Model, entrepreneur and former Miss Universe Australia Jesinta Franklin has spoken candidly about one of the lesser-discussed hardships of raising young children — the slow erosion of close friendships — in a heartfelt personal reflection published to her Substack.
Franklin, 35, lives on Queensland's Gold Coast hinterland with her retired AFL star husband Lance "Buddy" Franklin and their three children: six-year-old Tellulah, five-year-old Rocky, and baby Bam, who is eight months old.
Jesinta Franklin on the friendship cost of motherhood
In her candid post, Franklin described a striking contrast between who she was before becoming a mother and the person she is today. Friends once jokingly called her "Mum" — a nod to her reliability and instinct to show up whenever someone needed her.
"Now I'm a mum of three and, some days, I struggle to respond to a text message," she wrote, adding that she has left friends on read for weeks — and, on occasion, months.
Franklin said the delay is never born of indifference. She described a familiar scenario: reading a message while making breakfast, fully intending to reply properly once she finds a quiet moment — only for that moment to never arrive. By the time she picks up her phone again, more messages have stacked up, and sometimes she doesn't reply at all.
"It's not because I don't want to respond," she explained. The admission was laced with genuine embarrassment, but also a clear-eyed understanding of her circumstances.
Starting again with a third child
Part of what makes Franklin's situation particularly isolating, she says, is that welcoming Bam nearly five years after Rocky means she feels as though she has "started again" — this time without the same network of friends in the same parenting stage alongside her.
Many of her closest friends, who were once deep in the chaos of early parenthood with her, have since moved on. Their children are older and their daily rhythms have shifted.
"There was something comforting about being in the thick of it together," she recalled. "But now many of those friends have moved into the next stage."
That sense of camaraderie — of shared exhaustion, shared milestones and shared understanding — is something she now navigates largely without.
'We don't talk enough about friendship'
Franklin acknowledged that public conversations around the personal cost of motherhood tend to focus on the obvious: changes to your body, career, relationship and identity. What gets far less attention, she argues, is what happens to your friendships.
"That has been one of the quieter things I've had to navigate in motherhood," she wrote. "There is so much conversation about the parts of yourself that change when you become a mother… But I don't think we talk enough about friendship."
Despite the guilt she carries over missed birthdays and unanswered messages, Franklin remains clear-eyed about her priorities. Her three children come first, and she is making peace with that — even as she grieves a version of herself that was always available.
Looking ahead — and a major home transformation
Franklin holds onto the hope that her current circumstances are simply a season, and that as her children grow older, she will recover the capacity to show up for the people she loves. She even joked that she might one day return to being "the friend doing the 1am club pick-up."
Beyond the emotional landscape of parenting, Franklin is also managing considerable professional and domestic responsibilities. She holds brand commitments and owns Honey for Life, a WA-founded wellness business. Meanwhile, the family's Gold Coast hinterland property — to which they relocated late last year ahead of Bam's birth — is currently undergoing major renovations.
The works, which began in August, are set to transform the existing structure into an expansive five-bedroom family home over the next 12 months, blending farmhouse character with a contemporary aesthetic.
For Franklin, it seems the building — like the friendships she hopes to restore — is very much a work in progress.
