On valuable friendships

I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately. As a quite new mum with a one and a half year old daugther and another baby coming in a few weeks time the conditions of my life has changed radically. Despite basic priorities I might have, such as "my husband comes first", "I must never forget my friends since they'll be there for life" etc, it's difficult to aviod the fact that most of my time goes to my little daughter. I don't have time to cuddle with my husband, call/go out with my friends, take care of my other family as much as I'd like to. I sometimes have very little time for taking care of myself even, and things will surely not be less intensive when next kiddo comes!

As a new mum or dad it's of course therapeutic sharing what is mostly on our minds, namely our kids, with others who might be interested. If one is lucky one has a family who takes an active interest in the kids. But, sometimes this is not the case. We get older and older when we start producing our kids nowadays and thus many of our parents might have passed away. Also if living in big cities other family may not be present. I have friends who's parents aren't interested at all as they want to live their own lifes. And, friends with no kids who has an active couples/single life does naturally not have the time nor the interest to spend "bad quality" time with us homies. I find it understandable as it's frustrating trying to keep an conversation already with other parents... So sometimes we must find new people in order to be able to share this new interest of life!

But, how far should we stretch this need of sharing a common interest with equals? My life device is to always try to achieve balance in life - as was written on the ancient Delphi temple: "everything with moderation" - I believe we should try to avoid exaggering things too much. Our new life conditions, as parents and at the same time citizens in a big town with a thin family may call for radical new thinking. How much extra effort are we willing to make in trying to maintain our old friendships? Could we think of making an expensive move to come closer to friends with or without kids in order to facilite relations? Are we willing to put money on a car for the same reason? Can we think of alternative ways of living such as collective living?

There are of course other things to life such as our hobbies, our careers, our childrens futures, and taking care of our families when planning our future. But, I think it is wise to keep on thinking about what is important to us, and for me hanging out with people is high priority. So I will surely keep on having this hot topic in my mind and strive to try to make the best out my situation!

One topic that I don't discuss here but which is really interesting is how we relate to our families, especially those we have difficulties being friends with... perhaps I'll discuss this here some other time.