about it helps.

C: It can feel like, when you don’t have children, that motherhood is hailed as “the most important job in the world.” You see actresses say “this is my most important role” and I understand that, of course, priorities change and I cannot expect to be the most important person in my friend’s life. I wouldn’t expect that any way. But, when motherhood is held up that way, we can internalise it and think “well they don’t see my life as important.”

A: It’s hard for me [to comment on] because I'm on the cusp of it. I’m about to give birth. I’m physically very pregnant, but my life, and my routines haven’t changed yet. Obviously they will. So, speaking from the time when I didn’t have kids, yes I agree motherhood is put on a pedestal but then, from my friends who do have them, a lot of them feel like mothers get such shit, and they feel invisible.

A really good colleague, and friend of mine, wrote a beautiful short story, about her experience of being pregnant versus having a newborn. It spoke of how when your pregnant doors physically open, people get up and they give you your seat and everyone wants to know and touch you. Then suddenly you have a new screaming baby, and restaurants don’t want you in there. Of it just being difficult and clunky and awkward. So I can see it from both sides.

C: No one in my life has ever made me feel less than because of my decisions. I’ve done that to myself. But I was interviewed on the radio recently, and the woman interviewing me said she had received a lot of push back and judgement from her friends [for being child free]. It’s hard to comment on, as maybe her friends are thinking, “we didn’t mean to be dismissive, you just took it that way,” but she had a very strong sense of “I will always have to adapt my life to other people’s lives, and they won’t offer me that same privilege.” I have received a few DMs from people who feel similiarly [that their priorities aren’t acknowledged.] And I would feel annoyed if I was writing a book, and I had to devote a lot of my time to that book, and my friends were mad with me for cancelling, when I had allowed them to cancel before because of their kids… I am equating writing a book to having a child, which maybe isn’t right...

A: But it is. Yes, you do write books and you do write them in very short spaces of time. That is really stressful for you and, as your friend, in the same way that you don't want me to feel I can’t speak to you about the pregnancy, I don't want you to feel like you have to play down work stress.

C: I guess, what I mean, is I don’t mind adapting my work schedule around my friends with kids, as they do offer me the same understanding. But also, it’s so important for me to be there for the pivotal moments. I love it when I’m doing voice notes and I can hear children in the background. I want to be there. I want to sit, with a glass of wine at bath time, and be there for that stuff.

I recently had an amazing holiday, with my friends and it was a mix of childfree people and those with kids. It was such a nice holiday, but then I don’t want every single holiday to be with my friends and their kids, as I do want some alone time with my friends as, the thing about kids, is they interrupt all the time. We couldn’t have had this chat in a few weeks time, as the first year is going to be so hectic.

A: It’s never just the kids that kill a friendship. Some of my friendships have fallen by the wayside, because I was upset about not having children. But, if those friendships had been rock solid, and there had been no other factors, I think those friendships would still be here. Friendships suffer, I think, when you there are troubled waters or perhaps you don't have anything in common anymore…

C: I’ve definitely had friendships where we were so close, but only in terms of work, and work has been the only thing we talk about and then they fail once one of us leaves that workplace.

A: Motherhood kills friendships, sometimes it does, but I think if you really examine the death of those friendships, it's very easy to blame the fact that one person had kids. When there probably was a multitude of other factors that were just so small that you didn't notice. Then this one big thing happened. And we make it all about that. And everyone's guilty of that, the person with the child and the person without.

C: I think friends can come in and out of your life. One of my friend’s mum had not seen one of her friends in over 30 years, and they recently got back in touch. The friend hadn’t been able to have children and she'd found it too difficult to be around my friend's mum, but now the kids are older, they're reigniting that friendship again, which I love. I think it's quite important to recognise that sometimes someone might drift out of your life for a little while.

