her view on female friendships isn’t unique among women of her generation. She’s in her seventies now, and no longer feels like she has to soldier on being devoted only to her family. When she was a young wife and mother, she thought of friendships as an indulgence. They were nice, but not essential. What she was responsible for was taking care of her family, so she restrained herself from being interested in anything that would get in the way of that.
