How difficult is it to be friends with parents?

[frangipanigrrl]

I'm finding it more and more difficult as time goes on.

My 2 closest friends since childhood (we're now 30) now have kids. One of them has a 3 year old and a 1 year old and the other has an 18-month old. We now rarely speak and even more rarely see each other, although we all live about 5-10 minutes apart in a small city. Their time is limited at best and talking on the phone is restricted to about 10 minute conversations every 2-3 weeks--with the kids screaming, tantruming and demanding the whole time in the background. We try to make plans to get together as couples and have a night out, but they seem to have like one night in 3 months they can get a grandma or someone to babysit--and of course on that night my husband and I aren't available (i.e. due to a trip planned long ago for example). Yet, I seem to get the attitude when I am unavailable that ONE night.....like I have to make sure I sit around and wait for the moment they can get babysitters! Recently my one friend asked me if "there was some problem between us" because she and her husband were available one Saturday evening and asked us to go out but we couldn't because we were participating in a charity event for our city which we had committed to months earlier (it's an annual event!). She indicated I was being "weird" and "not myself" all because we did not accommodate their schedule. The other many of weekends a year they aren't available because of their kids, but I have a "problem" if I am unavailable on one weekend in particular. It made me feel like I was doing something wrong....but I really don't know what else to do. I call her--she can't talk because her kids need her (every second of every day). When she takes a moment to call me back we only talk for a few minutes because her kids go apeshit when she gets on the phone.

More and more I am spending time with my childless or childfree friends, yet I really do miss these friends who are now parents. I question how long a friendship relationship can keep going under these circumstances because it's not exactly enjoyable.

[Rinky vs.4.0]

Depends on the parent. I've had one (now ex) friend go outright belligerently, blithering psychotic on me after having kids and I've had friends for whom having kids hasn't really changed them or the nature of our friendship, at all.

The two girls who were my best friends and with whom I shared an apartment with at college have both had kids in the past few years. None of us see each other very often due to the fact of us all living in seperate countries/opposite ends of same countries for the majority of the past decade or more. We all maintained contact to varying degrees via telephone and the occasional meeting when travel or other business put us in the way of each other.

Anyway, after having kids, friend #1, who was older (40) when she had her daughter, didn't change at all. Same old interests, same sense of humour, etc. The other one, friend #2, appears to have gone fucking insane and developed a rather nasty case of entitlementitis. She called me out of the blue a year or so ago, after us not having talked in years, and apropos of nothing demanded I 'take an interest in her children' following that with an interrogation about my choice not to have kids, finally ending with an ultinatum to email her and 'apologise' for not being interested in her kids or she'd consider the friendship finished. There didn't appear to be anything left of the person I used to know, just this raging, aggressive fuck-nut who thought the world should revolve around her because she had kids.

Of course I didn't email her because a)I hadn't done anything wrong, and she'd taken zero interest in my life over the past few years, so why I was expected to take an active interest in two kids I'd never even seen was beyond me, b)I never, ever respond to emotional blackmail or guilt trips in any way but silence and c)we'd clearly grown apart in our personalities and interests anyway. Then this year, she pulled a similiar stunt on friend #1 when friend #1's mother was taken sick and friend #1 couldn't make a planned meeting when #2 was in town. Apparently she took #2's inability to meet up with her and her kids as a personal insult and threatened her with terminating their friendship if she did it again. She even got her obnoxious husband to leave a message on her answerphone detailing this or something.

Obviously, when you live in the same city, parents will be less available than they were when they were unchilded. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the quality of the freindship will suffer, at least for a while unless the parent themselves makes a herculean effort , by making and/or insisting on time for friends as well as the child. What I do find unconscionable is when they place all the responsibility for maintaining the friendship onto you or start with the 'must be nice' stuff about you having more free time etc. Of course, if the parents drop all the interests as well as putting no time into the friendship, that you had in common with them, it's no surprise the friendship suffers and it's really their fault.

[jeth]

My closest friends don't have children yet, but new boyfriends/girlfriends do take a toll on our ability to hang out regularly. It usually passes with time.

I have several parents that I count as friends as well, though I met most of them through work and as a result I wasn't as close to them to start as I am with my other friends, so not seeing them/hearing from them as much doesn't bother me. The few I know outside of work live pretty far away so it's hit or miss if I'll run into them. It is frustrating because plans with one of my parent-friends means plans with the kids, but they are well-behaved so it's not that big a deal. Another friend, I think I've met her daughter once because she always finds a babysitter before she commits to plans to go out for the evening.

I will say I'm closer to my other, childless/childfree friends though. We've had more history and we've had more time to hang out together without interruption/prior obligations, and we have a lot more in common as far as where are lives are at right now.

[Rinky vs.4.0]

^Yeah, I'd say the people I'm closest to are also unchilded, either deliberately so or because they're just not at that stage in their lives. Similiar lifestyles and interests etc etc

[jeth]

^ Not to mention the whole 'spur of the moment' plans thing is so much easier.

[laurenl842]

In my experience it's depended on the parent as well.

Three of my closest friends have children. One of them is completely obsessed with her kid. Phone conversation during the day is tedious at best because of the kid screaming in the background. She brings her everywhere, and if you casually mention that *gasp* maybe you'd like to have an outing that doesn't revolve around a cranky 4 year old, she goes ballistic. I made the decision not to have children in my wedding and she freaked. "You don't like my kid?! She's your goddaughter...that's so wrong of you. Don't you think she'll be really upset when she grows up and realizes that you didn't want her at your wedding?!" Oy.

Her husband is kind of a shithead though and I think she's focused all her energy into her daughter over the years to make up for what is lacking in her relationship. It's like she doesn't know anything else anymore.

We still talk regularly when her daughter goes to bed though. The kid really is well behaved for the most part, but take a break or something! Not everyone wants to hang out with a 4 year old all the time.

The other two are cool with their kids. They are more considerate people as a whole, so I think that has a lot to do with it. We make plans ahead of time, they work out the babysitter details in advance, we all know what's going on, etc. Talking on the phone isn't a big deal. Plus, we are all homebodies anyway and don't mind hanging out at each other's houses when one of them can't get a babysitter.

Their husbands also have a lot to do with it. They are supportive and share in the responsibility, so it definitey isn't left up to them all the time. They can have phone conversations because Dad will keep the kids busy. We go out every Thursday and the men stay at home with the kids. It's perfect, really. Nice little break for Mom in the middle of the week (the guys get one, too...they go on Wednesdays).

Fat_2.0 - that "friend" sounds like a real peach. Maybe it's a good thing that you didn't take interest in those kids!

[iciclespark]

It's difficult, but not impossible. Of course, most of my good friends at this time are either CF or young and not in any way looking to have kids yet. Some of them are very interested in kids, and that's fine.

I also have friends who have children, and I respect that, as long as they are still the same person with kids. They have their personalities and are not strictly "Goober's Mommy". One of the latest to have a child has multiple CF friends and obviously has a "to each her own" view of the issue.

I'd like to think that as they start to have kids, that certain friends will still find time to be "us". I have faith in them. But I won't hesitate to cut ties if they become like Helen's special "friend" there (yeesh).