There are three types of friends allegedly; a friend for a reason; a friend for a season; and a friend who lasts a lifetime. I’m not sure where school-mum friends fit into this, but I found myself wondering about it recently following a chat with a lovely pal on a walk one evening.“They all disappeared once the kids were finished school,” my walking companion said of her school mum friendships. Life got in the way. People drifted. And there was nothing to tie them back to committed meet-ups. They were no longer at school gatherings or events. And no longer in each other’s lives in any meaningful way.“It can be quite lonesome,” she said, describing the ways she has tried to make new friends since, to no real avail. Having invested so many years in her children’s school lives and the friendships of fellow school parents, she has found herself in an unexpected position of isolation now that they’ve all finished school.School mum friendships can be a strange affair. They don’t necessarily form at the school gates where cliques can seem apparent and best behaviours are on display. Where sunglasses worn to hide the signs of sleep deprivation, or postnatal depression induced cry fests, can also disguise any sign of willingness or even desperation to connect.School mum nights out are often where the real magic happens. That’s where the guard comes down. The secrets are shared. And the questions are asked.“What age are you?” a mum asked me a bare couple of glasses of wine into our very first junior infants parents’ night out. I was still in my twenties – which was something of an anomaly by today’s standards – and about 10 years younger than the mothers who awaited my reply. And it was at this point I truly learned that age is completely irrelevant when it comes to friendships, but being at a similar stage of life helps enormously.[ Jen Hogan: You may be questioning the sort of company I keepOpens in new window ]During another child’s senior infants parents’ night out some years later, I almost gave birth in the toilets. I felt a strong urge to pee, right between the starter and the main course of our sit down meal. When a parent at the table figured I’d been gone a long time for someone with such a big bump, she decided to investigate. I was phoneless in a cubicle.Thankfully, she was not. And child number six was born in the hospital.Shared bonds, experiences and friendships be that began largely because of where we all were at that time in our lives. But are these kind of friendships built to last? “Definitely,” one mother replied when I asked. “One in particular is my bestie. She took me in when I was homeless last year.”“They even support me in my business, and my youngest is 26 now”, the same mother said of the friendships made with then fellow school mums.“Absolutely,” another mum said. “But in my experience in small numbers – not the class WhatsApp group” she clarified.“Yes, but only for my older lad,” one parent said. “My lady’s group are an odd bunch.” Yet another said that it depended “if you meet the right ones. I have the best of friendships with mams I met over 15 years ago”.But for others mums the experience had been very different. For some the friendships became forced and awkward as children moved on with their lives, while others pointed to the ways in which emerging difficulties within their children’s friendship group, spread to the friendship groups of the parents.Some friendships seem to continue, one mum explained, “but I feel like I’m on the outside constantly”.Other friendships just ran their course. “Few really put the effort into maintaining the friendship,” another mother said.And now as the summer holidays begin, and some school journeys have ended, there are memories of the school year and connections aplenty to celebrate. But for the parents of children not returning to their primary or secondary schools in September, will those friendships made in the heat of missing school jumper panics, forgotten homework journals, shared sports runs, and pick-up time conversations, stand the test of an absent school calendar? Who can really tell?Friends for a season, perhaps. The right people at the right time of life. But that’s of little comfort right now to my pal who invested so much in these friendships over the years.