A: Also, during my single period, I made so many good friends, because I was really pushing myself to do so many fun things. I went travelling, I joined a new gym, even people who I met through dating became friends. And new motherhood can be a bit like that too, and maybe some of your other friendships might have to understand that there will be new people for different life aspects. Like, I don’t want you to come to a baby sensory class any more than you want to come to a baby sensory class! But I will have to do those things so maybe we won't see each other as much for six months or a year. But a good friendship can take that stress and still have something meaningful at the end.

C: It seems easier for new mums to meet new mum friends as there’s all these networks in place. If you’re childfree it’s a lot harder as it’s sensitive, you can’t just go up and say “I see you don’t have kids, let’s be pals!” as they could be trying to have kids… I just know you’re going to make some new mum friend and I’m going to be jealous of her!

A: You’ll also make a new friend who you meet a work, or in a bar, and I’ll be absolutely fuming about it! But I do agree, I think that there is a real gap [of a way] to meet people who aren't going to leave this club that you're in.

C: But then I also [have found] in some childfree communities that there’s a lot of people who really hate on mothers and children. Not everyone is like that, but I certainly don’t see mothers as competition.

A: I was definitely guilty of that. There were times within the last four years where I had this feeling that people who had kids were completely different breed to me and they would never understand my emotional state. This is obviously completely ignorant on my part…

C: But that's because there was so much pain around it.

A: And you don't have that pain.

C: No

A: I always think of my mum in this situation, as she’s in her late 70s. She's been living alone for most of her adult life. And she's amazing. It’s different because but by that point you've either had children or you haven’t, but she picks up friends and I do think that there's a lot to be learned from maybe this sort of the boomers actually, who seem to be quite good at…

C: Just putting themselves out there.

A: It comes back to that thing of having something in common, like the people that she has made friends with they've met doing something that they both love. As I've been part of an NCT group and I really love the women that I've met through mine, but I do think it's a forced environment. As you're sort of thrown together with people and the only thing you really have in common is the fact that you're all having a baby.

C: Particularly because there’s people who parent in such different ways and I could imagine that causing a bit of a divide in friendship. I know a lot of new mums can feel really judged.

A: This is the whole side of motherhood that I have not encountered yet. But one of the questions you threw out before we began to chat is, are we always honest with our friends? And from this conversations it’s clear that we’re not!

C: I think we're not honest with our friends because we're not honest with ourselves. Voicing how we feel to our friends means admitting something to yourself. I also, and this is very much in my own head, but sometimes I’m scared to say “I find being child-free lonely” or talk about the downsides of being child-free as I’m worried someone will go “I knew it, you DO want to have a child, you DO want to be a mother.” And perhaps there are still parts of myself that do want to be a mum, but I think it’s OK to not be sure.

A: But to have the scale tipped slightly more to one side. I remember having this conversation around partners, like, how do you know you've met the right person? You know, this notion of The One that we're all sold. It doesn't feel real. I came to the idea that actually maybe you're never 100%. Some people live their life in absolutes, and I'm really so jealous of them. But, for the rest of us, you just kind of have to go with the majority.

C: I remember I felt very lonely about being child-free around Easter, I saw these 2.4 families everywhere. And I just really wanted to be a part of that. I thought “why hs no one invited me to an Easter egg hunt with their kids?” [But then] I spoke to some people and they reminded me that all I’d seen was a picture, and that all the kids were hyped up on sugar and it was actually quite a stressful day. And I was in the pub!

A: I can already see [myself] not wanting to burden my childfree friends. I don't want you to have to come [to his birthday party] and pretend. I'd be so worried that you weren't having a good time. A big part of me will be like, “oh, this isn't as fun as her other plans.” I’ll understand that you might have ten other offers and those offers might not involve Colin the caterpillar.

C: I love Colin!

A: We’re all looking in on other people's lives, and I don't think we are honest with our friends. I was at a baby shower earlier on in my pregnancy, full of these wonderful, gorgeous women who I’ve known for ages. They were so happy for me and I hadn’t quite come to terms with my pregnancy identity yet, or how quickly it had all happened. In my head I was like “I’m a fraud”. I felt like I wasn’t being honest with them, like I couldn’t be as excited as they want me to be. None of it is that I'm not excited and I don't love this baby. It was just that I was on show. I felt like my reactions to my own joy were not enough for them.

