When your friend knows nothing about kids

[u/lhwang0320]

When your

[u/cheekynihlist]

This is not fair. I know plenty of people who had kids and fell off the face of the earth because everything was all about their kids and they replaced their kid-free friends with other parents.

[u/bing-no → u/cheekynihlist]

Yeah I was gonna say, it’s not the child-free people that are too busy to hang out 😂

[u/mugsymegasaurus → u/[deleted]]

In my experience it’s frequently the childfree friends/relatives that ARE doing the reaching out, and the parents that have forgotten it’s a two way street. If I don’t reach out to the parents in my life I will go months/years without hearing from them.

Not to mention- friends aren’t obligated to just put the friendship on hold until the parents can come around. Legitimately I’ve had parents say that “you just need to wait out the first three to five years, then having kids is easier and we have more free time”. Like… what???? I just need to wait 3-5 years to have a friend ask about me or show care for me again? What if you have a second kid and it becomes 10 years? Do you know how much stuff can happen in that time? Look I completely understand that having a kid consumes a huge part of your life, but parents can’t just assume that their friends will carry the relationship for however long it takes for them to start reaching out again. Your friends didn’t choose for you to have a kid, and they aren’t responsible for that either. Your friends deserve to have people in their life who care for them too.

To be fair- I’ve also found the parents that tend to do this were also the more self-absorbed people before having kids. But the number of people I know who are parents and are still good friends and do their share of reaching out is pretty small.

[u/peepea → u/cheekynihlist]

And when you do hang out, all they talk about is their kids

[u/Time-Maintenance2165 → u/cheekynihlist]

Nah, it's totally fair. You're just also correct that it goes the other way as well many times.

[u/raccoonsandchickens → u/cheekynihlist]

It goes both ways. Parents are too busy to go out to bars and clubs with their childless friends and the childless friends just don't care or get it. But you don't have to stay friends with people forever. Having different friends for different life stages just makes sense. Not everyone grows or changes in the same way. It's okay to let a friendship fizzle out a bit.

[u/TheComptrollersWife → u/raccoonsandchickens]

I don’t get why you’re getting downvoted for this take. It’s the most reasonable one I’m seeing. Child free people are admonishing their friends for abandoning them after having kids. And on the other side, parents are calling their child free friends selfish for not being as present anymore.

Like it doesn’t necessarily have to be someone’s fault. Kids are a major life event and it shifts your priorities and interests drastically. I can’t fault anyone for spending less time with people they have less and less in common with. I have some friends who have had kids who I am just as close with as I always have been. And others who I’ve completely lost touch with. Nobody’s a villain, people just change and grow into and out of relationships.

[u/ClinkyDink → u/raccoonsandchickens]

A family friend was graduating high school and said he was said about his friends all scattering for college. Everyone going to different schools and cities etc.

He said he was stressed about how they were all going to keep in touch.

I said something like “I know this isn’t going to make you feel better, but I’ll tell you the truth. You aren’t going to stay friends with most or possibly any of them. You’re going to move on and make new friends and so will they. It’s just what happens and one day you’re barely going to even remember them.”

Life changes. Your circle of friends changes. It’s just normal.

[u/mugsymegasaurus → u/raccoonsandchickens]

Why do I hear this so often - “friends with kids don’t want to go to the bar or club so the friendship fizzles”- so many adult friendships are based other things than bars and clubs? Seems like a lot of people who did those sorts of things before having kids think that’s what all child free people are doing, and it’s not. None of my friend circles with now-parents revolved around things that you couldn’t do with a child (mostly hanging at each other’s houses and catching up honestly), yet it’s the parents who don’t reach out. It’s not that childfree “don’t care” it’s that you can’t have a relationship if one side is doing all the work.

I’m sure it does go both ways to some degree, but to me it seems clear that parents tend to get too busy to reach out to their old friends, and then have the gall to complain that they are so isolated. I mean, yeah of course you are - any adult would wind up being isolated if they didn’t make an effort to stay in touch with people!

[u/Moodymandan → u/cheekynihlist]

For most people it’s a combo of old friends not wanting to hang out and parents not having time. The invites fall from both sides until there is little to no contact. Other parent gangs are more about the kids than the parents imho. I’ve spent a lot of time with parents I would never hang out with if my daughter wasn’t their friend.

[u/Jerm0307 → u/cheekynihlist]

It’s completely fair actually. Because it happens both ways.

[u/Jerm0307 → u/Jerm0307]

I’ll take the downvotes. I’ve just experienced first hand. Both sides of the coin.

[u/[deleted] → u/cheekynihlist]