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How do friends fit in?

When babies arrive, friendships among adults sometimes falter

By Alandra Johnson / The Bulletin

Published: September 14. 2007 4:00AM PST

Bend resident Leah Ross had reached a breaking point, so on Aug. 23, the Bend mother of two decided to do something about it. She went online and placed a rather unusual ad on Craigslist, a free Internet bulletin board. Ross loves her husband and children, but she was looking for more. In a word, she wanted friends.

“This may sound completely ridiculous,” reads the opening line of the ad. “We are a mid-20s couple with toddlers that are in need of some new relationships with people similar to us. I am tired of our single friends not understanding our situation and no parents to talk to while our kids play ... ever had these thoughts?”

Since moving back to her hometown of Bend about a year ago, after stints in Salem, Portland, Prineville and Nevada, Ross and her husband hadn’t been able to form a strong connection with any other couples with children.

“After you have kids, it just seems like it’s all-consuming,” Ross said. “I want somebody to talk to who has the same type of problems.”

Ross says her single friends didn’t understand that she no longer could go out drinking or to a spur-of-the-moment movie. She says they didn’t understand how much her priorities had shifted.

“Some of them don’t want to be around kids,” Ross said. “They’re 90 percent of my life now.”

Starting a family is one of many reasons that friendships, particularly among women, fade, according to several authors and friendship researchers.

In her book “The Friendship Crisis,” Marla Paul examines the many reasons why modern women sometimes struggle to find friendships. She cites moving, having children, divorce, leaving work to stay at home with kids and working from home. But the reasons for losing friends doesn’t make their absence any easier to bear.

“Whatever the reason pals are scarce, the impact is the same,” writes Paul. “It’s like missing an essential nutrient. Without friends, problems weigh more and pleasures yield less joy. It’s a palpable void.”

The friendship void may be becoming worse. A study by sociologists at Duke University and the University of Arizona showed that Americans’ social circles have shrunk during the past 19 years. In 1985, Americans reported having an average of 2.98 people to talk to about important matters; in 2004, that number dropped by one-third to 2.08 close confidants on average. Further, researchers found that the number of people who said they had no such confidant doubled to 25 percent of those surveyed.

While few parents are likely to follow Ross’ lead and place an ad online, many do recognize the importance of friendship in their lives and try to figure out a way to make it work in their busy schedules.

Importance of friends

Before placing her ad online, Ross had looked into joining the local MOMS Club, but most of their meetings seemed to be held during the day, when Ross is at work. Beyond that, she wasn’t sure how to go about making friends.

“A lot of people keep to themselves nowadays. I’m guilty of it myself,” Ross said.

The friendship Ross envisions sounds simple enough. She wants a couple who can come over to her house, order pizza or something, then “let the kids run wild while we sit and drink wine.” The guys can go in the garage and talk about tools, while the women chat about family life and anything else that comes to mind.

Ross knows this sounds like the “cliche type of relationship from the good old days,” but that’s what she wants. And if the responses Ross received from the ad are any indication, she isn’t the only local person craving friendship. She heard from about seven couples, all of whom said they felt the same way she did.

She has two meetings set up with women who responded to her ad, which she says feels a bit odd.

“It’s like a blind date,” said Ross. “I’m interviewing for the position of my friend.”

Finding friends could provide more than companionship for Ross and her husband. According to Elaine Zelley, an associate professor of communication at La Salle University in Philadelphia, researchers have found that friendship is key for emotional and physical health.

“Having social support of some type is very important to emotional health, which is linked to physical health,” said Zelley. Researchers have linked friendship to preventing depression, heart disease and other stress-based illnesses, according to Zelley. Other researchers found that people with friends are more likely to live longer than those without close friends.

A 2002 study by researchers based at Pennsylvania State University found that friends play a particularly important role for women. The study found that when responding to stress, men tend to become aggressive or retreat. Women, on the other hand, deal with stress by gathering with other women, which can in turn calm them. A Nurses’ Health Study from Harvard Medical School found that not having close friends was as unhealthy as smoking or being overweight in part because women with fewer friends tended to be more likely to develop physical ailments as they got older and were less likely to be leading a joyful life.

Zelley says that “convenience and similarities are very important in adult friendships.”

Bend mom Lisa Teklits met and developed friendship with several parents locally because they all have adopted children of similar ages. They go to soccer, music classes, the pool and the library together. The parents share information, tips and valuable resources.

“Ultimately, the kids are the glue that holds us together,” said Teklits.

Redmond resident Jenny Norris is friends with a circle of women who all home-school their children. Friends offer a chance to share resources, educate each other and bond over shared experiences and milestones.

“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have kids,” said Norris, 32. “We kind of surround ourselves subconsciously with like-minded people.”

She says this kind of affiliation happens naturally. It starts, Norris says, when you’re pregnant and start asking people about their deliveries. Then you want to know about which brand of diapers to use and breast-feeding details. Norris says, you start out asking opinions and end up talking about life experiences.

“Your life just changes in that way,” said Norris. “It wasn’t a conscious thing.”

Friends, Norris says, are a sounding board and are people she relies upon, people she knows will be there for her when she needs them.

“They totally understand; they get it,” said Norris.

