by SUZANNE DEGGES-WHITE and CHRISTINE BORZUMATO-GAINEY
In this excerpt from “Friends Forever,” co-authors Suzanne Degge-White and Christine Borzumato-Gainey describe the often liberating way some women’s friendships can change in midlife, when young children are no longer a common denominator.
The years that stretch from early adulthood through midlife are often crammed full of “doing” and “acting,” whether this busy-ness revolves around work, our romantic partner, family obligations or children.
Thus, many of our friendships are forged on specific activities and expectations related to the hub of where the action takes place. This has been attributed to the time constraints that this period of life presents. However, many of us in midlife find that our children are growing up and moving out and our lives and lifestyles may be shifting and morphing into a new incarnation.
The “friends” we counted on to share soccer game snack duty, middle school carpool duty, or high school dance chaperone duty are no longer a regular, rotating part of our lives. As some of these “pseudo-friendships,” as one woman termed them, fall away, we enter a stage where we can more clearly explore the person we are and the friendships that would best energize and more fully satisfy us. Letting go of our children and the friends that were a fundamental element of the childrearing period of our lives can be painful for some of us, but cathartic for others.
One woman described it as totally liberating. She said that she was eager to cut the ties to her daughter’s friends’ narrow-minded and rigid parents. She felt that the putting away of her daughter’s high school cheerleading uniform was the opportunity to tuck away a treasured part of her own identity that had reached fruition and a necessary ending.
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