Strollerderby : friends with kids

Will Kids Ruin Your Friendships?

Kelly Mills — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 17:01:00 GMT

You know how kids are--they mess up everything. Now it seems they'll totally put a strain on your friendships with childless folks, at least if you are a woman. Friends without kids will lament that you can't go out drinking any more, and you'll quickly bore them by dragging them to the park on a Saturday morning and talking about poop and your "flabby stomach". Yeesh. As a mom, I'm not sure I wanna go to the park and yap about baby poop and flabby stomachs either.

The article advises that everyone recognize the friendship will change; that those with kids hold off on boring baby stories while kid-free folks refrain from parenting advice (okay, that's good counsel); and that you all take time for grown-up, kid-free socializing. I have a few very close, long time friends, and some had babies before me while others may never spawn. I guess I don't remember any giant strain on our relationships, in part because a) we were all too boring to go out drinking even when no one had children and b) we have both non-kid interests in common and we've all taken a big role in each other's children's lives. It's like a circle of friendly aunts. But this piece did make me appreciate the friends I have, and reminded me that I owe one of my newly pregnant friends a good amount of babysitting. No problem. And hey, maybe kids can give you a good excuse to lose some of the more annoyingly one-sided relationships you made the mistake of holding on to.

Breaking News: Gen X Uses the Web to Make Friends. So Should You!

Alisyn — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:10:00 GMT

Finding a tribe is one of the most important things a new parent can do. Hooking up with a couple of like-minded folks who share your interests, or who are in the same boat you are (first time parents, special needs parents, other non-traditional families) can be an enormous relief. Having friends who understand why you can’t go to dinner at 9 on a Friday night, or how frustrated you are with your toddler, or how stressful navigating the public school system can be, really helps take the pressure off of this glorious burden called parenthood. Just having one person who really, truly understands can be a huge blessing – but finding that person, or people, can be a huge challenge.

Primary caregivers, particularly in the first several months, are somewhat isolated by sleeping/eating/ schedules, and by naps in the toddler months. Working parents simply don’t have the luxury of going to the park and striking up a conversation with the locals. And we all know that making new friends isn’t as easy as it sounds – it can takes months to solidify friendships, and really feel like part of a group – and to a new parent, with few social connections, months can drag… and drag… and drag…..

Just one of the many reasons we’re lucky to be living in the age of the interwebs, folks. With sites like meetup.com (where an Iowa group called Hip Mamas is popular among locals), Café Mom, Maya’s Mom, and parenting message boards on sites like (the original) HipMama and Craig’s List, finding local parents is as easy as turning your computer on. Gen Xers are really hip to this idea (do we do anything offline?), because it's stress-free and anonymous. You can find an existing group to hang with, or start one of your own - no pressure. It may take a while before you finally find those special friends - the ones that become your local family, who share birthdays, backyard BBQ’s and school days with you – but you will find them, if you give it time. It worked for me – it can work for you, too!

Babble Talk: I Love You, But I Hate Your Kid

Karen Murphy — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 19:03:00 GMT

Once upon a time, I had a friend named Heidi. Despite her New Joisey accent and the oft-excessive outgoingness that accompanied it, there was much to love about Heidi and we spent hours dishing on ways to parent our children better. The trouble was, Heidi came with Chandler, who was a few days younger than and light-years away in temperament from my daughter Serena. I hated Chandler. He was rough; he whined; he had gross two-year-old habits. He didn't listen to anyone, least of all his mom, and he ran away from anyone in authority. I tried not to be the one watching Chandler very often, because my children mostly minded me and I didn't want to be faced with disciplining someone else's child. That kid was just crying out for a smack between the eyes with a two-by-four, or maybe, I don't know, limits? But I certainly wasn't going to be the one to administer the one and other other wasn't my job.

I thought I was alone in this until I read Madeline Holler's essay Friend Alert: I Love You, But I Hate Your Kid. Suddenly: Not Alone! Madeline talks about her love-hate relationship with friend Lisa who came with terror-child Evie, and how her discomfort with Evie ultimately led to a major shift in the relationship (that and an across-the-country move). How can you be friends with someone if you're really uncomfortable with their child? Do parents come as a package with their children? In many ways, they do.

Just as Madeline never really resolves this problem, allowing time and circumstance to ease into a resolution, I've never really addressed mine either. But a few years later, Chandler's in Serena's first grade class and Heidi is just another one of the school parents, passing in the hallway. There really isn't an issue anymore, thankfully. What about you? What have you done, or not done, to resolve discomfort with the children of your friends? Is everybody the wimp that I am?

Friendless with Kids: Trying to Find Your People Can Be Tough

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 21:03:00 GMT

When you get married, finding other couples with whom you have great friendship chemistry isn't easy to do. Finding a couple with kids with whom you share laughs, is even harder. I've hosted way too many dinner parties where all the parents sit and talk about their kids and diapers and toilet training and it makes your head hurt after awhile.

But the real issue is a shared approach to parenting and knowing when to cease all kid-speak. If someone talks incessantly about diapers and pee pee, I lose interest quickly. I live in a small town two hours North of Seattle and perhaps that's part of the problem. If you want to discuss the many health attributes of wheat-grass, this city is for you. If you want to meet silly laid back parents who drink (DRINK) in front of their kids, stay away.

Apparently, I'm not alone. Creative-Type Dad discusses the difficulty of finding like-minded parents with whom to socialize. Since he and his wife had their daughter, they still enjoy their kidless friends, but want to meet other parents so they can occasionally talk about kid-stuff without encountering incomprehension and glassy-eyed stares. So he was quite discouraged when his new friends stood he and his wife up at the Baby Loves Disco party in their town.

Chemistry and philosophies of childraising aside, there's also the small matter of being busy and tired and beleaguered, which makes developing friendships even harder. I've become quite used to relying on my virtual friendships to fill the gap, but you simply can't replace the joy of laughing out loud and long with another live human, especially if that person is a parent.

[Picture: Natalie Dee]