Model, entrepreneur and former Miss Universe Australia Jesinta Franklin has spoken candidly about one of the less-discussed realities of raising a young family — the quiet erosion of close friendships — in an honest reflection that has struck a chord with parents navigating the same struggle.
Franklin, 35, who lives on a country estate in the Gold Coast hinterland with retired AFL star husband Lance "Buddy" Franklin and their three children, published the heartfelt piece to her Substack, admitting that motherhood has transformed her from someone who was always the first to respond into someone who sometimes leaves messages unread for months at a time.
From 'everyone's mum' to struggling to reply to a text
Before she had children, Franklin said her friends affectionately called her "Mum" — a nod to how reliably she showed up for the people around her. That version of herself, she admits, is now hard to access.
"Now I'm a mum of three and, some days, I struggle to respond to a text message," she wrote. "I have left friends on read for weeks. Embarrassingly, sometimes months."
She was quick to clarify it is never a matter of not caring. Rather, she described a familiar pattern: reading a message while making breakfast, intending to reply properly when a quiet moment arrives — and that moment simply never coming. By the time she does pick up her phone again, unread messages have stacked up to the point where the task feels overwhelming, and sometimes she doesn't reply at all.
Franklin is currently juggling life with three young children — Bam, eight months; Tellulah, 6; and Rocky, 5 — alongside ongoing brand work and her role as owner of WA-founded wellness business Honey for Life. The gap of almost five years between her second and third child has compounded the sense of isolation, she says, because many of the friends who were once in the same exhausting early-parenting phase have since moved on.
The friendship gap nobody prepares you for
"There was something comforting about being in the thick of it together," Franklin recalled. "But now many of those friends have moved into the next stage. Their children are getting older, just like my eldest two are."
In her reflection, Franklin noted that public conversation around how motherhood changes a woman tends to centre on the body, career, relationship and sense of identity. Friendship, she argues, is the dimension that gets left out — and its quiet disappearance can be just as disorienting.
"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 her diminished capacity to show up for friends the way she once did, she is clear that this is not a choice she has made lightly. Her children's needs come first, even when that means missing birthdays or going dark on group chats for longer than she would like.
Hope for the season ahead
Franklin describes her current circumstances as a "season" — one she hopes will eventually pass, restoring her bandwidth to reconnect and nurture the relationships she still holds dear.
"Maybe I'll even become the friend doing the 1am club pick-up again," she mused, nodding to the kind of wholehearted availability she once offered without a second thought.
The Franklin family relocated to their Gold Coast hinterland property late last year ahead of Bam's arrival, and major renovations on the home began in August. The project is expected to transform the existing structure into an expansive five-bedroom family residence combining farmhouse character with a contemporary aesthetic — a fitting backdrop, perhaps, for a family clearly in the middle of its own significant transformation.
For those interested in the intersection of business and family life in Australia, Franklin's story is a timely reminder that the pressures of entrepreneurship and parenthood rarely exist in neat, separate compartments.
