A busy parent deserves a friend who can enjoy an interrupted conversation.

Conversation with someone in the middle of raising children rarely runs in a straight line. If a friendship needs uninterrupted attention to feel worthwhile, it will quietly fade during exactly the years when it is most needed, not because either person stopped caring but because the format stopped fitting. Tolerating a broken thread is a real form of loyalty.

Be the friend who can pick a sentence back up ten minutes later without visible patience. Talk while something else is happening, and let short exchanges count as the real thing. Presence in fragments is still presence, and it is often all that is on offer.