Friend trouble

Susan Shapiro Barash, author of “Tripping the Prom Queen,” has interviewed dozens of women for her research about women’s lives. When asked about important things in their lives, women rank friendship incredibly high, right below children and a romantic relationship. Despite the importance many women place on friendship, Barash says it is “the first thing that gets put on the back burner.”

Most of the women, she says, “put children ahead of everything else,” leaving little time for anything beyond family life. Because of this time crunch, Barash says many women find themselves becoming friends with people who are in similar life circumstances.

“Women are aware of it, they are sensitive to it, but don’t know what to do about it,” said Barash.

In her book “Friendshifts: The Power of Friendship,” Jan Yager writes that most people “are unaware how powerful and positive friendship can be, or they would take it more seriously.” She goes on to say that like love, friendship requires “an investment of time and effort.”

Yager points out that in many ways, friendship is more important now than ever for several factors. Families are smaller, which means children have fewer siblings, and family members, including retirees are more frequently moving to other cities and states.

When something happens in one friend’s life, such as a marriage, move or the birth of a child, the time and effort they are willing to put out to maintaining a friendship often decrease.

Zelley says friendship is the one truly voluntary relationship in life. So when convenience and similarities begin to disappear, the bond can also disappear.

“If the child becomes the primary focus, what do you talk about?” asked Zelley.

Because women’s friendships are “primarily maintained” through talk, shared conversation is important, according to Zelley.

Zelley explains that most people do an unconscious cost/benefit analysis on their friendship. And when they “perceive the drawbacks to be more than the rewards,” they move away from that friendship.

Barash says differences in life circumstances can also lead to feelings of envy and competition. One friend has children while the other doesn’t; one friend can stay home while the other has to work; one friend is financially comfortable, the other is not; or one friend is divorced while the other has a stable marriage.

“When not everyone is on the same page, it often causes some kind of breach,” said Barash.

If those problems are not addressed, Barash says, friends often start avoiding each other and friendships fade away and dissolve.

Making it work

Zelley believes that many people are too quick to toss out their friends when differences arise. She suggests people need to “recognize you became friends for a reason” and focus on that. Friendship, she says, is an effort, Differences can be a good thing that allow friends to learn from each other.

Zelley suggests that people give a pass to those undergoing big life transitions, whether moving, having kids or going through a divorce.

“Be a little more flexible, letting friendships ebb and flow,” said Zelley.

In order to remain friends despite these differences, Barash suggests friends “admit the problem” and talk about their issues openly. Maybe one friend feels that the other doesn’t understand her commitment to her children; maybe the other feels that her friend dismisses her problems as frivolous.

Some women Barash interviewed also had an unconscious idea that friends should be identical. Friends have to recognize that they will be different, with different priorities.

“Stop thinking you’re twins,” said Barash. “Just accept each other and stop holding the bar so high.”

Teklits found a way to maintain friendships with people in very different life situations from hers while living in Pennsylvania many years ago.

“A lot of my friends had children 10 years before I did. You just can’t relate,” said Teklits, 37. She would go over to their house and it was crazy, with kids running around. She accepted that their lives weren’t on the same path and took that time to focus on her relationship with her husband. Despite these differences, Teklits remains very close with her friends back East.

Finding community

Janna Elkstrom moved to Bend from California four years ago with her husband. The week they moved in, Elkstrom found out she was pregnant. During that year, Elkstrom started working as a teacher at a local elementary school. She made some work friends, but when she decided to stay home after the birth of her child, those friends disappeared.

“I felt really isolated,” said Elkstrom, 35. “I really lost touch the people I had been working with.”

She tried to remain friends with people in California. But while she is still in touch with her two closest friends, she has lost contact with many others.

“It was really hard for me,” said Elkstrom, who says she was “still trying to hang on to some friendships” that just didn’t work out. Elkstrom says she had “unrealistic expectations” when she left California. After she had her son, she says she wanted to reach out to the people who had known her in the past. She says it almost felt like she was grieving for the woman she used to be.

“I was holding on to something that was familiar,” said Elkstrom.

Now, Elkstrom has come to terms with the loss of closeness with some of those former friends. She has, what she calls “Christmas card friends” and then the real friends, who she can call and visit when she is in California.

About two years ago, Elkstrom joined the MOMS Club and found a network of friends. In some ways, Elkstrom says, having a baby made it easier to find friends, and she might have felt even more isolated had she not been able to join the local group. She joined one playgroup, called the Cub Club. The club has been going strong for several years. Everyone is super friendly and Elkstrom feels a strong connection with the 10 other women in the group. It’s great, she says, to be able to talk about her sons’ development stages and other parenting questions. She feels that the women, as well as their husbands and kids, have become part of her extended family.

“I feel very, very fortunate,” said Elkstrom.

While they often talk about their children, Elkstrom says the connection has progressed to become deeper than that.

“Kids is a great bond, but a lot of time all you’re talking about is kids. What about you? What about me? What did you do before you had kids?” said Elkstrom. “It took a while to come out.”

Going out on a few moms’ nights, sans kids, helped solidify some of the friendships. While many playgroups dissolve or meet infrequently, Elkstrom is impressed by the women’s dedication to making this one stick. Some of the kids are starting preschool, while other moms are considering going back to work, but most of the women are willing to put in the extra effort to try to make Cub Club continue.

“Everybody feels that it is a priority,” said Elkstrom.

Alandra Johnson can be reached at 617-7860 or at ajohnson@bendbulletin.com.

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