{"id":587037,"date":"2026-08-08T13:34:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T13:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/587037\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T13:34:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T13:34:18","slug":"a-stranger-knocked-on-my-door-because-she-heard-i-had-a-baby-she-thought-we-could-be-friends-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/587037\/","title":{"rendered":"A stranger knocked on my door because she heard I had a baby… she thought we could be friends \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a certain bravery that comes with the act of making friends. Three years ago I was on maternity leave<\/a>, hanging out at home, when the doorbell rang. I opened the door to find a woman standing on the footpath with a buggy. \u201cI heard you have a baby,\u201d she said. \u201cI live on the road and I have a baby too. I thought we could get to know each other.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cCome in,\u201d I said, wondering if, in my sleep-deprived, early motherhood state, I was about to get robbed. I invited her into the front room and asked if she\u2019d like a cup of tea. She was nice. She did not, thankfully, seem like someone who was going to rob me. Three years on, our little ones are tremendous pals and we have had countless play dates in each other\u2019s back gardens. This stranger has become a friend I can rely on. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve told this story a few times and it amazes people. There\u2019s often a wistfulness to the reaction. A sense that we\u2019ve lost the community we used to have in the past, where something like that might just happen. A feeling that maybe we could all try being a bit braver.<\/p>\n

Lately I\u2019ve been trying to persuade myself to be more ambitious and vulnerable in my own life, whether that\u2019s taking on a new hobby or making a new friend. Apparently I\u2019m in a good place to do it. <\/p>\n

As we age it gets harder to make new friends, because people have their friendships locked down. But I\u2019m in what\u2019s known as a \u201cstrong friendship market\u201d, according to sociologist and author Janice McCabe, who has studied friendship for two decades, because my identity is changing \u2013 having become a mother. A friendship made because it connects to an emerging identity \u2013 whether it\u2019s becoming a parent<\/a>, an ice skater or a college student \u2013 will, she theorises, do better than one that exists for no reason beyond the desire to have friends. <\/p>\n

\u201cMom friends\u201d are a real phenomenon, even if the term sometimes sounds derogatory. And they\u2019re important, particularly now when the \u201cit takes a village to raise a child\u201d line sometimes prompts exhausted parents to wonder: where is the village now? <\/p>\n

I grew up in a home where people just dropped in. They might be bringing something back to you \u2013 a cake tin, a book, they might be just swinging by, but you\u2019d see the car lights flash in the driveway and know a visitor was calling. Sometimes they didn\u2019t take off their coat (\u201cNow I\u2019m not staying …\u201d), but they\u2019d still give it half an hour. Maybe have a quick cup of tea. Now, in my 40s with a proper, grown-up home of my own, those unexpected knock-ins are rare. Ringing the doorbell without so much as a warning text? Sound the alarm. <\/p>\n

Yet isolation is increasing and loneliness<\/a> is on people\u2019s minds. Some of the biggest films of the year have friendship as their theme. Project Hail Mary<\/a> is supposed to be a space movie; it\u2019s actually about a man having no friends and finding a friend, and then doing anything for that friend. <\/p>\n

Recently I spoke to a woman who had just bought a Ropet for her adult daughter, who has an illness that has made her retreat from life. I looked it up: it\u2019s a fluffy AI<\/a>-powered teddy you can hug and it makes soothing noises. It recognises voices and adapts to personalities. She bought it because her daughter doesn\u2019t have friends. She loves her daughter and desperately wants her to feel loved. But of course \u2013 as neither of us said \u2013 it\u2019s a friendship without the vulnerability attached. The only danger is the software not updating, or the battery going.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0We live in Dublin city and every night we read about tractors Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

I want the same for my little boy. He\u2019s three and friendship is already on his mind too. I can see him light up when his pal gives him a huge hug, but sometimes he\u2019ll say he doesn\u2019t want it. It makes him feel awkward. What if he leans into the hug and he\u2019s rejected? What if that person he thinks is his friend is not his friend? \u201cYou\u2019re not going to my party,\u201d he declares if he\u2019s cross. What party? That\u2019s not the point. It\u2019s about getting the rejection in first. So he feels in control. Safe.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re told in movies, in books, that dating is hard, that finding a job is difficult, but friendship? No problem. Socialising is effortless. But in reality it\u2019s more complicated than that, particularly as you age. I\u2019m grateful to still have my schoolfriends, who are organising a gigantic class reunion for later in the year, but I also know that making them in the first place took effort. And sustaining those friendships takes effort, too.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it\u2019s good to just knock on the door, and try.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a certain bravery that comes with the act of making friends. Three years ago I was on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[218,93,61,60,2468,709,1786],"class_list":["post-587037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-loneliness","tag-magazine","tag-parenting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}