Somewhere in my mid-thirties, I started to feel a deep sense of disconnection from my friends, as one by one, they became parents. I lost my husband at the age of 34, and at that point I was uncertain about whether I wanted children – or how I would have them. My friends were now consumed with raising small children and the amount we saw each other was dramatically reduced as a result. Holidays and weekends away were off the table for the foreseeable future, and the times we did manage to get together were snatched hours here and there.
I felt a lack of connection too. Being unable to talk freely with each other, either because there was a child present or because we weren’t able to find time, meant that we didn’t know what was happening in each other’s lives, nor were we able to have a conversation that went past surface-level chat.
I didn’t mind trekking across London or anti-social meet-up times in the beginning, but over time the lack of reciprocity became draining. When I realised that I was in the minority in my friendship circle, I started to feel isolated.
Friendships aren’t just a nice to have – as human beings, they are essential for our emotional wellbeing and happiness, more so than any other type of relationship, according to Professor Robin Dunbar, an emeritus of evolutionary psychology. No wonder then that with the dropping off of my friendship circle, I started to feel unhappy, resentful, and upset.
This is something that I see almost every childfree person go through at that life stage, when that bedrock of friendship seems to crumble and re-form. I don’t blame my friends at all – the expectations I placed on them after they became parents were not realistic. The problem was that my social circle had stagnated, and what I really needed to do was make new friends – either people who didn’t have children, or older people whose children had left home.
I learned this lesson by accident. At the age of 36, I quit my corporate job and moved to a completely different part of London. I joined a local community gym, and ended up slowly making new friendships through a lifting team. As someone who had made most of my friends through school and university, trying to make new friends at a later stage felt daunting – it was almost like dating.
But I learned to overcome my nervousness and it led to some very strong friendships that slowly eased the loneliness I was feeling in my own life. It was like building a muscle: I became more confident in asking people I met through work if they wanted to meet for coffee, and made two very good friends (and counting) this way. One these friends is fellow author Shahroo Izadi – we started chatting on Instagram, and she came to support me at a book launch. We tentatively asked each other out for coffee, which progressed onto drinks and then an overnight stay in the Cotswolds. The key was to build up the layers of getting to know each other rather than expecting it to be an instant bond. Now I can’t imagine my life without her.
Making childfree friends was life-changing. It improved my older friendships, eased the pressure around reciprocity and helped me to advocate for myself more (no, I don’t want to go to a playground in east London at 9am, no matter how magical your child is). Most importantly, in a child-centric society, it made me feel seen. I loved that my friends were finding joy in being parents but it did mean in some cases that was all we talked about. Being forced to make new friends also meant I found people who reflected my political beliefs and how I liked to travel, rather than trying to retrofit an old friendship with the latest version of myself.
However, recently, I became aware that there is a second wave of this kind of destabilisation around friendships, which can be much harder to tackle as we get older, particularly for women: when our friends become grandparents. I started writing a book called She Wanted More, and by interviewing childfree women in their sixties, discovered that this can cause a wave of disconnection and loneliness.
I spoke to ageing activist Jody Day, who told me that she had felt it as a childfree-by-circumstance person, and that it shows up again in similar things, from people talking primarily about their grandchildren to not being as available to meet up because of grandparent duties. It underlined the importance of evolving our friendship circles as we get older, and making friends with people who reflect our own circumstances too.
In the survey I conducted of more than 1,000 women about what was important to them as they got older, over 90 per cent of them said that friendship was the most important thing – over a romantic relationship and even family. We are finally realising that the nuclear family isn’t enough to sustain and generate human connection, that actually our communities need to be bigger and more diverse – regardless of whether or not you have kids.
As we grow older, there is an aspect to friendship that feels like it has more serious consequences than it does in our 30s. It’s no longer just about companionship or having a laugh; it feels like an essential part of taking care of each other. One of the questions childfree people get asked the most is “who will take care of you when you are older?”. That is something we all have to consider, whether our childlessness is by choice or circumstance.
For me personally, I’ve changed how I look at friendship altogether. When I was younger, I felt as if I would be friends forever with the people in my life, but I have learned that sometimes circumstances change. It has prompted a much more introspective look at friendship, and working out what I need to feel in one. I’ve seen how much better life is when I also have friends that reflect where I am at in life than just who I used to be – and although it is hard work, it feels like necessary preparation to stave off loneliness further down the line.
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