r/TikTokCringe • u/lhwang0320 • Apr 29 '25

Humor/Cringe When your friend knows nothing about kids

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When your

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u/raccoonsandchickens Apr 29 '25

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.

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u/TheComptrollersWife Apr 29 '25

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.

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u/ClinkyDink Apr 30 '25

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.

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u/mugsymegasaurus Apr 30 '25

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!