Why Mum Friendships Matter More Than Ever (and we're not talking about those WhatsApp groups)

How true friendships buffer stress and improve mental health for mums

by Scarlett Sykes

The older you get, the harder “making friends” becomes. Not because you’ve forgotten how, but because life fills up. A full-time job. Three kids. The mental load.

Fitness goals. Healthy meals. Being a present wife. And somewhere in there we are also meant to prioritise ourselves so it isn’t surprising that friendships can slip down the pecking order at times.

Even with all this going on, friendships matter more than ever, especially the ones that go beyond the surface-level WhatsApp group chats about school reminders or what dress up day we have all forgotten (seriously though, how many dress-up days is too many dress-up days!?). I’m talking about the ones that quietly buffer the bad days, the ones that see you when you feel like you are drowning or say you’re ‘fine’ when you both know you’re not.

Friendship in motherhood rarely looks like spontaneous weekends away or long, lazy lunches. It’s not constant texting or daily phone calls. It’s fragmented. Squeezed into car journeys between meetings or pickups. Built in snatched moments. It’s the long brain-dump voice note sent on the way to work which are usually unfiltered, messy, honest. It’s the quick “you, okay?” and knowing look at school pick-up when you’re both running on empty. It’s the out-of-the-blue call that somehow comes exactly when you needed it. It’s the planned walk-and-talk where you both turn up in leggings, slightly frazzled, but leave lighter than when you arrived.

Friendship at this stage isn’t about frequency. It’s like a comfort blanket. It’s about knowing that even if you haven’t spoken for two weeks, you could pick up the phone right now and be met with the same ‘hello’ you would expect from a friendship you have nourished over time.

Motherhood is amazing, I’m not here to moan, but it is also relentless. The responsibility never switches off. Even when you’re resting, your mind is planning, organising, anticipating something you might have forgotten. That’s why true friendships are not a luxury they are a necessity for our sanity. Research consistently shows that strong social connections improve mental health, reduce feelings of isolation, and help regulate stress. When a mum has a trusted friend, she can be fully honest with, her nervous system gets a break. She doesn’t have to be the “good mum” or the “capable one”, just for a little bit.

Saying out loud, “I’m struggling,” to someone who responds with “me too” or “I totally get it” is more powerful than we realise. It normalises hard days and reminds you that you are not failing, you are human and doing the best you can. And sometimes, the buffering isn’t even in the words. It’s in a warm hug or just walking side-by-side talking about the ridiculous situation’s motherhood threw at you that day. Those moments regulate us in ways that scrolling never really can.

One of the biggest myths about adult friendship is that consistency equals closeness. In reality, motherhood demands flexibility which is why the friendships we built around our busy lives are the ones that survive. The ones where you don’t have to apologise for not responding (we are all guilty of it).

The true measure of a friendship often reveals itself in the hard moments. When you’re overwhelmed and questioning everything. When your child is struggling and you feel helpless. When work pressure collides with home life. When you’re sick, exhausted, touched out, and emotionally stretched.

For me it is the friend who sends a message saying, ‘just checking in but no pressure to respond’. The voice notes which sound more like a constant stream of consciousness from them, with little sense but it is just nice to hear that someone else if juggle a busy brain too.

As we get older, our friendship circles often get smaller, but they get deeper. We become less interested in fitting in and more interested in being known. We crave friendships where we can truly be who we are. Where we can admit that sometimes we shout at our kids and feel horrible guilt, not because we are terrible mums but because everyone has breaking point.

So, if you’re in this stage of your life, consider this your reminder: those small friendship moments are not trivial. They are vital. The voice notes. The quick coffees. The car park chats. The walks around the block. They are micro-investments in your mental health.

You may not have hours to spare, but you have moments. And those moments, when shared with someone who truly sees you, matter more than ever. Motherhood can be isolating, but it doesn’t have to be lonely. While the WhatsApp groups serve a purpose, it’s the real friendships, the honest, steady, imperfect ones that hold you up when you need it most.

Protect them. Nurture them. Let them nurture you. Because true mum friendships aren’t an extra. They’re essential.

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Scarlett Sykes is a Dubai-based writer and mum of three.