Jennifer Horgan: Is it possible to maintain our friendships when we have children?

A dream highlights an unresolved feeling of jealousy, prompting Jennifer Horgan to think about how relationships change when we become parents 

My dream seemed to suggest what is perhaps obvious — that our children break up our friendships or at least threaten them. It is impossible perhaps, to hold onto old friendships while having children, certainly if friends are not at the exact same stage.

Stepping out onto a freshly painted zebra crossing, my friend spots me.

I’m sitting alone at a roadside cafe. It’s hot, the street broad, the light suggesting it might be Australia, where I lived for a short while, decades ago.