C: I felt that way when I was engaged, and when I got married. All people could talk to me about was the marriage, and I found it quite boring and it got to the point where I thought ‘am I not happy about being engaged?’ I’ve been with my husband 18 years, we’ve been married for seven. I’m happy. But, at the same time, I found it all tied back to me not living up to what and who a woman should be. Which also ties into the childfree stuff, I can feel wrong for not wanting children. And when it was to do with getting married, I didn't feel like a bride. I didn't feel like what I'd been told a bride should be, and there's even more ideas as to what mother should be, how a pregnant woman should behave…

A: There are all these held up to versions of these things that exist in popular culture, whether that's a mother or you know, the childfree, cool, fun, aunt figure. Whatever it is, and even when we know that we're doing it, you can't help but hold yourself up to them.

C: Then friends are holding them up to us as well, because, for example, in the first birthday party thing, when you said “oh, you would have loads more fun invites,” but I'd much rather be here with you. A friend who means so, so, so much to me than in Trisha’s [a bar] talking to an old man I barely know. I think we project this, as a mum friend of mine said she never gets the invites to the parties any more.

A: That’s a big fear of mine.

C: That's a good thing for me to know because I would probably not invite you to stuff…

A: Rude!

C: Because I think it's almost rubbing your your nose in it being like “look at this thing you can't come to.”

A: Who says I can’t come?! Though I am being delusional at the moment…

C: I've definitely had times with friends where because we're all older we're all aware of the baggage to do with motherhood, of people trying to have children and people not having children…

We’re very, very aware of heartbreak. We know how words can impact and send you into a place that you didn’t expect. We just don't have the same carefreeness that we had in our 20s, and because of that you can sometimes end up in situations with people that you've known for so long, where you're tiptoeing around your friends. When they won't ask you about [an issue] because they don't want to remind you of something.

I've caused distance in my life where I've not asked someone about something that I know causes them pain, because I don't want to cause them more pain. But, actually, by completely ignoring it and not asking them I am causing them pain. But it’s a fine balance. As when my mum was ill I got so sick of people asking about my mum, I just couldn’t bear it. So now I'm very cautious of when I know when someone's in pain, and how sometimes [that person] will just want a night out where they don’t have to mention this awful thing. But you have to get that balance right.

A: I've been in some really similar situations where you want to ask the question that is hovering there. But then also, you maybe are in a situation where you’re having a really great time. You know that by bringing it up you will change the vibe, and not even the most empathetic person can read that and get it right all the time. But then, I have also not been asked things and it’s led me to feel like my life was not interesting to anyone. It's just it's an impossible thing. But the thing that I've learned to do is say: “do you want to talk about this?”

C: I have also reached the point where, I think, it’s my responsibility. So rather than waiting for a friend to ask me about something that's happening in my life that I want to talk about then I need to say: “I'd really like to talk to you about this” or “I'd really like your advice on this.” Because if you spend ages waiting, then you can get annoyed that someone hasn’t asked you about something when, as we're learning, everyone's got their own stuff swimming around in their heads.

A: So are you worried about our friendship changing or how our friendship will change in the next year?

C: I know it's going to change. I just don't want to lose you. But I think it's about getting comfortable within change. Getting comfortable with the fact that we've had all those fun party times and we’re still going to get them, but less frequently. It’s about finding the thing that works for us that we both enjoy, and just because it’s not being in Brighton absolutely smashed that doesn’t mean I’m not having a good time, or that I don’t want to be with you through this. Your new life is just going to look different from what it was before.

A: I have so many anxieties too, on the other side. I’ve stepped away from the workplace, which is where we met and a year is a long time. We often see our friends physically where they are, and we had that access to see each other once a week. And that’s going to disappear. So that’s going to put one blocker in.  And then there's the kind of much bigger blocker of the fact that, at least initially, my party ways will have to go away for a while. I don’t want to be your boring friend.

