Shattered Roots

(a short essay)

It wasn’t until I moved across the county, away from everyone and everything I knew, that I realized how challenging it was without my tribe of friends. I often miss the days when the kids would be bored on a weekend or a summer day, and we could run over to another mom friend’s house where the kids could play outside or watch a movie while we get some much-needed mom time. While we understand that this helps our brain and bodies to be our best selves, there is as science to friendship; a review of 38 studies found that adult friendships, especially high-quality ones that provide social support and companionship, significantly predict well-being and can protect against mental health issues such as depression and anxiety—and those benefits persist across the life span (Pezirkianidis, C., et al., Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 14, 2023; Blieszner, R., et al., Innovation in Aging, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2019).

Friendships and social connections can be made and maintained at any age, and while my kids understand that our BMFF’s are not close by, we still love and support each other from far away. And there are many new people in our support network that we cherish and enjoy spending our time with. All these people are important and all these relationships should be supported. Friendship is a magic, and while my family is learning that growing up and moving away is a natural part of their life, how we treat our relationships and continue to foster them allows all of us to grow, separately and together.

Understandably, our friendships often grow apart, especially when you throw having kids into the mix. Busy lives, growing kids, and jobs, traveling, family, and other obligations often overlook the people in our lives that we don’t see or talk to every day, and who might have their own priorities. Positive relationships outside of your household is crucial to overall well-being, longevity, and even more so, integrated support networks provide them with the necessary resources to successfully deal with depression, anxiety, loneliness, alcohol overdose and many other physical and mental health difficulties (Christakis and Fowler, 2009, 2013).

I think of this often because one of my BMFF is a person I have known since kindergarten. We have held each other’s babies, and our kids think of each other as brothers. We have traveled with and without them, we’ve cooked food, dropped off medication, picked each other’s kids up from school, house-sat when the other is away, and we are there for one another through all of life’s accomplishments and struggles. Being a human is hard enough, and raising kids without a village and all of the people who support us and our children throughout life are important.

We might have a mom friend who will come over with a bottle of wine when you are having a rough week, feeling sad, or dealing with life’s problems.

Our best mom friend might be the one who does not have her own kids, but treats your kids like the ones she never had.

The one who might have kids who are the same ages as your kids, so they grow up thinking of these people as family, as siblings, or as another parent who cares for and supports them.

Our BMFF might be the woman at the park who has the endless bag of snacks, band-aids, juice boxes, and toys who wants every kid there to have the best day ever, just like her own.

The one who offers to become an extra emergency contact at your kid’s school or daycare because you are new in town and don’t know anyone, and may also pick them up when you’re stuck in traffic.

The one who is the organizer or leader, and rallies all of the other moms and kids, and perhaps husbands or partners to an event or activity that she may or may not have also planned.

These people are part of our village, and we cannot survive without them. They become our family, our children’s family, and are even more important than our biological families in many ways because we choose them. But BMFF’s or our Best Mom Friends Forever and the rest of our village that we might take for granted. We all need one, and our kids do too.

Laura Holtby

To read more:

Adult friendship and wellbeing: A systematic review with practical implications
Pezirkianidis, C., et al., Frontiers in Psychology, 2023

Pezirkianidis, C., Galanaki, E., Raftopoulou, G., Moraitou, D., & Stalikas, A. (2023). Adult friendship and wellbeing: A systematic review with practical implications. Frontiers in psychology, 14, 1059057. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1059057