Crain's Chicago Business, March 28 , 2008

Great friends — until they had kids

Crain's Chicago Business Photo by Andreas Larsson

Deanna Salo thought she had found a lifelong friend in a former neighbor.

The woman and her husband moved into the same Lombard townhouse community as the Salos when they were in their late 20s. Both were newly married, with plans to have children, and enjoyed shopping and pop culture.

Two years later, they got pregnant within a week of each other, and each had a daughter.

"We both delivered the same summer, so we spent a lot of time in the pool and sunning ourselves with our very good and healthy babies," says Ms. Salo, a partner at Cray Kaiser Ltd., an accounting and consulting firm in Oakbrook Terrace. The two women had become dear friends and confidantes.

But within a few months, their lives diverged. Ms. Salo registered her daughter in a KinderCare day care center and returned to work. Her friend, a teacher, turned to family and friends to care for her daughter, then decided to become a stay-at-home mom. The friendship that had withstood pregnancies and early motherhood couldn't endure the slights, real or imagined, of their different child-rearing choices.

"She couldn't imagine leaving her child (in day care) and would ask, how I could do that," says Ms. Salo, 43. "She was almost questioning my moral character."

Then her friend moved to Ohio, and the Salos moved to Glen Ellyn. They now communicate only through annual holiday cards with updates on their children's lives.

It's a scenario familiar to many women: Female friends who seem to have so much in common before motherhood, who often have worked together for years, find their relationships suddenly strained by differing child care decisions. The conflict doesn't just divide groups of women — working moms against stay-at-home moms — but also pierces individual friendships in sometimes surprising ways.

Staying at home vs. going to the office, working part time vs. full time, choosing group day care vs. a nanny — the decisions cut to the core of one's views.

A stay-at-home mother can't imagine a stranger handling the moral development of her children, while a working mom embraces the opportunity for her kids to learn in a structured environment and to socialize with other children. Two people who thought they agreed on most things find themselves questioning the character and values of the other.

FRIENDSHIP IN FREE-FALL

It's hardly the welcome respite of friendship one reaches for with a glass of wine at the end of the day. And once divided by the child care question, valued friendships can free-fall.

"It's a very, very touchy area," says Marla Paul, Chicago author of "The Friendship Crisis," which uses extensive anecdotal research to discuss the difficulty of finding and keeping friendships. "There are few things more tender for a woman than her abilities as a mother and to do right by her children. If someone impugns your role and makes snide comments about your 'not being there for your kids' or 'your brain turning to mush' because you're staying home, it's a flashpoint.

"Whatever a woman decides to do, there's still a part of her that wishes she had chosen different. It's uncomfortable to be conflicted. It tends to make you feel judgmental about somebody, because you need to feel strongly about your own decision."

Claudia McLeod, a 37-year-old Lincoln Park resident, is still trying to acclimate to her new role as stay-at-home mom — and her new position outside a circle of friends from her former office.

She worked as a business development manager for an extrusion plastics company in Libertyville before quitting to care for her second child, a son now 7 months old. She relishes the "hanging out" time she has with Conner and daughter Sydney, 3.

Like many working women, she had developed close friendships with colleagues who were moms. Although she still keeps in touch with those women, her relationship with them has changed. When they find time to meet, conversation is stilted. They don't want to talk about work, thinking she'll be envious. For the same reason, she doesn't want to talk about the joys of being at home with her children.

"I tend to be hush-hush about some of the fun moments I have with my kids because I know that they don't have the same luxury. So I stay mute," Ms. McLeod says of being with her daughter after nap time in her room. "Those are the moments that (working moms) don't get."

The awkwardness struck her one day when, instead of meeting out for lunch, two friends from work came to her home. Both sides seemed to be clamming up.

"I realized the conversations weren't like they used to be when we worked together," she says. "We used to talk about work or what's going on in the industry, and now it's about kids. But it's also more simplistic because I'm avoiding some subjects."

FEELING JUDGED

Mary Lou Mastro, 53, has felt tension in friendships during two periods in her life since having her children, now 20, 15 and 14.

When they were young, she felt some friends were judging her for not spending enough time at home. But looking back, she says, she might have been overly sensitive over the prickly question.

"Back then, I think some of it was my own guilt," she says of the friends who drifted away. "Now I see they probably weren't judging at all. But we saw each other less and less."

Later in her career, Ms. Mastro stayed home for three years before taking her current position as president of Linden Oaks Hospital in Naperville. Then, too, she was surprised when people close to her questioned her decision to return to work. She remembers pointed questions from one friend, in particular, about whether she'd still have time for friends and family.

Heather Locus, a financial planner with Balasa Dinverno & Foltz LLC in Chicago, has mostly stay-at-home-mom friends and is keenly aware of how their lives differ.

Although the cliché says she's supposed to be the glamorous working one, she counters that her friends dress better than she does because they have more time to shop. But there are notable differences in how they spend. Eyebrows were raised when she and her husband moved into a new home, took family vacations and threw big birthday parties for their children, ages 5 and 2.

Her party-planning logic isn't the same as the other moms: While they might agonize over whom not to invite to keep costs down, Ms. Locus says, convenience trumps cost for her. "It's easier for us to have a big party and have it somewhere where we can invite more people. Paying an extra $5 for each extra kid isn't an issue."

On a more subtle level, Ms. Locus, 36, finds herself maneuvering carefully through conversations with the five other women at their regular girls' night out.

Deep down, "I think I spend more quality time with my kids," she says, though it's something she wouldn't offer up for conversation: "They probably disagree."

And she is constantly having to explain how busy she is juggling work and children — even though she uses day care and a nanny — because she feels her friends who knew the workplace only before kids don't understand what it's like to be a working mother.

"They tend to think of work the way it was pre-kids. It's not like that," she says. "Now there's a timetable. A couple of friends worked downtown and it was all social — going out to lunch or for drinks. I have to educate them that it's not like it was."

Ms. Locus settles for the camaraderie even if she doesn't feel totally understood anymore.

"There are times when I'd like to talk more about bigger issues — the elections, the market or career goals. That doesn't happen with them," she says. "But as a working mom, it's helpful to hear what they talk about. It's like research."

©2008 by Crain Communications Inc.

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