C: You would never be boring.

A: I worry about becoming one of those people that has nothing to say. I don't want our friendship to change for the worse, but it's about accepting that it will change but it won't change necessarily for the worst. So what if our friendship morphs into something else?

C: Motherhood is the change in your life, but just because I won’t be a mother, it doesn’t mean I won’t change. I think this is why I was clinging onto the party girl thing [because I was afraid of change]. I’ll never stop going out but I want to do it less, I’m leaning into cosiness and being at home more than I normally am.

A: Is that because you feel more comfortable in your childfree status?

C: I think so. There's other things I've also realised about being childfree that are glorious, that aren’t just staying out all night or going to all the parties. It’s the time I spend volunteering, or going to the gym, or cooking. I'm starting to embrace that side of me.

A: I’d also like to add how much time you spend nurturing your friendships because, one of the things I love about you, is you do have these friendships that have lasted decades, and you have friendships that have lasted months, or a couple of years and you dedicate so much time to them and the people in your life. It's something that I care a lot about as well. That is a huge time drain, I don't mean it's a drain because it's not a chore at all, but when you hit your mid 30s the shit starts hitting the fan…

C: Life really starts lifing.

A: Life has lifed hard for you, and for me. We’ve had issues with our health, our friend’s health, their parents health or our own parents health and, even outside of motherhood, there are things that happen that shock and challenge you that are a lot to deal with emotionally. Life is just not as fun as it was in our 20s.

C: I also think it's actually very important for mothers to have child-free friends. Because I do want to be able to use my time to be there for my friends. I’ve been doing a lot of reckoning of late about what’s important to me, and friendship and love and relationships are so much more important to me than my career, and I’m willing to almost let my career take a hit for that.

I'll always choose the people I love above that so if you need someone [to care for your baby] because you just need to go away and scream around the block for a bit, I don’t want you to think “Katie doesn't have kids so she won't want to do that” because I will want to do that, I will want to do it for you. Because you mean so much to me.

A: I’m going to put that on record! But also just because you don’t have your own kids that doesn’t mean that your life is of less importance. If you had a volunteering commitment, or a book deadline, or were flying to Tokyo, all of those things are equally valid. But I do really appreciate that and think that both camps need each other very much.

I feel like I comically cut off my nose to spite my face with some of my friendships when I let them go because of the kids thing, but again, that came from a place of pain and not necessarily a place of rational thought. Now I'm in a much more rational place, and I was even before I got pregnant, I can see that.

C: But you being able to see that is something that friends should also do. A vital. thing in friendships is empathy, and being able to think “actually, I can see that my friend is behaving in this way because of this other thing, even if they can't recognise that themselves right now, so I'm just going to give them a little bit of leeway.”

A: In modern life we're very, very quick to cut people off. But we’re changing, and you and I are growing up and shifting into the next stage of our life. So, of course, our behaviours and our values are going to shift and we’re going to have to be accommodating of that. If I knew anything about astrology I’d say we’re in some sort of turn.

C: A friendship return? I don’t know if that works as returns are bad! It’s funny as when you left the office on Thursday I was so impacted by that even though I knew I’d be seeing you in a week!

A: For me too, as that is a massive part of my identity. Leaving that office, I was terrified. About my career and what I’ll come back to and whether I will be judged for taking a year off, but then also not knowing if I have it in me to be a mum full-time for a whole year. I have a very short attention span! I have all these worries too, and I think we all need to get better at normalising these terrifying fears that come in the middle of the night.

When it comes to being a mother, or not, women need to rstart talking to everyone that will listen about how they really feel. So, are we honest with our friends? No, not all the time. Sometimes that's okay. But we need to get a bit better about trying to be more honest.

C: Particularly trying to not worry as much about upsetting people, because then you end up in the small talk territory with the ones you love, which is so much worse.

A: Be more honest, “are you having a horrible life?” “yes but I don’t want to talk about it! But at least you asked!”

C: That was a lovely chat. I loved it, and I love you. I’m looking forward to our friendship return.